Introducing Miss Georgia Lou Cook

This is probably one of the biggest, photo-heavy blog posts I have ever posted. Georgia Lou Cook happily and safely made her arrival at 7:55 a.m. on Monday, May 2, 2016 weighing in a 8 pounds, 6.6 ounces and 20” long.

On the morning before we left to have Wyatt, Justin took our last photo together as a family of two and we continued the tradition with Georgia. We snapped our last photo as a family of three in the wee hours of the morning before we made our way to the hospital.

After my planned c-section went amazingly, our families got to meet our precious baby girl and all was right. Our family was complete.

 

 

Amanda updated our family tree at Mrs. Desiree and Mr. Sheldon’s house just in the nick of time!

Suzi being Suzi made Wyatt an awesome big brother bag with books, candy, and activities. I love that the books were some they used for Liam when Pax was born.

I had cookies made int he outline of the state of Georgia with G’s monogram for our families to munch on…and then forgot to send them out to the waiting room. Instead, everyone that visited afterwards got some including the nurses.

 

Liam finally got to meet Georgia on the Friday after she was born and he was so proud!

I love being able to share everyone’s photos and their social media announcements. It’s like having a scrapbook of everyone’s thoughts from that day.

           

Georgia Grown Trail 41/341

In April, our Georgia Grown Trail 41 Association had its unveiling of the official trail signs. This project has been in the works for many years now and with the help of a wide array of folks, it came to fruition. I am really proud of working with this group. Agritourism is very special to me and to see it positively affect companies and families I personally know right in my own county is so neat!

“The Georgia Grown Trail: 41 Association is a group of agri-tourism related sites promoting tourism on the Highway 41 Trail from the intersection of U S Hwy 341 and U S Hwy 41 just south of Barnesville traveling to the intersection of both of these highways in Perry, GA and all of U S Hwy 41 from the Barnesville intersection to the Georgia Florida line just below Valdosta, GA. Farm to table restaurants, wineries, you pick farms, and other agri-tourism attractions will be featured on this trail.”

The road signs are huge (some of the largest in the State) and very cool to see traveling down the road. Since I live right off of Highway 41, I get to see at least one or two every single day!

  

Although we had the ribbon cutting for the trail and the sign unveiling, the signs didn’t actually get placed until I was on maternity leave. I was so proud to see my first trail sign “in the wild!”

April Recap

Justin and I both took off the entire week of Wyatt’s spring break. We wanted to be able to get our yard back in shape after the mess left behind from having 37 trees cut down was just too much for us to handle any more. It turns out being 8 months pregnant doesn’t lend itself very well to bending over and picking up tons of limbs and sticks. Thankfully, Jake and Ben were interested in making some extra money so they came over and helped load two trailers full of stuff to be sent to the burn pil. And burn we did. Justin lit a few of the stumps on fire and even tried to get the huge burn piles to go up in flames. Apparently the wood is still too green because it didn’t burn like he wanted it to even with the help of the blower to stoke the flames.

  

The cleanup made a huge difference. We got everything edged, grass cut, walkways blown off, and the yard was brand new. We still plan to rent a stump grinder but that will have to be later in the year when everything dries out.

 

Wyatt loved being at home with us in the yard. He managed to overcome his fear of my favorite rooster, made a coat rack for Georgia all by himself, and even helped Justin change out his brakes on his truck.

   

We took Friday and Saturday off to do fun stuff. We spent all day Friday enjoying Chehaw Park. We packed a picnic lunch and had a great time. It was their Native American Heritage Festival weekend so there were lots of activities outside of the actual zoo part.

On Saturday, we spent over 6 hours at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture at their Folk Life Festival. It was packed and I was so glad to see it so busy. We spent at least an hour watching the men operate the sawmill. I believe Justin might start to volunteer out there to learn how to run it. We got to see some turpentine distilling and even got small sample bottles.

           

Now on to two of Wyatt’s adventures. This boy is just too much!

Wyatt was in the sandbox playing and he said he was with his friend. I told him to come around to the porch and show it to me, thinking he got a chick out of the incubator. He told me he rescued his "best buddy rat" from the cat that was trying to eat him. I stayed calm enough to snap a pic and then called the cat over for his prize. Justin and I just had a ten minute phone conversation with Wyatt about the circle of life and how the cat doesn't eat bagged food but that he hunts rats, frogs, and lizards and that we can't play with rats. He is very distraught because he named this rat and it was his best buddy. I'm not prepared for this part of boy mama-hood.

  

He also packed his own lunch one day:

When your 4 year old packs his own lunch...in a Thirty-One casserole carrier. Luckily I checked before we left the house.

Our last big event in April happened without me knowing anything about it: ON PURPOSE.

I had the biggest surprise for my 30th birthday (actual birthday in two weeks).  A co-worker accidently exposed a plan for Justin to host a surprise party for me on April 16. After the "surprise" party was ruined, Justin cancelled it and went to work that morning...or so I thought. Turns out they stuck with the original plan and got me so good! I am so blessed to have been surrounded by family and friends that mean so much to me. It was a wonderful way to see how very loved I am! I should have gotten a big giant group pic of everyone but I didn't think about it.