Fruit Shrubs and Bare Naked Belly

Dru ordered mini fruit trees 2 summers ago - they're the size of small shrubs and grow lemons, limes, oranges, or grapefruits. He has babied these things for 2 years now - and one of the six finally has 3 small fruit! (we don't know which yet). Here's a pic of me out on our 2nd story balcony with the shrubs.

There's nothing that captures the pregnant woman's belly quite like raw images of it. Dru got creative with the camera and really enjoyed taking pictures of my full-term belly (yes, I AM wearing a bathing suit in these photos).

Fin's Nursery and Impending Arrival

At my doctor's appointment last week, everything looked good and "right on track." She decided to check my cervix for dilation since she was swabbing me for Group B Strep anyway. As it turns out, my cervix is already soft, 2cm dilated and 70% effaced (thinned out). While this means that labor could still be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks away, it is nice to know my body is doing everything it should be and that there is an end to this. :) I've had some VERY strong contractions over the past few days - one so strong that I couldn't walk anymore, which turned out to be rather inconvenient as Dru and I were in a Walmart aisle with about 12 gazillion (hyperbole??) other people - I just whispered to Dru "can't walk, pretend to look at the bread selection" while I breathed my way through the darn thing.

So, we think that Fin's arrival might (MIGHT) just happen before the end of the month. Since we both had a long weekend due to the holiday, we spent a majority of the day getting ready for baby. We took a trip to BRU (Babies R Us for you who haven't spent gobs of hours there) and bought the "must haves" on our registry - crib mattress, changing pad, diaper pail... Then we cleaned and vacuumed out the car, and figured out how to install the car seat. So, we are ready for his arrival! Here are some pictures of his nursery for your enjoyment! :)

4th of July

Happy 4th of July! This 4th of July marked the second year since Dru and I met at a 4th of July party...hard to believe in 2 short years we've met, dated, got engaged, married, and are expecting our first child. God has blessed us and grown us both immensely in these two years and we are thankful for His abundant goodness. We celebrated the 4th with our friends, the Pullen family, who hosted a "BBQ" at their house - it's rained 25 of the last 30 days here, and yesterday, unfortunately, was no exception. But we enjoyed a great time of food, fellowship, and Balderdash (our favorite game!) inside.

Celebrating Two Years Together




Hanging out with friends...



We love playing Balderdash with the Pullens. Our friends Mary Ellen and Andrew were there, too, and we had quite the entertaining game going. Dru (who's "not competetive") was thrilled to be ahead of me during part of the game - he's the green peg and I'm the blue. But watch what happens after a few rounds...

Dru's ahead


Now we're tied...


Hmmm...now look who's ahead...and take a wild guess who won


Hope you all had a happy and blessed 4th, as well!

Strawberry BONANZA

This weekend, our big activity was strawberry picking. One of my favorite things about living in Maine (much like living in Oregon) is berry picking - there's just nothing like fresh, sweet berries. We went with our friends, Rick and Hannah. Hannah is 11 and had a blast - she and I were picking together and she was dead set on "beating the boys" by getting the biggest and "reddest" strawberries. She even told her father, after he put some strawberries in her only half-filled box, "Daddy, don't contaminate my berries with the GREEN ones!"

Rick, Hannah, and Dru picking

I can still pick berries - 9 months pregnant and all - it's just a tad more challenging

Big Bad Berry Buster

Making the most of time together....

In the end, we'd picked over 27 POUNDS of strawberries - we weren't paying attention to how heavy our boxes were getting. At $2.25/lb you can imagine how the cost added up fast.

Then it was a matter of what do we DO with 27 lbs of strawberries??? Here sat one of the two boxes in our kitchen as Dru and I contemplated that.


So, I got busy and went to work. I made three new strawberry recipes that called for fresh strawberries. I've put the recipes and pictures here - all are delicious and definately worth a try if you have access to fresh berries.

Strawberry Shortcake

-2 cups flour

-1/4 cup sugar

-4 teaspoons baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-few grains of nutmeg (make sure it's only a few!)

-6 tablespoons cold butter

-1 egg, well-beaten

-1/3 cup milk

-4 cups fresh strawberries

-3/4 cup brown sugar

-whipped cream

Prepare strawberries an hour to two before serving. Rinse, hull and slice strawberries; place in a bowl. Add brown sugar and let stand for at least 1 hour at room temperature.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Work in butter with pastry blender or fingertips; add egg and milk. Mix just until dough is moist. Turn dough into a buttered and floured 9-inch round cake pan and pat into shape. Bake for about 15-20 min's in a 400 oven, or until golden brown. Remove from pan and split horizontally with a serrated knife. Butter the cut side of both layers. Put layers together with strawberries and their juice between the layer and on top. Garnish with whole berries and serve with whipped cream.

This is how mine turned out..

Strawberry Cream Pie (EASY!)

-1 pint strawberries

-1 pkg. Jello vanilla instant pudding and pie

-1 cup sour cream

-1/4 cup milk

-2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

-3 1/2 cups Cool Whip topping

-1 prepared 9-inch graham cracker crust

Hull berries and set aside. Combine pie filling mix, sour cream, milk, rind, and 2 cups of the Cool Whip in a bowl. Beat with wire whisk until well blended (approx. 1 minute). Spoon 1/2 the filling into the crust, arrange the berries stem side down in the filling and press down. Top with remaining filling. Freeze 1 hour or chill in refrigerator for 3 hours before serving. Garnish with remaining topping and additional strawberries if desired.
Dru really liked this and it was super easy...

Strawberry Soup

-2 cups fresh strawberries

-1 cup sour cream

-1 cup half & half

-1/4 cup sugar

-1 tsp brandy extract

-1/2 tsp vanilla

-mint for garnish

Combine all ingredients in blender; blend until smooth. Pour into chilled soup bowls. Garnish bowls with strawberries and mint leaves. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

This is still chilling in our fridge - we're almost strawberried out! We'll try it early this week.

Dru also made homemade strawberry ice cream in his ice cream maker - very delicious. The rest of the strawberries (about 17 pounds worth) we froze to enjoy a little at a time for up to a year. And THAT'S what you do with 27 lbs. of strawberries. :) ENJOY!

35 weeks....ALREADY.....and Pericarditis

Well, I got a little behind on the picture-taking every 4 weeks. Here is my 35-week belly shot - our little man is due to arrive in just 4 weeks and 5 days (but who's counting?!?) The pregnancy continues to go well, although I was very ill last week with a viral upper respiratory infection, which actually caused the outer lining of my heart to swell, a condition called PERIDCARDITIS (sounds ominous, doesn't it?!). I thought I was having a heart attack! - I kept getting episodes of acute chest pain that traveled up into my neck and down my left arm. Dru stayed home from work last Monday after a horrible night and took me to the doctor first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, there is nothing to do about it except rest and time - if I wasn't pregnant, I would have started large doses of anti-inflammatories, but those medicines are dangerous in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy as they can cause bleeding. Ah, what our bodies can do. I am feeling so much better now....still a little tired but overall much better.

Baby Shower

The sweet ladies from church threw us a surprise baby shower today! Dru was supposed to "distract" me after church until 1:15 but he's a pretty bad liar - he couldn't think of a single thing to do, so he dragged me to a bookstore despite my protests of "I'm starving!" and "What are we doing?!?" When we finally got back in the car to go home, instead of turning right towards home, he turned left, back towards the church. I started to protest, but he said, "I'll pay you $5 if you don't ask me any questions for the next 10 minutes and just trust me." I knew then that something was difnately up, proabably a baby shower. It was pretty funny. We arrived at the church and he made me shut my eyes on the way in - and *surprise!* it was a baby shower. We had a lovely time.

The Happy Expectant Couple


The cake made by one of the church women - very cute


Opening gifts


Great gifts


My dear friend, Linda, who threw the shower and who got us a diaper cake

All Alone with Sunburned Feet

How is it that I lived by myself for eight years with no roommate, no dog, not even a darned fish without any issue at all, but now that my husband is gone for four days, every little noise makes me feel like I've stepped into the next Alfred Hitchcock film??? Dru has gone to be a part of the sea trials on the newest Bath Iron Works floating wonder - a gigantic U.S. Navy ship (a destroyer, I think) where they will test out the ship to make sure it's all in working order before it gets it's final acceptance from the Navy. He is unreachable by phone or email, which is a little scary now that I've hit the 33-week pregnancy mark. But *sigh* as he repeatedly told me, "everything's going to be just fine." It's amazing how much I've come to depend on him and our little routines in just one year of marriage. To make matters worse, we were at the shore on a glorious New England day on Saturday, and I was completely enjoying the sunshine and ocean having (I thought) sunscreened every square inch of myself (including my scalp and the tops of my ears) but as the day worse on, I realized I TOTALLY neglected my feet. This small lapse in judgement resulted in the worst sunburn I think I've ever had. My right foot is swollen nearly twice it's size and on Sunday it felt like it was splintering with every step. Imagine a chubby pregnant lady trying to hop on one foot to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night - not a pretty picture. My dear husband has been making dinner and cleaning so I don't have to hobble around, but now he's gone and I'm resigned to hobbling. But, it IS getting better, and I didn't have to take any sick days off from work due to sunburn, so things could always be worse...