John Rich had a kid in January.  Then Karen and Jimi from Little Bigtown had a son.  James Otto has announced that he and his wife are expecting their first, and Luke Bryan’s wife is expecting baby #2.  Now Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flatts has joined the club, annoucing his wife Tiffany is also expecting their second.  Joe Don and Tiffany are already parents to 21 month-old Jagger, and the next one is due in September.  Time for someone to start a country star daycare in Nashville.

Well okay, Rascal Flatts got one nomination: Top Vocal Group. But that’s it. no entertainer of the year, no video of the year, no song, no single, no nothing! Kind of crazy. So they took to the Twitter to let their fans know they’re ok with it:

“Thanks for all your kind words and support about the nominations… Awards are great but we make our music for YOU, the fans. Not our peers.”

That’s from Jay DeMarcus. Meanwhile, Kenny Chesney, who got three nominations, disagrees somewhat: “When your peers recognize that work and that passion – well, that’s a big part of why these awards and these nominations matter.” OK, lesson learned. If you don’t get the awards, it doesn’t matter. If you do get the awards, then it does!

Did you see the Flatts boys on that ad for CSI last night during the Super Bowl? Turns out Jay, Joe Don and Gary are going to be prominently featured in an upcoming CSI episode called “Unshockable.” From what we can learn from Jay, this is not just one of those things where they’ll be playing music in the background. In fact, the boys will be performing when some mysterious electrical accident almost kills Jay, so Jay’s gonna have to do some serious acting! He says at one point he has fake guts coming out of his gut. Tune in March 4th to see the whole deal.

We’ve known and loved the boys of Rascal Flatts since the beginning of their careers, but here’s a story I had never heard until today:  Lead singer Gary LeVox has always loved to sing, and growing up in Ohio he dreamed of making it big.  But practicality won out, and when it came time to choose his career he did the safe thing and got a job where his mom worked, at the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation (kind of an old school name but that’s what it was called). 

Gary’s job was to help ready people for their first jobs, and he LOVED it.  He says he would have stayed there forever if not for one encounter he had.  One of his clients was a guy who was very self-conscious and had trouble even doing basic things.  But he had put aside his fears and competed in the Special Olympics in front of a huge crowd, winning a medal in the process.  When Gary realized that this guy was brave enough to conquer his fears and take a chance, he suddenly knew he had to do the same thing.  So he called his cousin Joe Don Rooney in Nashville, headed down there, and the rest is history.

Here are the boys of Rascal Flatts sitting down, which they say they won't be doing for long.

Remember how surprised we all were when Lady Antebellum won the Vocal Group award at the CMAs this year?  That’s supposed to be Rascal Flatts’ award, isn’t it?  Well it was for 6 years in a row, anyway.  So when they didn’t win, the boys were gracious…at first.  Now they say, bring it on Lady A!  Jay DeMarcus says they want that award back, and that “losing lit a fire under our butts to say, ‘you know what, this has been our award for the last six years, and we need to take it back’…and we are going to work our tails off to try and do that very thing.  We’re not that old yet!”

It was a big night for Michael Jackson at the American Music Awards, but it was an even bigger night for Taylor Swift.  She won FIVE of the six awards she was nominated for, and accepted all of them via a live link from London, where she’s performing this week.  Taylor is the favorite Adult Contemporary artist, the favorite Pop/Rock artist, and the favorite Country artist, which makes it no surprise that she was also named Artist of the Year.  Rascal Flatts won for favorite Country Group, since it was impossible for Taylor to be nominated in that category, and likewise Keith Urban as favorite Country Male.  The big, cool surprise of the night was Gloriana, a band that didn’t even really get any love at the CMAs, got the breathrough artist award.  Country rules!