Baby items

I'm still here.  :)  I'll attempt to post a pregnancy update in the next day or two.  

Josh, Benjamin, and I are still here and patiently waiting.  

Benjamin has definitely grown, and we'll be 37 weeks on Friday.

My husband got our stroller assembled a few weeks ago.  Here it is with our baby seat in it.

This isn't the most up-to-date picture of the nursery, but it shows an "in progress" shot from a few weeks ago.  I'd say it is 95% complete.

Happy 200th Post!

Happy 200th post here at Bearcatfeet.  Here's to many more! ;)

What better way to celebrate, than to continue with those pregnancy photos.  Ignoring that I'm technically 35 weeks tomorrow, here's the rest of the pictures from the 34 week "photo shoot" the other day.  Essentially, I wanted to be able to have the benefit of some baby belly shots like I would get from a professional photographer...but without the cost.  

I think Josh did an excellent job as photographer. :)  It definitely helped that we had good lighting too.

A few more pictures I sent through my photo editor.  My Black-Eyed Susans exploded this year.

The rest I've left "as is"...for now.

  

And a little behind the scenes photo for you...

We had an audience for our pictures on the hill by the tree.  Josh's Papaw has recently turned that entire field into a cow pasture, and the heifers/bull decided to join us.  They are still a bit timid.  We've avoided becoming too attached to them since Papaw has plans for them in the future.  Hint: He's not raising them for their dairy.  

I'd like to say that I'll have nursery photos to post soon, but we'll have to see how tomorrow goes.  lol.  Ideally, I want to have the nursery done before VBS next week.  

Did I mention that I'm directing our church VBS at 35 weeks pregnant?  I'm a glutton for punishment. :)  

As a school teacher on summer vacation I figured, "Why not?"  

Anyway, minus needing to vacuum & steam mop the floor in there, 

my goal is to have the nursery ready & waiting by tomorrow evening.

34 weeks

I'll have more pictures to come later from my preggers "photo shoot" with my hubby at the cabin.  He's so loving and wonderful to humor me...It wasn't at the top of his to do list.  lol.

I thought this one did well accentuating my current figure (I played with the photo editor as you can tell).  

Pregnancy has gone by so fast.  If I didn't feel so pregnant now, I'd find it hard to believe that we've made it to 35 weeks this Friday.

So ready to meet you baby Benjamin! ;)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father-to-Be day to my wonderful husband, Joshua!  He's going to be a fantastic dad.

Happy Father's Day to my dad, Bill (pictured with my mom, Lynda).  I am blessed to have wonderful parents.  They are excited about entering a new stage of life with us as Grammy & Pop Pop.

Here's Josh's dad, Richmond.  (His mom, Mary Jane, not pictured)

Lastly, a souvenir from a "man trip" on Friday.  Josh, my father, his father, and some male co-workers of Josh's all went to the Braves game on Friday evening.  They splurged and got tickets for a box.  Josh brought home an outfit (12 months size) for baby Benjamin.  Too cute! 

More pictures to come in a future post.  My sweet husband gave in to my wishes to have a pregnancy "photo shoot" here at the cabin.  Nice and round at 34 weeks, I'll try to share those soon! ;)

Athena

Just because.

Be very very quiet...

Okay, so maybe we aren't actually hunting "wabbits", but there are plenty of them here if we were.  

They are a regular sight for us pretty much anytime we step out or doors.

I'll take cute & cuddly over creepy & slithering any day.

Hiking in the Wilderness

This weekend we had four of the youth from our church up for camping.  It started on Friday evening, and ended when we brought them to church Sunday morning for Sunday School.  

On Saturday we went on a nature excursion over in the Cherohala Skyway.  

We made a stop at Bald River Falls.  I hadn't ever visited the area, and it was quite beautiful.  My spirits were a little dampened by the wasp that randomly stung my chin about five minutes before arriving at the waterfall.  I think it managed to get on one of my wrist braces (which I was wearing because my carpal tunnel flares when I do things like sitting in a vehicle a long time), and when I went to brush some hair out of my face it stung me.  I've had a little red welt for a few days as a battle scar.  Random things like that happen to me sometimes.

Once we left there we continued on the true destination of our journey, Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.  The closest town to there is Robbinsville, NC.  The Wikipedia article about it is very interesting.  It is one of the largest tracts of old growth hardwood trees in the Eastern US.  After arriving at the forest, we took a lunch break to get up our energy, and then we started on a two-mile hike.

I know, you're probably thinking, what is a 33 week pregnant woman doing hiking 2 miles in the middle of June?  Well, Josh assured me that it would be an easy enough trail, and I made sure to stay hydrated.  I even made a trip to Becky's Shoes a few weeks back to buy some new tennis shoes since my pregnancy feet have "outgrown" my other ones.  Sigh.

Needless to say, I was huffing & puffing pretty quick into the trail because the hardest & most uphill part of the journey was at the very beginning.  My sweet husband quickly realized I was going to have to take it slower than the rest of the group (especially because of all the roots & rocks I didn't want to trip on either), and he let them group together, and he took a slower pace by my side.

It was a really neat hike.

Plaque about Joyce Kilmer

Some of the trail

Looking into the forest

In front of one of the large trees

I joked that standing sideways I was still wider than the trees; I'm starting to feel HUGE.  

Interesting patterns in tree growth

And more huge trees...the whole reason behind the hike.

I told Josh that with all of these enormous trees we were posing by, 

that he should stand by a skinny tree too just to be funny.

He thought that this pattern in the tree trunk looked like a shocked face.

 I do believe these are white rhododendrons.  They were blooming everywhere.

This is more of the trail the way back.  Fortunately the last part was more downhill.

We kept seeing these splintered trees everywhere.  Turns out that they had to blow up the Hemlocks a few years back due to an insect infestation that killed them off & presented a danger to hikers.  It looked like they had just done it recently, but Wikipedia places it back in 2010.  We heard a forest ranger telling someone else about it while we were there.  

Overall, it was a great hike.  We enjoyed seeing the beautiful forest, and I managed to survive.  I was telling Josh during part of the hike that I was doing so well picking up my feet & not tripping too much over things (I'm usually quite clumsy).  Ironically, it wasn't but a minute later that I tripped and fell.  lol.  Benjamin & I are just fine.  I caught myself on my hands & knees, and the ground was soft dirt so I didn't even bruise or jolt myself badly.  It was very funny timing.