Thomas Rhett couldn't be on hand to wish his father, Rhett Akins, a happy birthday in person this year, but he still managed to make the occasion special.

Akins turned 48 on Friday (Oct. 13), and Rhett turned to Instagram to wish him well, posting an adorable picture of Akins holding his infant granddaughter.

"Happy birthday dad! Wish I could be home to hang with you today. I love you very much!" Rhett writes to accompany the sweet picture.

Rhett was born in 1990, just four years before his father released his debut single. Akins enjoyed a string of hits as a country singer in the 1990s that included a No. 3 hit in 1995 with “That Ain’t My Truck,” as well as a No. 1 hit, “Don’t Get Me Started,” in 1996. He and Rhett's mother divorced when Rhett was young, and Rhett has attributed it partly to the stress of the long periods his father spent away from home on tour.

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Rhett completed the circle of life when he welcomed his own daughters in 2017. He and wife Lauren welcomed their adopted daughter Willa Gray in May, and she gave birth to a girl named Ada James in August. In "Life Changes," the title song from his new album, Rhett jokes about telling his father that he would be expecting a granddaughter from another country.

"I remember the day I told my Daddy and Mama you're gonna have a grandkid, yep / From Uganda, that's right, we're adopting / And she is the cutest little girl that you've ever seen," he sings.

Akins himself is settling into a new period of domestic bliss. The onetime country star has built a huge career as one of Nashville's top songwriters in more recent years, and Akins married girlfriend Sonya Mansfield on Sept. 17 in an outdoor ceremony in Tennessee at which Rhett served as a groomsman and Willa Gray was the flower girl.

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