Passport hassles

March has arrived and it's now just a few weeks until our holiday begins, yah! Since we are going overseas, Noah needs his own passport and today we finally lodged the application. Been a bit of a hassle to get all the paperwork ready...
Noah's birth certificate that we had ordered got lost in the mail and never got tracked down so a new one had to be issued. When we were down in Bunbury we took passport photos of bub. This turned out to be a a tricky one as he has no neck control yet and must be held, however our hands cannot show on the photo. The lady at the Post Office made three attempts before we got a good shot. Back in Perth we brought the paperwork to Shawn's parents to sign the form as witnesses, stupid of us not to read the instructions properly becuase relatives can't sign the form. Instead we had David to sign the form and the photos and finally all the paperwork was ready. So we though...
Went to lodge the application at the Post Office today and guess what? The Post Office staff rejected the photos of Noah and claimed they weren't correctly taken. Don't they have the same rules in Bunbury as in Perth for the measurements of passport photos?!? So new photos had to be taken but this specific Post Office didn't take passport photos of children (of course) so we had to go to a mall to get it done at a photo shop. When we got there, Noah was half asleep in Shawn's arms and we had to wake him up, clap hands, sing songs and try to keep his attention while the woman tried to get a good shot. Noah found the the camera and entertainment quite amusing and fired off a big smile to us and she managed to capture it! So he will have a passport picture where he actually smiles (not all of us have that great pictures and hide our passport away from people to avoid embarressment haha)!
When taken the pic we had to go to David and Moa's house to have Dave to sign the new photos, then head to the Post Office and finally; we lodged the application!!
After all this trouble, we don't dare to wait the 2 weeks it's said to take before getting the passport (you never know what can happen...) so we decided to pay extra to get it quicker. A total of whopping $175! But hey, it's all worth it and Noah will be able to begin his globetrotter lifestyle at a age of 3 months :-).

By the way, indicated on the passport next to the photo of Noah, 7 weeks old, is his height: 58 cm. The funny thing is, it's valid for 5 years...