Past Due: Thanksgiving in Young Harris

Our visit to Grandmama's house in Young Harris was too sublime to miss in a blog post, so although it's late in coming, we thought you'd like to hear and see what a wonderful time we had!

We spent a lovely 5 days in North Georgia, relaxing on the back deck overlooking the mountains, eating ridiculously good food (some of Grandmama's amazing recipes are included at the bottom of this post), reading by the fire, and chatting with family. I say this every time we visit Grandmama's house, but it is truly one of the most relaxing places I have ever been. It rivals the spa, and we always leave feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. (Take that, body-cleanse-detox people! Grandmama's house, pecan pie, and all the fixin's are even better than wheat-grass shakes and yoga). Anyway, I digress... Too much talk about cleansing diets on the Today Show this morning...

Jo's sister, Mary, and her boyfriend, Steve, joined John, Jo, Grandmama, Garrett, Samara, and me for the first couple of days. Thanksgiving dinner was heavenly, with a beautiful turkey, and so many side dishes and desserts that we needed recovery time afterward!

Aunt Fran, Courtney, Barrett, and Ashlee joined the group the next day, and we enjoyed a rousing game of Guesstures before they had to head back home the following morning. Samara loved spending time with her family, and Garrett and I thoroughly enjoyed some much-needed relaxation!

To see pictures from our trip, check out the slideshow below.

To view slideshow in FULL SCREEN, click here.

NOTE: If you want to slow the slideshow down, just view it in full screen and drag the little slider toward the turtle, away from the rabbit, in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

To view recipes for Grandmama's Key Lime Pie, Wild Rice Chicken Casserole, and Frozen Cranberry Salad, click here.

Next up: Christmas! Hey, I know it's February already, but some people celebrate Christmas in July; so in that world, I'm early!

You Know You've Missed the Cuteness...

Here are just a few random cute pictures of Miss Samarica:

Mmmm... My first frozen waffle... Mommy had to take it away from me soon after this picture, though, because I tried to eat the whole thing at once and almost choked.

Oh man, there is nothing better than milk!

Me and Uncle Ricky love watching football together.

And Aunt Lauren plays with me when I get bored.

I think Daddy is ready for me to walk already!

I know this thing does something important, but I'm not sure what!

OMG, will the insanity never cease?

I cannot begin to explain the endless insanity that is the Atkinson household this winter season. Seriously, we have been so busy that I have had absolutely no time to respond to emails, keep in touch with friends, post updates on Facebook, or much less, write blog entries! (You know it's bad when people ask, "Are you okay??? I haven't seen you on Facebook in forever!) It's true; we do have lives outside of our internet updating hobbies! Nevertheless, I have been determined to get another blog post going before the end of January, so here goes! Be prepared; it's gonna be a biggun!

Let's start with the biggest news of late: Samara is going to be a big sister!!! We found out about Baby #2 at the Atlanta airport of all places, on the way back from a lovely Thanksgiving in Young Harris, Georgia, spent with Grandmama and much of Garrett's family. I fully enjoyed my wine over the holiday, and then realized, given the time of the month, that I should probably take a pregnancy test. Oddly enough, the Atlanta airport actually has a pharmacy, so we stopped in and bought a test. We went into the family restroom and I peed on the stick while Garrett changed Samara's diaper. Obviously, the test was positive - although Garrett did make me take a second one to make sure!

Given the timing of the results, we decided it would be fun to surprise our families with the news in person over the Christmas holidays. So we kept the secret until Christmas Eve (which was extremely difficult, by the way!!!), and even though we couldn't get all the family members together at one time, we made the big announcement to my family on Christmas Eve and to Garrett's families the next day. We got a video of the announcement to the Beane & Presley clans, thanks to our super-stealthy plan to fool them into thinking we were taking a family picture. Take a look at the video below:

Mom's reaction is especially hilarious, but Aunt Debra's is priceless, too. Poor Honey was just speechless, and Granddaddy even repeated Garrett's words, but I don't think he knew what he was saying! And if you listen to the end of the video, Kimberly starts to ask me, "Did you drink that mimosa this morning???" I had been faking everyone out by accepting drinks and then just feeding them to Garrett. It's a wonder he could even operate the camera!

The new baby is due July 31st, so I am 13 weeks along, and all is going very well! I had a couple weeks of "evening sickness," which has gone away, thankfully! We also just had the nuchal ultrasound test, which tests for the possibility of Downs Syndrome. This was the test that came back positive with Samara, so we were nervous, but all went well. We don't know the sex yet, but should find out in about 6-8 weeks. Stay tuned!

In case you don't remember the baby size in relation to fruit pictures I posted during my pregnancy with Samara, I've included them below in a little slideshow.

Oh! And we haven't decided on any names for sure yet, but we are pretty sure we like Mitchell Perry for a boy (I also love Rhys Brian, but Garrett is partial to the first option), and Siena something for a girl. If you have any name suggestions, feel free to send them our way!

There is much more to catch up on, but let's call it quits for this post. You readers need a break!