Alexander is 4!

FOUR YEARS OLD! 

How I've actually managed to keep this one alive is a mystery to me. He is fun, full of giggles and the cuddliest. I must admit that him being 3cms from me at all times is not always my favourite thing, but we roll with it.

He loved opening his presents yesterday

 including this gorgeous personalised Alex blanket

and of course more Bluey clothes. Just for something different. Haha.

I love his whacky sense of humour and hearing his little laugh.

But most of all his little smile 😍

There are always plenty of Alex selfies on my camera roll, including this one which was definitely worth preserving.

He's our little nutter and we wouldn't change him for anything.

So, so loved by his big sister - and he would follow her anywhere she wanted to go.

The cutest little man. Our Alexander James. ❤

Happy birthday to my littlest love! 

Toilet training done right!

This little dude has finally mastered the toilet! Woohoo! No more nappies! I can't even tell you how happy I am. Thankfully my covid experience experience was very mild and I was not bed ridden, or even really sick at all, so on day 2, when I accepted I was home for at least a week, I decided I wasn't wasting the time and took the nappies away. Undies only. Honestly, the best possible time to toilet train is when you literally cannot leave the house.

Next step was making this chart (cause if Bluey isn't encouragement enough, what is? haha) with stickers, giving Alex a Kinder Surprise egg for poops 1, 5, 10 and 15 - then the Bluey garbage truck for poop 20. He was much more interested after that.

It was not easy - and it was not quick. We had poop after poop after poop in his little undies. Nearly every time, it would be about 5 minutes after I asked him if he needed to poop. It was so, so frustrating. But, eventually, after days of that, all of a sudden one morning, he called out to tell me he'd pooped! In the toilet, thank heavens.

We still had a few accidents after that, but thank goodness we got there eventually. We've been here and there since with no nappy on (although when he went over to Aunty's house midweek and had to go into the city with her and for church today, we used a pullup. I'm all about the just in case!) and it's all going well. He takes himself to the toilet regularly for poos and wees and I am so happy! Toilet training in this house is done, for good yo!

Look at that face! He is so proud of himself! That garbage truck was worth every cent! Yay for Alex!

Smashed teeth - Round 2

I swear keeping the boys in this house alive is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. In 2017 while I was in the US with Madeline for 2 weeks and Joseph was staying with my parents, he tripped on a ladder end and smacked his front teeth resulting in a trip to emergency, multiple dental follow ups and as the final blow, emergency dental surgery to remove them after they developed an abscess above each tooth. Last night we got to play a second round of that game, when Alex fell off a bar stool where he was perched playing Nintendo. A place he's sat a million times before, but this time was a dismal fail. Smacked his face on the way down on a wooden dresser and there was blood and tears all over the place. He did exactly the same thing as Joseph and his teeth were bleeding around the edges requiring a trip to the Midland Emergency Department.

He screamed the place down when Doug tried to clean him up, then wailed in the car until we got to the highway, but was still breathing shakily and sobbing when he fell asleep. so it was definitely something that needed checking, not something I was comfortable with leaving. 

People always talk about their horrendous waits at the hospital, but we have been so blessed in the past and yet again last night. We were seen within 30 mins of arriving, by a wonderful doctor, then by his supervising doctor to confirm his diagnosis. All his teeth were still firmly in place and still well aligned and we were sent home to sleep it off. We went into the McDonald's drive through to get him a frozen drink, but he was fast asleep before he could even drink any of it, it was still sitting untouched in his seat when we got home.

His mouth is well and truly bruised, and he has a giant fat lip, but it's looking okay thank goodness.

Now we are just on high alert for the next few months, watching for the abscess that would alert us to nerve damage and making sure he doesn't suffer the same fate as Joseph did.

Poor baby. That was a hell of a whack!

alexander james is three!

somehow this adorable little minion made it to three years old and i am so proud of myself. my kids are now collectively 20 years old - and i feel 20 years older than i actually am as a result hahaha. alex had the best time at nanna and grandads for his party and was actually dead on his feet by the end and fell asleep fully dressed on the couch.

today he was super excited to open more presents, especially because they were wrapped in minion paper of course. highlight present for him was his new backpack - a minion one from smiggle and minion lego.

he has been my most difficult child by far, but i wouldn't change it... cause amongst the bad there is always good. even with the fact i've barely slept for 3 years, he loves to kiss me on the face 24/7 and cuddle, well force, his way into my personal space and just be 3cm from me at all times. but. i guess that means he loves me so i'll take it. i love his little face, the weird things he says, the way he loves to be with joseph even though he barely tolerates him, the way he constantly hands me things that aren't lost and says oh here's your xxxx mummy. i love that he still wants me, cause joseph sure as heck doesn't. 

i think i'll keep him. happy birthday little mate. welcome to your threenage years.

alex's farm party

sometimes things just work out and we had the stars align perfectly to be able to give alexander the best third birthday. our house is currently a mess with the ensuite reno in full swing (which extended out to the theatre due to the water damage) so a party at our house was out of the question. but somehow we made it work.

mum and dad have been building a bonfire at their house for quite some time - and i had this great idea to light it up for alex's birthday, we could invite a few friends out to clackline... but then the fire restrictions got in the way, because the date we wanted was outside of the free burning period. the amount of boxes that had to be ticked before we could make it happen was ridiculous so we put that idea to bed.

until jen got a message from the shire of northam saying that the unrestricted burn period had been extended by 2 weeks because of how wet this season has been. wheeeeeeeee. game on! with just a few days notice, we called everyone and got it organised.

everyone turned up, and it was seriously the best party. mums only condition was that people bring something to share for dinner, which worked perfectly. we provided the fun party food and everyone else shared dinner.

alex was thrilled with the cute gifts he git. he was spoiled and loved and loved every minute of it.

my brother isaac brought his quad bike and took the kids for train rides in the hand made carriages and they loved every minute. best party entertainment out!

i even got to have a turn driving (then stalled it in the paddock but shhhh)

fun times fun times.

i even managed to pull off another decent cake which we drove up there. this time i did banana and it was so yum. it worked perfectly to be made into a stack cake.

and as you can see, once the minions were on, alex was so so so happy. he couldn't stop looking at it and smiling.

cutest almost 3 year old i know!

banana cake

ingredients:

125g butter

1 cup white sugar

3 ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp milk

1 1/2 cup self raising flour

2 eggs

directions:

preheat oven to 180 deg celcius

cream butter and sugar

add eggs and mix well

add mashed bananas and vanilla essence

mix baking soda and milk, then add to main mixture

add sifted flour

pour into lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes

ice with cream cheese icing

icing: 

2 tbls softened butter

55g softened cream cheese 

dash vanilla essence

1 cup icing sugar

by the time we had finished dinner and then cake, it was time to light the fire and in true goodlet style up she went! i love a good bonfire and this one was no exception. there's something so magical about watching the flames.

we even had special cookies from aunty jenny, shaped like minions for all our guests to enjoy.

so cute. i have the best best friend.

so lucky that things worked out the way they did. we had the best time and most importantly, alex loved it. farm parties for the win!

big boy bed

this little dude has finally got a big boy bed! we got him the exact same bed as joseph so he'd be keen on sleeping in it (and it just so happened that there was twin red beds at my parents which isaac had in his room when he was younger) and lovely aunty sam sent the hey duggee bedding from the uk. it's near impossible to find any duggee stuff here, so we were thrilled - and his little face when he saw it made it all worth it!

look at that smile. he was so stoked to be going to bed and went straight to sleep, only to wake up at midnight screaming. sigh. but the next night was better - and we are hoping it keeps going that way. fingers crossed. but how cute is he? i love that little face!

we had a win a few weeks ago when the child health nurse came to do his 2.5-3 year check. he was such a nice guy and loved alex. one of the questions was how their speech is - and they recommend that by this age they should be able to say a 4 word sentence. well. alex came rushing by us and and blurted out. mum. mum. i want to go pick maddie up from school now! well. his face was priceless. big tick for alex. he's leaps and bounds above where he should be and don't we know it! little gem. 

mini olympian

i am not a sport person at all. but i've been trying to encourage the kids to get into the olympics so they can cheer for our country and feel a sense of pride while the games are on. the tv may have been on a little too much during the past few days as they get through the swimming (cause that and the gymnastics are my favourite) and all of a sudden alex appeared from his room with his bathing suit on. no reason other than the fact he keeps seeing people on the tv with them on - and he told me proudly, look! i go swimming! oh my word. he is the cutest. maybe we will have an olympic swimmer of our own one day. 

 

not a care in the world

after all the stress and effort the last few weeks has involved, i loved seeing this today. alex and i went to the park and he sat on the swing and giggled and loved every moment of his freedom. 

i have no idea how on earth he stayed on, with the way he was leaning back as i pushed him back and forth, but i am just so glad he is happy, without a care in the world. he has no idea what is ahead of us with emptying oli's house, all the paperwork and all the sorting of everything.

and that's good. i'm so glad he doesn't have anything to worry about and can just be a toddler. that's the way life should be for him. ❤

 

toilet training alex

this little rockstar is well on his way to being toilet trained. what whatttttt. he seems to be taking to it no problems at all and is rocking the jocks while we go about our day. of course there have been accidents, but we will get there... hopefully sooner than later.

here's to no more nappies in the kendall house!

**************

edited to add. it's now almost a year later and he is still not toilet trained. grandma died not long after this and although he was doing great, he had to go into nappies so we could take him here, there and everywhere while we sorted out the funeral and everything else involved in it. and after that, he was completely uninterested. what a fail. let's hope it happens soon so i don't lose my mind. 

 

no more thumb sucking

well that's the thumb sucking done for this unfortunate little one. upon scooping up something up a few days ago in madeline's room and playing with it, we quickly discovered it was broken glass! but he had already cut a huge gash in his thumb, there was blood everywhere and to the dr we went.

the dr cleaned it up again, checked there was no glass in it and then bandaged it up and said it's going to have to stay on for a few days... which he was so upset about. he'd keep trying to suck his thumb then getting upset that he couldn't and then of course didn't want to go to sleep, but eventually settled and drifted off. he made sure that we knew he was unimpressed though.

we got there eventually and when the bandage finally came off and he looked like he was going to go back to thumb sucking, we quickly shoved a bandaid on it and told him it was still sore - i figured if we were this far in, it wasn't time to give up - and sure enough we made it! we are thumb sucking free!

i really felt so sorry for the poor little dude, but i am so happy that we didn't have to do it when he was even older, maddie is 9 and still going strong sucking her fingers, i have no idea how we are going to get around that one. ugh.