happy 70th pam!

pam with her gift from doug and i - the hat!!

today we celebrated lady pamela's 70th birthday with high tea at the darlington hall. pam has been "aunty pam" to me since i was a kid - so it was wonderful when our families actually joined together 15 years ago when my oldest brother married one of pam's daughters. she and bob now share grandchildren with my parents!! and she was kind enough to let me live in their spare room when i started at chippers, up until doug and i got married.

she is one of the most wonderful people i have ever met, and i feel blessed to count her as a friend, and a part of my extended family :)

our little family together at high tea - maddie's first party, so we made sure she was dressed appropriately in a party dress, mary janes and a bow in her "hair"
pam having her first hold of miss madeline

laura having her first hold of her new baby cousin

tax time!

i am an awesome stayathomemum with skillage! yesterday - i did dougs and my tax returns in one hour. done. signed, sealed, delivered (well lodged online to the ato) and i am proud. saved myself (and doug) a sweet 220 odd buckeroonies. go me!! woo.

madeline's blessing day

yesterday our teeny little girl was given a name and a blessing - by her daddy and her two grandfathers. it was a very special day, and she was certainly dressed the part with the help of her nanna, who custom made a dress to fit her (you can't really buy what we wanted in 00000's) complete with her name hand-stitched into the bottom layer of the front hem... so, so adorable - she just looks like a little doll!!

aunty pip also helped out, custom making teeny crocheted shoes and a matching headband for miss madeline.

it was a very special blessing, with even doug getting a little emotional... i can understand why though, that tiny girl already has him wrapped around her tiny fingers. she's precious, and i'm so glad she's ours.

extremely proud parents with madeline

maddie with her parents and both sets of grandparents

ac/dc exhibition

maddie's first trip to somewhere other than the supermarket was to the ac/dc memorabilia exhibition at the wa museum in perth city. proud granddad steve was stoked that maddie was going to listen to some real music and hang with the legend bon scott. you can see us posing with one of the posters below...

(yes - she is in the picture... hanging out in the sling)

there was so much to see - steve said he could have spent the whole day there - and to be honest, i probably could have too... proving what a bogan i am and watching hours of the concerts they had streamed onto the big screen at one end of the hall... it was pretty fabulous
steve is - and i am pretty sure always has been ac/dc obsessed, last time he came to perth we took him to visit bon's memorial and the statue at the freo fishing boat harbour, so naturally he had an awesome time... here he is posing with the cannon from one of the tours (i am sure he could tell you which one - i sure as hell couldn't)

this is my favourite... my father-in-law showing his dark side

was so much fun - and miss maddie was so well behaved - snoozed away in the sling the whole time while we looked around

so much love

there has been a huge outpouring of love to the kendalls and miss madeline in the last week and a bit... so many beautiful gifts and so much love in our direction...

just felt an urge to showcase some of it - so here are the two amazing arrangements that sandra and mark turned up with when they visited last week

from the crew at cottage gardens for madeline and me
also from cottage gardens - but from the chippers staff for us
such a wonderful time - i really feel so spoiled. :)

what's in a name?

so... where did her name come from?

my favourite book as a kid - madeline -

about the little french girl that lived in the orphanage...

"in an old house in paris, that was covered in vines

lived 12 little girls in two straight lines

in two straight lines they broke their bread,

brushed their teeth and went to bed

they smiled at the good and frowned at the bad

and sometimes they were very sad

they left the house at half past nine

in rain - or shine

the smallest one

was madeline

so i guess it makes it even better that she is teeny tiny - too small to even fit a 0000!

and the beth... mine and doug's friend - the one that introduced us - all those years ago - miss beth fuggle, totally in our opinion deserving of a mention... cause without her - none of this would have been possible.

miss kendall

our baby is here!!!!!

miss madeline beth kendall arrived on monday 11.07.2011 (a nice mix of daddy and mummy's favourite numbers) at 1041am at osborne park hospital assisted by the most wonderful midwife in the world... kirsten

i was induced sunday night - due to a condition called cholestasis in pregnancy that the drs had been umming and ahhing over for weeks - basically means that my liver wasn't functioning properly - and wasn't causing any problems to me or her but research has shown that the closer you get to your due date the more chance you have of the baby not being born alive - hence the being induced.

i had mini niggling contractions all night that got worse near morning (no sleep for me and not a great deal for doug...) but at 8am my waters broke unassisted and it was on ... and at 1041 after being rushed into the birth suite with just minutes to spare (os park had 10 babies born in 10 hours!!) she arrived...

miss madeline beth kendall 11.07.2011 2945g (6lb5oz)

thank goodness she wasn't bigger... but she is beautiful and i am so grateful that she's mine - doug was amazing and as much as it hurt he was there for me every second of the way saying all the right things and helping me make it through.

my world just got a little bit bigger, and the tiniest thing in it - has the other thing that means the most to me - wrapped right around that teeny tiny finger of hers. he's going to be the best dad there ever was!

just minutes old... having her first hold with daddy...

bday lunch with carlos

bday lunch for miss jen today... at the lake charlotte restaurant in woorooloo

freaking awesome place, you can order a piece of meat and it's brought to the table on a piece of volcanic rock so you can cook it to however you like it! very different, but lots of fun.

but who is carlos i hear you ask? jen's new ridiculously large bear that i got her for her birthday. stacey insisted that we needed to name it after chuck norris because of all the stupid facts that we are constantly writing on each other's facebook pages. however, chuck just wasn't fancy enough - and upon doing a bit of googling, we discovered that he was actually born carlos ray norris... so carlos it is.

fab afternoon... totally worth the drive!

(not) my last day

oh bless... shez from work thought today was my last - and when i arrived this morning, this was waiting for me in the kitchen...

cupcakes, roses and a rose scented candle... just to make sure that everything smelt as good as it looked. what a love!! and now... she's set a standard - this means i'll expect it next friday, when i really do finish. :)