twinses

is it just me or do these kids look like twins? i swear joseph looks just like maddie in both these pictures (for those of you playing along at home - that's him on the left in both) except for the fact that he is wayyyyy bigger than she was at this age. same facial expressions, same big eyes, same pale skin... it's going to be interesting to see if they keep looking alike as time goes on!

passport photos part 2

i couldn't help myself. i know he looks so violated that it's not even funny in the top right one, but i just can't resist sharing. they arrived in the mail today and i hard out cracked up. i must be a terrible mother but i think they are hilarious.

passport here we come...

passport photos

if only this could have been joseph's passport photo! he was lovely and still and calm as anything. pity it doesn't meet any of the national specifications. we had the "joy" of having his passport photos done today - we are off to samoa to visit mum and dad later this year. the poor baby boy had a feed right before we took him to the pharmacy but then did not want to wake up... after 15 minutes of tickling, gently shaking and putting cold hands on his belly, we had to get a flannel and wet it with cold water and rub his feet and belly with it.

oh that worked. he started screaming and wiggling - but still didn't help with the pictures any - as they were all with his eyes squinty and mouth open to yell. eventually he had to have another feed - and then of course the first shot the girl took was perfect! what a trooper - she dealt kindly with almost an hour of this! 

to add to the issues of all of this - there seems to be only one chemist in the perth area that will actually do baby passport photos (friendlies chemist subiaco) - so we had made a trip into subiaco especially to get them - and their printer wasn't working! hopefully the stamped self addressed envelope we left behind will fix all that - and we should have them by the end of the week. i remember how cute madeline's pictures were - i can't wait to see josephs!

one month already?

i cannot believe this little man has been with us for a month already - i have no idea where the time has gone! for real. it only seems like yesterday that i was bringing him home from the hospital and here he is one month old! dear readers, i am going to torture you all over again for the next twenty-four months until joseph turns two, with a pic of him in the same chair each month over and over. why? because i love being able to look back at them and #watchjosephgrow. follow me on instagram @jadekendall to play along... madelines make me so happy and i am so glad i stuck with it, so here we go again.

joseph is your typical baby, eats, sleeps, poops and cries... he is a good baby. his snuffles are gone and he is sleeping better. drinks like a trooper and wets a nappy on cue everytime he eats. that is clearly why he must be gaining so much weight! he is already very tight in his 0000's and i am sure he'll be moving up very soon to the next size! very different to petite miss madeline who was in 00000's until she was 5 weeks old.

his hair is blonde with a darker patch at the base of his neck  - with bright blue eyes. i remember madeline's eyes were dark blue and already starting to darken in the centre within a few days of her being born, but joseph's are bright and not showing any sign of changing just yet. fingers crossed they'll stay that way... one of the things i remember most about grandad joe was how bright blue his eyes were, and the way they sparkled when he was laughing or having fun.

madeline had the time of her life the other morning with her real live doll, i popped him in her little dolls pram and she delightedly pushed him around the house. he was fine for a small while, but as soon as the pram stopped moving, he let out an almightly squawk and started to cry. she was so sweet, instantly started to shoosh him and pat him on the belly. "it's alright baby jo-fiss, don't cry. jofiss! don't cry!" i had to rescue him pretty quickly - he wasn't having a bar of it.

and just so i'm not leaving this little miss too much out of things... we all went to karrinyup shopping centre this evening and in the food court was an amazing lady making balloon animals - for free! (you could make a donation to charity, which we of course did) and maddie requested a monkey. she was so pleased with him and carried him around all the shops and even sat and coloured with him at cotton on kids. 

tragedy struck though on the way back to the car - when his tail hit the bitumen and burst. daddy took her back to the nice lady who maddie told, "my monkey is hurt - he needs a bandaid!" so sweet. but we got a replacement tail. she is so in love with him, i don't know what we are going to do when he bursts!

having two kids is much harder than one - but it is also a lot more fun! x

birth announcement

as you have seen from previous posts on this very blog - and if you know me in real life - it's kind of obvious... my name is jade and i have raging ocd. so it took me quite some time to be happy with a birth announcement for master joseph. i won't send it until i am happy, and being that they serve as our thankyou cards (writing on the back) it has to be right. i surfed red stamp non stop until i found the perfect setup. nb. if you don't have the red stamp app on your iphone you are missing out and need to get onto that stat! best. app. ever. it's free and you can make invites, cards, announcements, thinking of yous etc etc. so good.

i then made about 5 (??) different ones and sent them all to the bestie for approval - and we picked one together. anddddd this is not it. haha. i went back on to my app to edit the final choice and found this one which i thought was simple enough that it might just be perfect - and it was. type type type send... the best one yet. so here you have it ladies and gentlemen of the blogisphere. get red stamp (i wish they were paying me to write this, but i promise they are not) so you can make awesome things like this - all with the touch of a screen... and if you sent us a gift for our baby - watch your letterbox, cause one of these masterpieces featuring our incredibly goodlooking second child will be on it's way to you very soon!

taytay gets girly!

 

last night tayla came over to our house to get ready for her all important school ball... we had a team working on her to get her hot and ready in time - niques on hair, jo on hair and me? i was in charge of accessories and nails. not the most important or time consuming job, but important nonetheless... 

niques and jo did such a good job and tay looked so grown up, so beautiful and so girly! this is our tay that gets around in shorts or jeans with jandals most of the time and just doesn't care. she didn't even have pierced ears until a month ago. but right in front of our eyes shes been becoming a young lady - and a gorgeous one at that.

tays date for the night was her friend cam from our ward (he and his family have moved here in recent months from nz) and you could tell the two of them were going to have a good time together, clowning around and have a good laugh - even when i was begging them to be serious for just one photo! i did get two good ones though, thank goodness, i am pretty sure that their mums would have killed me if i didn't.

it's so nice to watch someone grow up before your very eyes and tay has done just that this weekend. work it girl. won't be long before the boys are chasing you! ♥

pippa skye's surprise bday!

i love this girl! so much! and tonight we got to celebrate her turning 31 with a lovely surprise dinner at siena's in leederville that another one of her gorgeous friends organised. you should have seen her face! completely unaware that it was in the works, thought she was rocking up for a casual dinner with a few friends... and there we all were - waiting. there were smiles, there was a few tears, but she was loving it! 

pip and i became firm friends when doug and i moved into dianella ward when we got married (8 years ago now yikes!) we knew each other as teenagers (and even unknowingly dated the same boy - apparently at the same time - a.w.k.w.a.r.d...) we weren't overly keen on being mates back then - but totally hit it off once we had grown up some.

since then we have spent a ridiculous amount of time together - laughed, cried, agreed, disagreed, had kids, worn each others clothes, eaten copious amounts of food, shopped (and op-shopped) up a storm, watched buttloads of televison, partied hard, teased each others husbands and just generally loved the hell out of each other.

i wouldn't trade her friendship for anything - she's amazing. 

so... happy early birthday pippa! 

love you long time! ♥