Yesterday, I took my kid for a little adventure. Actually, my ulterior motive was for ME to indulge in some drawing and sketching, something I haven’t done in YEARS. We went to a cute park, we loaded up with drawing pads, chalks, crayons, pencils, water and a snack.

I taught Callum how to do Observation Drawings. Sounds technical, but I basically said “Look at something and draw it”.

I didn’t try to teach him anything about composition, form, positive/negative spaces, or line technique and all the juicy drawing stuff that I was practicing. I just wanted him to have fun. Plus secretly love the innocence of kids’ drawings.

After drawing sculptures, trees, pine nuts, kids playing on a pirate ship playground… he sighed, and politely asked me if he could now draw something from his brain, like Ninja Turtles.

My mother turned 60 today! My dad organised a party for her - booking out a whole Chinese restaurant and filling all 10 tables. I couldn’t believe he managed to fit 100 people and a mini-band into that place. It was tad insane. But my mother had a blast!

A few weeks ago, I arranged her birthday present - a professionally taken family portrait. I’m actually not a big fan of these studio portraits - I prefer a more “relaxed and natural” feel. Anyway… my mother had been bugging us to get studio portraits done for, um, 7 years? We just never got around to it! So on Saturday we finally got organised - we all got dressed up, met up at the studio, took the photos, then went out for lunch. Quite painless actually.

However, it was really tough trying to get my boys to stay still and SMILE. A week in advanced, I carefully explained the whole process to my boys. We set up a little photo studio in our living room, complete with tripod and backdrop, and we practiced our SMILES. On the day - we had to bribe the 4 year old with chocolate ice cream, and the 2 year old simply refused to smile. Now he’ll definitely be remembered as The Grumpy One. Oh well.

At the dinner, we unveiled the photos and everyone loved them (read:thankfully it didn’t look crap). Us siblings gave a little speech, my dad sang a song for my mum, my mum cut the cake, we made my parents kiss for 60 seconds, everyone got drunk and engaged in a mass karaoke. It got really noisy at the end. All the families with small children had to leave early.

Anyway, the cutest moment for me that night - Sean gave everyone his EEEEEEEEE-SMILE all evening.

Callum found some friends to hang out with.

Sean demonstrates the importance of a good cue.

A basket of my freshly baked organic cheese and chive scones, sitting on my lap, in the car, on the way to another Easter party.

We’re up to our armpits in chocolate.

Finally! Every morning (for the past month), Callum would wake up and shout - “AM I FOUR YET? AM I FOUR YET?!”

So this morning, I woke up nice and early, jumped onto his bed, bouncing and shouting “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAL! YOU’RE FOUR! YOU’RE FOUR! IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!” It completely made his day.

This week, my church was holding a family camp - which meant 5 days of planned kid’s activities! Hanging out with friends and cousins! Playing! Games! Food! And most importantly, energetic tweens who fall over themselves to look after my boys. It was too good to miss. Plus there was nice line up of “Superhero” themed activities - which Callum immediately took as a cue to share his too-much knowledge of Spiderman to anyone who would listen.

I hijacked Thursday’s afternoon activities and arranged a little birthday party for him. I made a cake the night before, which Callum decorated. And I made some party bags, which the boys helped me fill. Nice and simple!

I wish I could say THAT WAS IT. But I promised Callum he could invite some of his school friends to another party - with a dress up theme! I know, I’m crazy! Stay tuned.

NB : One of the Superhero activities involved painting-your-own Superhero t-shirt. Hence Callum is wearing his very own, irritatingly unfinished, Spiderman design.

Woke up at 6:30am. Dressed the boys. Jumped into the car. Drove to a cafe in Leederville at 7:30am to meet up with friends - and their kids - for a hot, bacon and egg breakfast. Why? No reason. Just never done it before.

In theory, it sounds lovely yeah? Taking the kids out to a quiet trendy cafe. Us sitting back, reading the Saturday newspaper, sipping hot tea. The kids playing snap and eating poached eggs and toast. Listening to the streets wake up, the growing murmur of people, the clinking kitchen sounds…

Well. It didn’t quite turn out like that. The boys hardly ate anything. The 2yo spent most of the time reaching across the table for glass cups and hot teapots. The 4yo just fidgeted and shouted a lot. And overall it wasn’t the most relaxing experience.

So we drove over to Kings Park to let the boys run around for a bit. The weather was gorgeous. I showed the kids how the Whispering Wall worked (at the War Memorial). We traced palm tree shadows with our footsteps. Did somersaults on the lawn.

Then we stood at the lookout, on the edge of the cliff, looking over the city and the river. My 4 year old exclaimed with such innocence and wide-eyed amazement, “WOOOOOW MUM! I CAN SEE THE WHOLE WOOOOORLD!!!”

Gosh what an beautiful sentiment. Such glorious bearing. So pure, wondrous and uncomplicated.

Some friends invited us for a just-for-fun soccer match on the weekend. Mixed skill levels, bring kids, bring a picnic, socialise. It was such a great idea. And I had SUCH a great time!

Everything was just so casual. Laid-back rules. No one keeping score. Goals were marked with bike helmets. Kids were wandering around the field - looking for daddy. Dogs were trying to join in.

I was continually leaving the game because my 4 year old wanted me to explain the rules to him. He was utterly fascinated. I don’t think he’s ever seen us - both his parents - PLAY with other adults. And I was absolutely sure he was absorbing EVERYTHING. I could see his little brain press RECORD, gathering up information on “What’s the right way to play with other kids on a field” and storing it for later.

So I made it a big point to highlight the lessons of Being a Good Sport :

- It’s more important for everyone to have fun.
- It’s good to cheer when someone does something great.
- It’s good to say encouraging things when someone misses the ball.
- If you knock someone over, stop and apologise.
- No one teases. No one shows off. No one acts like a jerk.

Anyway. Speaking of showing off. I scored 2 goals! However, I didn’t lift my shirt over my head. I didn’t think that would go down well. Overall, I reeeally enjoy soccer. I get such a buzz from competitive group sports.

The last time I played… was for some corporate team ladder. Our mixed team of skinny, white-legged web geeks, against the bronzed, super-buff, engineering gods from Shell, BP, Woodside. I think we lost every game. But we got lots of exercise!

My father calls me up this afternoon to invite us over for dinner. He’s just decided to have an impromptu dinner party. He’s inviting a few friends over and thought we’d like to join them.

I say sure! Anything for free food!

We drive over 5 hours later. I expected a simple barbecue - you know - an assortment of meats, salads and breads.

But noooo. In less than FIVE HOURS, my mother roasted pork from scratch. She even popped out to the shops to buy stuff, then proceeded to make food for 16 people - fish head curry, chilli prawns, roast chicken, ginger beef, steamed fish, garlic kai lan, and stir fried veges. She completely freaks me out.

For Callum’s birthday cake, he insisted on having a cake that was scary. I was going to make a ghost cake, but that seemed a bit boring. I talked him into a Dinosaur World cake.

I think everyone knows I’m quite anti-food colouring, especially for birthday cakes. So this cake is food colouring-free!

My volcano wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped, it kinda got lost under the chocolate biscuit crumble. And no one noticed my jam lava.

As promised, I organised a birthday party for some of Callum’s closest school friends. It was a dress up party, with games. There were 12 kids in total.

I borrowed a “Party Pack” from my toy library - it had jumping sacks, throwing bean bags, eggs and spoons, stilts, a parachute, bubble wands. I just scattered them all over the garden and the kids just played with the bits and pieces. It was great!

I’m not a big fan of too many games during kid’s parties. They’re usually more trouble than they’re worth. Especially at this age. Kids have just as much fun doing things like… running. So I organised two kid’s games for 4 year olds that were low stress for me.

Treasure hunt. I hid chocolate gold coins all over our garden, then gave each kid a paper cup.

Decorate a cupcake. Made cupcakes the night before. Iced them, gave them out with a handful of lollies.

Since everyone’s talking about it…

I’ve been quite fascinated by the recent Top 100 Australian Blogs Index. An index calculated by a site’s Alexa Australia rank, Alexa Global rank and Technorati rank. Turns out I’m ranked at 14! How cool!!

What’s more interesting is uncovering some awesome Australian blogs!

Next is the Blogger’s Choice Awards. Very different to other awards - in that the votes are calculated in real time, all nominations are listed, and you can see who’s voting for who. Great for browsing new blogs too.

I’ve been nominated for Best Blog Design, Best Blog of All Time, Best Parenting Blog, and err.. Hottest Mommy Blogger. I’m doing rather badly at the moment, oh well. Maybe I should ease off the birthday cakes and start posting some naughty pics? Bwahaha.

Lots of people are emailing me, asking me about all kinds of stuff. I’m terribly sorry if I don’t reply. The guilt is really getting me down.

If it helps you, I’ve put up a Google Search (to search my site). It’s on my side bar, you might have to scroll down to see it.

After his birthday party, my 4 year old was over the moon with all his new superhero toys. There was way too much pretend fighting in the household for my liking.

So yesterday I went to my toy library and borrowed the LARGEST and PINKEST DOLL HOUSE I could find. Which led my son to create some rather interesting scenarios.

This one was my favourite. Apparently Spiderman wanted spaghetti for dinner, but he got angry, because you know, the turtle was slow.

Sugar snaps doing their thang.

My girlfriend came over for a cup of tea - turns out she hasn’t been to our place since we put down the new flooring and painted the walls.

She walked around noticing this and that. She loved my photo wall. And admired my choice of frames. It’s always so nice to have someone notice the details of my work.

As we paced around, I was re-examining my house with fresh eyes - and I was rather amused. Our home doesn’t boast of super trendy interiors, expensive furniture and the latest entertainment systems. It’s got nice personal touches here and there, but most of it’s quite modest and eclectic.

I’m not saying we’re poor. I’m just not interested in creating a stylish designer house for my family and keeping up with the latest lifestyle magazines. All that lifestyle stuff just gets in the way of LIFE.

I got this photo frame idea from my aunty. She lives in an old, teeny tiny house in a rougher part of town. Yet every time I step through her front door, I’m struck with the most amazing and astonishing sense of warmth, security, happiness and love.

I can’t put my finger on how she did it - but I’m inspired - I want my home to have that effect on people too.

My 4 year old made a cute little scene of mum and dad playing soccer, obviously inspired from our soccer game the other week.

Upon further inspection, I noticed a CAR kicking the ball. I chuckled and blurted, “Callum! Cars don’t play soccer! Couldn’t you find the dog-shaped cutter?”

He started to explain to me that ACTUALLY MUM, cars DO play soccer.

After a loooong, drawn out conversation, I discover… that when I leave my 4 year old and husband alone in the house, they stay up and watch Top Gear together.

And apparently they watched an episode where a bunch of pro racing drivers play football with real cars.

It’s been a while since I’ve found myself curled up on a lounge room floor with 14 other people, directing our screams, laughter and hysterics to a pile of plastic frogs.

In the presence of my good friends, I’ll always feel 17.

Aaahhh, there’s nothing like a good dose of shopping with the girlfriends to brighten my day. Especially during a lingerie sale.

I’m a complete sucker for Elle Macpherson’s Lingerie collection. There’s no other way to describe it - I’m a girl and they’re just so preeeeeeeety.

Photo is of a model from Indulge Fashion.