student midwife program

this lovely girl cuddling our baby is jourdin - a student midwife from curtin university - who is not only absolutely amazing, but someone that i now consider a good friend. upon waltzing in to one of my antenatal appointments at the osborne park clinic, i met her, sitting with the midwife who was doing my appointment. we got to chatting and i asked her question after question about what she was doing - and more importantly what are you doing here ?! i learnt all about the curtin midwifery continuity of care program and that i could have her at all my appointments and that she would be there to help deliver the baby when he arrived. sooooo - after how well we got along and how much we laughed i was like hey why not? so i chatted with doug and is was onn!

we had a great time together over all the months that i had clinic appointments - and then unfortunately due to family circumstances, jourdin was overseas when joseph was born :( but we still love her! she's been to check ups and such with us since he was born and the other day came with us to have his hip scanned too! at an appointment with the gp we discovered that joseph had a clicky hip (which maddie also had...) but again we have been given the all clear! nothing wrong with him at all! we did use it as a great excuse to get a picture of him with our sweet boy that i can keep. and aren't they cute?!

i have to admit - i love all the midwives i have met - and everytime i leave the hospital i desperately want to be one. the only thing is, i cannot bear to see anyone in pain... so maybe that's not the job for me. i'll keep thinking about that one...

i admire them so much, their calmness in what can be such a stressful environment, their caring and the love that they have for each and every patient that is in their care. it is so inspiring, and i am grateful every day that i have been blessed to be cared for by such beautiful women. ♥

frozen obsession

there's a little girl in our house who is quite taken with the latest disney offering - frozen. ever since the first time she watched it she's been obsessed and i have to admit that it is pretty good... just saying.

i finally made a cd for the car with all the songs from the album and she loves it (actually loves is the understatement of the century) and always asks before jumping in the car - mama can we watch frozen in the car? mama? can we? so cute! then she sits in the back singing along at the top of her voice just generally loving her life. we've also gotten to enjoy (had to endure?) her singing let it go - literally - just the one line from let it go... over and over and over for weeks at the top of her voice!

the other morning she actually asked niques if she could go and build a snowman and insisted she needed clothes for the snow, so aunty put her in tights, a jacket, hat and gloves... she's also insisting that her name is queen elsa (which anyone who has seen the movie would know is weird seeing as it's anna who is really the star of the show - plus maddie totally has red hair - just like anna! and to make it even stranger, all the while she is telling us she is queen elsa, she's quoting anna! she told us for over an hour the other day that "she's my sister, she would never hurt me..." and then today said to doug "please don't shut me out daddy! please don't close the door!" it's all we can do to not crack up and actually answer her with a straight face!

i am fairly certain all her dreams are about to come true, on sunday the mother of a little girl from maddie's nursery class called ruby - asked us if maddie could come to ruby's birthday party in a few weeks, apparently she is having a frozen theme!! she is going to think all her dreams have come true. can't wait. we caught the two of them jumping up and down in glee a few minutes later with ruby chanting, "you're coming to my party, you're coming to my party!!!!!!"

plus - just for your amusement, if you happen to have seen the movie - check this out - it is absolutely hilarious, it'a a couple driving in the car perfectly lip syncing the song "love is an open door" from the movie. the husbands facials are priceless, and the daughter just sits in the back seat looking bored, completely oblivious to what is going on. watch it now. you'll find it here! enjoy!

p.s. last week we got in the car and i started singing and looking across at doug - laughing about the abovementioned video only to have him look back at me and offer one single word. no. there go my dreams of a theatrical performance in our car! haha.

himym is over...

doug and i have been watching how i met your mother since the beginning - and tonight we finally got to watch the last episode - where ted meets the mother - after 9 years of episodes. i've loved it - all of it... but the finale really ruined it for me, and i am so not happy with what they have done.

***major spoiler alert***

the entire 9th season has been covering the few days leading up to barney and robins wedding - all 22 episodes. we have seen random scenes of ted with the mother, but still haven't seen how they met. in episode 23 barney and robin finally get married, only for us to find out in the very next episode that it didn't work out and they got divorced. robin then stops hanging out with the crew and kind of falls off the planet - only to appear at ted and tracy's  (the mothers) wedding because tracy called and begged her to come. weird. 

barney then gets some girl pregnant and doesn't seem bothered by it until he meets the daughter, who becomes the love of his life... and then tracy dies. um yes. she dies. and this is just glossed over, as part of the story telling... we see nothing more than the mother lying in a hospital bed, we are told she's sick and then told she's dead. no funeral, no goodbyes, nothing. on with the show! i felt a bit ripped off that after such a build up to having her even enter the show they could have given her some kind of send off for goodness sake!

the story ends and the kids then tell their dad how clear it is that he's still in love with aunt robin and why hasn't he asked her out yet. so off he runs with the blue french horn to her apartment where the story ends. what the heck? why didn't you just call the show "how i settled for your mother while i waited for your aunt robin" ? he was always running back to her, after her - through everything, so clearly it makes sense that eventually they would end up together - plus to be fair, the kids mention that it's been six years since the mother passed away... but it was just such a letdown. why couldn't he and the mother have actually lived happily ever after? would that have been too much to ask? 

there have been very few positive reviews of the finale online, and one disgruntled fan even went so far as to make what he thought should have been the ending - which i completely agree with. if you've seen the finale and it made you want to throw chairs (like i wanted to...) check it out here - it's perfect!

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