21 months of joseph

what's that? another month down? um excuse me father time, can you slow down a little please? i would really appreciate it. our little joseph is at such a cute age and i want it to last as long as possible. 

he is still not a fan of bedtime, but he is getting there... the last few nights have been looking promising so let's keep our fingers crossed. he loves to pounce on unattended shoes and clop through the house and smile at any spectators as he does so. his current food obsession is watermelon pieces (i mean seriously, who could blame him, he obviously got that from his mama and his nanna!)

he is a little speedster and has perfected zooming through the house on madeline's little pink trike, the speed at which he takes the corners actually frightens me a little, i really need to make a video! when he wants to be cuddled, he loves to cuddle, especially first thing in the morning when he is busy watching his favourite show, "dinosaur train". he is trying to copy most of the words we shoot at him nowadays, but often misses the first syllable, meaning we get things such as um (mum) and ad (dad) even though he has got those two perfect more often than not.

when daddy comes home from work, he drops whatever he is doing and rushes for him smiling, with his hands in the air, wanting to be picked up and tickled. it's the cutest thing ever!when he is excited or sees something new he says: oooooooooooh! and... he hates to have his hair washed. let's hope that ends soon, cause it's getting old, very quickly!

he is certainly growing up, but for now he is my baby... and i am willing him to stay that way. ♥

j is 15 months!

another joseph update? sure thing:

he has popped yet another molar and grizzled non stop, then for good measure popped the tooth above it and the one next to it. 12 teeth now.

he is always happy in the morning and babbles away to me while i get him some breakfast

he listens to us and sometimes even does as we ask.

he loves to move around to music

his favourite song is "if you're happy and you know it" and when we start to sing, he automatically claps his hands

he loves to lay on the floor and put his head in my lap when i am sitting cross legged

he is always walking, never crawling

he has had to be supervised in the shower as everytime we leave the room for a second, he quickly runs out of the bathroom and we find him in the hall, the kitchen, the bedroom... what a monkey!

we love him and love to watch him grow!

he's walking!

look at our clever little boy! 

two weeks ago he started to toddle along, shuffling just a step or two at a time... but look at him now! over easter he would take a few more, still hesitant... and careful

now he is walking a lot, from place to place, around the house and getting more confident by the day. his balance is good, he's proud of himself... and i am loving it. my sweet little babe, getting to be a big boy. isn't he clever!!

what madeline has been up to

last week i came to put miss madeline to bed and discovered this. her little people castle full to the brim of all her small animals and dolls. i asked her what on earth was going on and she calmly responded with "they are ready for their dance party!" i could not stop laughing. seriously. some of the things she comes out with. she makes all the toys talk to me and to her and to each other and the pitch she gets her voice to sometimes is incredible! haha. she is fiercely independent and loves to "help" with everything i do, she's practically fearless and i hear a million times a day (only a slight exaggeration) "i can do it! no! don't help me!" hahaha. hopefully she will be this willing to help when she is a teenager, although i don't like my chances.

madeline is an absolute crack up. i swear she makes me laugh at least 20 times a day. from the moment she wakes up she's go go go and it's all i can do to keep up with her. she is a beautiful and affectionate little girl. loves to be close to her mama and "sneak" me (she loves my smell and refers to cuddling and breathing in as sneaking haha) and to sit in my lap at any opportunity. she loves joseph too and always chats away to him as he crawls about the place. come on joseph, keep up joseph... she loves to ask questions about everything and must  know the name of everyone she meets. especially anyone that serves us at the supermarket. luckily she is still at the age where it is cute. she is also very girly and insists on wearing a dress every single day. never pants (except on the very odd occasion and sometimes leggings under pants) and heaven forbid you argue with her over it.

and my word is she smart. i don't like to sound like i am bragging because she is my child, but she really is. she can count and say her alphabet like any kid can, but she has an amazing memory! she already knows most of the primary songs even though she has only gone into primary this year... she walks around the house singing them and blew one of the leaders away last week when she sang one from start to finish without even flinching. her current favourite songs though are nursery rhymes and i hear "the three little kittens" and "mary had a little lamb" all the verses. lucky she's cute. she also loves to play the memory game with the cards that match, watching carefully... and truly gives us a run for our money.

she has been saying prayers on the food for about a year now, but for long prayers, doug and i would normally feed her what to say... much to our surprise the other night, she says "no i don't want your help" and proceeded to say a prayer that was like 2-3 minutes long, blessing all her grandparents, parents, aunties, cousins and friends, as well as thanking heavenly father for this and the other. we were dumbfounded. go maddie! that's our crazy, clever girl and we are proud as punch!

  prayers/ memory game/ 

eleven months old

it's that time of the month again, master joseph is another month older and growing up faster than i can comprehend.

this month, the young man finally started sleeping all the way through the night, without his top up. thank goodness for that! i was beginning to think it would never happen. i took him down from 10pm half an hour at a time over a few weeks and finally - we are here. yay! i also managed to cut out his afternoon feed... so we are making good progress! just first thing in the morning, before his morning nap and night time now. win.

he loves to smile and laugh with his daddy and also laughs non stop when madeline is around, let's hope their friendship continues once they are older.

he is crawling non stop, fast as anything - mostly in hot pursuit of his mama and standing up holding on to things whenever he has a chance. not on his own just yet, but we are definitely getting there. when he has his bath now, it's mission impossible to have him sit, he just wants to stand and grab anything in his line of sight.

doug started shaking his head side to side when joseph was watching him and now he copies and does the same thing. it is so funny, he grooves away in the car too, kicking his feet and moving away to the beat. what a little dude.

i love his smile and those dimples of his. he really is so adorable. he makes me want 10 kids, but we all know that isn't happening! haha. maybe another 2 at most.

he likes most things we feed him and loves to make a mess with his food - madeline was not nearly as messy... he looks like this after most meals. but definitely is happy when he has food in front of him. his favourite foods are sultanas, grapes and corn cakes. grumpy baby? sprinkle some sultanas on his high chair tray. fixed.

i love sunday dressups... we are always very careful to take photographs of both the kids in their sunday clothes to send to doug's parents, so i have them looking their best. it's so funny, i always thought that girls would be way more fun to dress up, but i am loving coming up with funky outfits for baby j as well. mix and match and see what i can come up with.

can't wait to see what next month brings, our baby joseph makes our whole family happy, because he is a little ray of sunshine! 

he's 10 months!

this babe is 10 months old. how does this keep happening? i know we are meant to enjoy them while they are babies... but how can we enjoy this time that is just rushing by at a crazy speed. yikes. oh well. another month, another shot in his corner of our brown couch, looking happy as larry... or is that happy as joseph? he is such a sweet, happy boy.

he loves to crawl around the house, looking at everything and his new thing, playing with the doors. although... he has managed to swing the doors closed once or twice and got himself stuck inside a room with him too close to the door to open it again and get out... that's when i hear his little baby voice calling for his mama to come and get him out! 

earlier this month, you grabbed hold of a table leg and just stood up! no walking yet, but you're definitely wanting to get up and stand with those chubby legs of yours. you also cut three teeth on one day... no wonder we had a little grumpy pants on our hands. not cool.

we love you baby joseph and are so excited to watch you grow and explore!

maddie is two and a half!

this sassy little girl is two and a half today! i can barely believe it, especially being as i will have two children in just over a month! such a crazy realisation. lucky maddie is so cute... hopefully the next one will be too. aunty niques took this picture of her recently, and i love the attitude in it, it's so well captured, i almost feel as though it should be blown up and put on a wall somewhere. 

i've often had people say to me that children need to be in daycare for at least one day a week so they get the necessary interaction with other children - if i may, i respectfully disagree... our church offers a nursery class (most of you may know this as a creche) for two hours every sunday and it has been so wonderful for little miss maddie. she has plenty of interaction with other kids her own age, playing, singing and dancing... 

she has such a little personality and i love to watch her dancing around the house, "look mummy, i ballerina!" hear her singing her favourite songs, her current favourite is the song from tangled "and at last i see the loight... and it's loike the sky has lifted...." repeat a million times - katy perry's eye of the tiger "oive got the oiye of the toiger, the foighter..." and her newest effort at a primary song, "mummy i love you, mummy i doooo, father in heaven has sent me to yooooou. when i am near you, i love to hear you, singing so softly that yooooou love me too! mummy i love you, i love you, i dooooo!" so super cute! i love also to hear her throwing anything she is currently thinking of into the song to convince me that she needs it. popcorn i love you, popcorn i dooooo. 'punzel i love you, 'punzel i dooooo... and so on. 

how cute is she when she's sleeping? we have a new before bed ritual... 

she suddenly adores telling stories, and rattles off the most hilarious things without even thinking... "once upon a time... there was a biiiiig dragon! carrots, something something, thank you tayla, yourrrrre welcome! queen, in a castle... yadda yadda yadda and so on... thhhhhhe end!" once when she said that there was a big dragon i gasped and said, "a dragon? i'm scared!" to which she rushed to my side, patted my arm and said, "don't worry mummy - i'm scared too!" oh well, at least i have a two year old to comfort me, defend me and rush to my aid! haha. i feel completely safe now. :)

as you have seen from previous posts, she has a love hate relationship with water. but asks at the most random times if we can "go to the pool mummy?" ummmm sure, cause there's one conveniently located nearby. nottt.

she also thankfully adores wearing "pretty dresses!" and loves to smile sweetly for pictures, although annoyingly enough, hates to stay still. she also is suddenly obsessed with hair clips and bowwws and always wants one in her hair. yay! score for mummy! i got what every girl wants, a girly little girl! 

the newest bow in madeline's collection 

we have been telling madeline for months that there is a baby arriving soon, and she has been especially attentive in the last few months to her "baby" a baby doll that she has had for quite some time... she carries it around and cuddles it non stop, which is lovely for us to see. hopefully she will be as attentive when the baby arrives in the next few weeks. fingers crossed! 

there are few things i love more than having this little girl snuggle in my bed. she is so sweet and to be totally honest, i wish i could convince her to more often, but she is becoming far too independent too quickly, sob! 

lovely aunty donna bought this adorable "bummmmblebeee" outfit for maddie and she was delighted beyond compare when i let her wear it for an entire day... now she wants to wear it everyday, every when it's in the wash. so sweet.

she is growing up so fast, faster than i could ever imagine, right before our very eyes and there seems to be nothing i can do to stop it, or even slow it down. i guess i'll have to be content with enjoying this little miss while i can. we have been a few places lately and had random strangers ask how old she is and then compliment us on how well she speaks and how many words she knows, so i guess we must be doing something right. 

she is a little doll and i feel so lucky, every single day, that she is mine! 

preggo belly

by popular demand... here i am!

25weeks+2 days

with baby kendall's eta being 23rd jul 2011

unfortunately not looking as pregnant as i'd like...

in most clothes i still just look fat

(which is a good thing i suppose - i've still got quite a way to go!)

but it's definately in there!!

kicking and squirming so i won't forget

can't wait to meet it, i'm pretty damn excited!