THE LITTLE LION MAN

The Little Lion Man's room is pretty much finished. 

Of course, "Little Lion Man" is not his name, but I've had Mumford & Son's song Little Lion Man stuck in my head for days now. And since we don't an official name for the little fellow yet, I've been thinking of him that way - as my little lion man.   

(I'm not even going to attempt to be a musical critic/lyrical interpreter...  the song is catchy, but the lyrics are quite Freudian-  and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on their meaning. I just like the song, okay? Disclaimer: Yes, Gabba, there are a few very naughty words in the song. Don't let it deter you. That's a British folk rock band for ya!)

Our little dude's room.
We decided to keep the nautical theme going. The walls were already blue - and this was the only room we didn't paint upon moving into the house. The beds are actually bunk beds that belonged to Grandaddy Neal and his brother, Uncle Wesley, when they were growing up. The beds got a few coats of paint in Momma's favorite go-to color: Benjamin Moore's Linen White. The stripe on the wall is also in Linen White.

We've often called the framed lithograph in the center of the room our one piece of "real art" in the house. (But now that we have artwork from Cousin Nick, we can say we own two pieces of real art!)

A close-up of the work.

The lithograph was given to us as a wedding present from Mary Ann Rasmussen, wife of the late artist Keith Rasmussen. The lighthouse is the Palmer Island Lighthouse in New Bedford Harbor near New Bedford, Massachusetts.   We've never been there, but it's definitely on our list of places to go see someday. 

According to lighthouse officials, the lighthouse is not open to the public except by special arrangement (hmm... think we can arrange it sometime?). It can be reached on foot at low tide via the hurricane wall in New Bedford Harbor, and can be seen from the ferry from New Bedford to Cuttyhunk Island.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Forget the lithograph, what about the two pieces of amazing artwork that are flanking it?!"

The dolphin and octopus pieces are one-of-a-kind, folks. You can't get them just anywhere. They were created by Miss Evie and her momma. (Well, mostly by Momma.)  

I painted two canvases with a blue flat paint and then used painter's tape to set the area of the stripes. Miss Evie then helped paint the green stripes all by herself - and she might have painted the dining room table and a few other items while she was it. (All part of the creative process, right?!)  She also helped apply the fish cutouts and was especially interested in making sure their eyes were in the right locations.

Evie gives her stamp of approval on the room.
After looking at these pictures, I realized I completely forgot to take pictures of the crib. No, we don't expect our infant to hop straight into a big-boy bed.  The crib is against the opposite wall, I promise.
The changing table is an old Tennessee dry sink that we found while antiquing a few years ago.

I haven't been happy with any infant mobiles I saw for sale in stores. They were either too plastic-y, too expensive, or just looked unappealing.


So, in addition to one-of-a-kind artwork, the little man got a one-of-a-kind mobile as well.  It was incredibly easy to make (minus one or two bad words I muttered when burning myself with the hot glue gun). 

Since I knew I wanted to use the four boats I had found a few years ago, it was a pretty easy process: Take ribbons in a variety of colors and draped them over a 14-inch embroidery hoop and attached the boats by the same ribbons.

Something tells me that Row, Row, Row Your Boat
might be a future bedtime lullaby in our house.

Now, I understand y'all may think I've gone overboard with the preparation and "nesting" for this baby.  The belly is getting bigger and bigger and that means these kind of things are getting harder to do. 

My plan is to do this stuff now, so I can be an absolute bum during the last month (or two!) of pregnancy (you hear that loud-and-clear, Dadda?!).   

Although I doubt Evie will ever let anyone be a bum in this house... We pulled out a lot of our infant stuff from the attic this week, and she immediately laid claim to it.

Hey, I remember this thing!

Wait a minute,
it doesn't quite fit like it used to!

HELP! Momma, I'm stuck!!
Baby brother can have it, I don't like it anymore.

So, the new nursery is pretty much complete. But now it's on to organizing the office, which currently looks like an atomic bomb, a cyclone, and lunatic Tasmanian devil decided to lay waste to it all at the same time. 

If you don't hear from me within the next week, please feel free to come search for me. I'll probably be buried somewhere under the Halloween decorations, sewing fabrics, old textbooks, and the massive amount of trophies/awards that my stud of a husband earned back in his spearchucker days.

Or I may just be trying on my old prom dresses and laughing at how ridiculous my pregnant shape looks in them. (No pictures, please.)