a few pictures

okay, to cut out the anticipation, here i am at 31 weeks. i'll be 32 weeks tomorrow. that means 8 weeks to go (until my due date... which means i could have more like 10 weeks to go... in any event... time is shrinking!)

next, a few photos of our uneventful life in madison...

an afternoon prairie walk a couple of weekends ago, when the weather was nicer. today it went from 43 degrees at 7 a.m. to 6 degrees at 7 p.m., which does not take into account the wind chill which is somewhere below 0. it's now 3 degrees at 9:00. tomorrow a high of 8. aren't we lucky!?

gregory

ollie-man

later that weekend... some of us needed a nap...

close-up of the mrs...

and that's all from here from now.

p.s. happy birthday to two brothers!

poor, neglected blog...

a week of lots of work and then another week where the computer was mostly out of commission.
no pictures to share for now.
it's cold in wisconsin these days... lucky when we get into the positive numbers on the thermometer. oliver even refuses his walks when it's not above 0. he needs some good boots.
baby is scrambling about with only 9 weeks left before it introduces itself to the world and its parents and its pets.... and it's hiccuping... all the time!
that's the update in brief!

evening walk

the prairie at night in the winter...

with a little exploratory dog...

the gardens at night during the off-season...

scroll down for yesterday's post.

post holidays

last weekend the ornaments came down...

you might notice the one in the back (a new one) came down a bit too hard, as rabbit knocked it off the table, like kitties tend to do in an effort to keep tabletops and dressers free of clutter.
in the end, saint nick was reunited with his figure as greg glued him back together in his new 'shop' in the basement.



needless to say, our pets and the borrowed pet on the couch were bustling about wide-eyed at all of de-christmasing activity....

well, i'm told again and again that i need to put a new photo up of myself. even oliver in a beret wasn't a good enough substitute.

so, ignoring the hairstyle (?) and maybe even the face, here i am at a day before 29 weeks...

i'm now 1/2way through the 29th week. feeling well. getting plenty of protein and tapering off caffeine. walking through snow-filled prairies, because what else can you do when you're pregnant in wisconsin in the winter? awoken more often by pets than because of bladder, and bugged only by one everlasting knot in my back. amazed and even jealous of those who can accomplish a feat i only remember as a faint memory of something i must have been able to do, yet (because i took it for granted for 27.5 years (less 5 months... and however many months or years it took to gain the skill as a baby)), have no sensory memory of: lifting oneself up solely by strength of the stomach muscles... you lucky ducks.
otherwise, i'm doing well, happy to be in the state that i'm in.

lastly... little mister...

oui, oui, je suis un petit chien de paris...

yes, yes, i am a little parisian dog...
je suis le mieux artiste de touts les puppies.
i am the best artist of all the puppies
mon assistant, gregorie, fait tout les courses, comme la patisserie pour les sucreries et la boulangerie pour mon pain du francias.
my assistant, gregory, does all of the shopping, like the confectionary shop for my sweets and the bakery for my french bread.
entrefaites, je peins... j'ecris... je pense sur toutes les choses de l'existence et des chats et des ossements pour le macher.
meanwhile, i paint... i write... i think about all of the things of existence, of cats, and of bones for chewing.

oui, je suis seulement un petit chien, mais je suis un chien brun, je suis un chien avec l'energie, un chien avec les idees grandes, un chien sans compromets... oui... je suis un petit chien... de paris.
yes, i am only a little dog, but i am a brown dog, i am a dog with energy, a dog with big ideas, a dog without compromise... yes... i am a little dog... of paris.

multiplicitous christmases, graduation, etc...

seems so long since i've posted photos. seems almost as long since we've had days in our state of residence, let alone our actual residence. so these are aged photos in a sense, seeing as they are from december of last year, but being as it is only the first of this year, they are only aged in that sense, and all taken within the last month... also, mostly of my little sis it seems. apologies seester if you are not too keen on all the attention!

christmas the first took place in southern arizona (a region so cold that a windbreaker was insufficient to keep me warm once the sun went down... don't pity them for their cool nights however, unless you live in mexico).

sister and sister's boyfriend, ready for gift giving and cheesecake...

early the next morning we took a trip through the desert...

to come here...

for this...

a trained eye will recognize leigh in her cap and gown above.

pomp and circumstance...

on a grand scale and jumbo screen...

siblings and significants (less greg, the photographer) on the campus post ceremony...

a picture of the arizona grads in attendance..

congratulations little leighnard!

after the ceremony, a lunch celebration ensued. leigh, showing off one of the gifts we gave her...

a picture of christmas the second which took place in more central arizona...

greg and me...

christmas the third, in blustery michigan (though much less blustery than blusterier wisconsin)...

too much gift wrap sometimes leads to a gift wrap fight... exactly what occurred on this occasion...

after the ammunition was placed in garbage bags, some holiday time... science equations...

yep, that's right... just for fun!
?

then a lovely dinner...

then, back to madison, for good, for awhile.
we have a mere three months to prepare for a complete upheaval (in a good way) of our lives. time to batten down the hatches, reinforce the roof, and just generally make haste to ready ourselves for a 50-90% (depending on which new parent you ask) change in our lives, which is 100% guaranteed to include crap loads of diapers! pardon the slang, and the pun.


anyhow, seeing as it is getting nearer, and i am getting larger and less comfortable, coupled with requests for pictures of this phenomenon, i searched in vain for a suitable update shot. unfortunately i will have to defer once more (though i suppose the shot from 'christmas the second' works just as well) and try to get one up soon. 28 weeks tomorrow.


in the meantime, dracula providing good cover, and oliver wanting desperately to be best friends with dracula...

i was going to post one additional photo of ollie to end the post in a dignified manner, but it is so cute i have to save it for its own post. so, until then, signing off...