Georgia Southern Baby Party...

We gathered with some of our friends at the Hinz's house the day after Christmas to celebrate Lauren (my adorable college roomie) and Riley's engagement. So much fun!

Roomies!

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In order...these are too funny!

A Blessed Christmas

I can't believe how wonderful our Christmas was. Owen had a great time as did everyone else. We had our annual cookie decorating contest, a potluck dinner and lots of merriment!

Crawlspace Repairs

Water, rain and drainage have been persistent problems here on the farm since day one. We done projects such as install gutters, underground drainage and some trench work to help but it has never been completely resolved. After all the rain we have had this year (a record for Atlanta!), we decided this project was not anything we could put off any longer. We had Trotter come out to the house and they built a wall, installed some drainage pipes and a sump pump. They did great and completed the job in just two days!

Puppy Snuggles

This was once a common site around our house but since Owen has arrived it hasn't happened too often lately. Love some puppy snuggle time!

Merry Christmas From Auggie

Nose Tucks Are Serious Business

Our Winter Mice

Each winter we get one field mouse in the house. The first winter, this was hard for me to accept. I was screaming, on furniture, about to faint, yada yada.

Ok, so I still have a tendency to scream, but we are MUCH better prepared. So our winter mouse decided to visit early this year. I can usually know when there is a mouse within about a day of his/her arrival. My OCD tendencies cause me to zone in on the "signs" of a mouse. :)

I had seen some, what I suspected to be, mouse droppings under our kitchen sink cabinet earlier in the day. The cabinet had been almost completely emptied once I moved everything into the new laundry room, so it was clean and obvious to me that we had a visitor. Penny's attentiveness to the cabinet confirmed my suspicions. Of course the timing was perfect and Charles was out of town.

Kristin and Rob came up and we put the (humane) trap down to catch our little offender. About 5 minutes later we caught the little guy, with the help of some canned dog food. I changed clothes to walk him across the street and release him at the vacant house, where we have released all of his relatives in the past, and when I came back, there was a SECOND mouse in the trap! There have been no mouse sightings since!

Sweet Melissa

Unfortunately we lost our Sweet Melissa this past Saturday. Although we are relatively new to alpaca ownership, we have heard of meningeal worms, which cause paralysis in alpacas and goats if not caught early enough. There are many theories on how to prevent and treat this, but time is crucial. Unfortunately we were given an outdated treatment by our vet and couldn't save our girl in time.

We are now better prepared to tackle this if it occurs in another of our 'pacas, but it sure was sad to lose our sweet gal.

Laundry Room Makeover

Storage in this house is lacking somewhat. We have ample storage areas outside in the garage, warehouse, etc. but not much inside. Our laundry room (which I think may have, at one time, been a bedroom) had so much unused space. Now that we are going to actually be using our second bedroom for our little man's nursery instead of a large storage closet, we need to find other ways to store linens, cleaning supplies, dog food, etc. We started this project just over a month ago and it is nearly complete.

Disclaimer: Having contractors in our house from 38 weeks pregnant until having a 2 week old....NOT fun. Poor planning on my part, my bad! Lesson learned!

Before-essentially this is the "dog room"

Ready for demo day!

Porcelain "slate" tiles going in 

Counter choices

AFTER! Complete with utility sink and linen closet

A Beautiful Day~A Beautiful Wedding~A Beautiful Couple

Kristin and Rob's wedding day was October 19th. Our THIRD and final wedding this month. I was so nervous to leave Owen for such a long period seeing as he wasn't even three weeks old at that point, but Mr. Paulk stepped up to babysit! Charles and I were both so honored to be a part of Kristin and Rob's big day. The wedding took place at Wolf Mountain Vineyards, one of the most BEAUTIFUL places in Georgia. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. The day went off without a hitch! Here are just a few of the pictures I captured on my phone during the day. Those lucky kiddos are on their honeymoon in St. Lucia right now (jealous!).

~Breathtaking~