My 8 month old, Liam, sits up like a cute little chicken and crawls like a caterpillar.

He’ll chase a slater across the kitchen floor, catch it in his hands and examine it very closely – WITHOUT PUTTING IT IN HIS MOUTH!

My 4.5 year old, Sean, has begun his career as a professional comedian. He jokes around all the time. He loves silly word play, daggy puns, slapstick humour and just hams it up for any keen audience.

When the boys play “pretend” sword fighting, he likes to get “stabbed” so that he can perform a 5-minute dying sequence full of sound effects, eye-rolling and body twitching.

My 6.5 year old, Callum, is the brainy, quirky one. He’s sharp as a tack and he’s full of indepth conversations and questions about Staw Wars.

He loves all his subjects, but most of all sports. Every evening, we play a bit of tennis, soccer, basketball, or bike riding in the park - trying to keep up with him is tiring, but I love it!

It’s still a work in progress, and I’m so so SO sure that I’m missing some - sorry, I’m working on it!

Please drop me a line if you have a super-duper site I might fancy!

Enjoy!

You know how sometimes you meet a girl who looks absolutely incredible, and then she tells you that she bought the designer dress she was wearing - on sale - for $10 and the jacket for $20… and you walk away thinking.. OMG how does she find those sales???

Anyway, I’ve recently found the answer – FACEBOOK!

So I popped over to one of those elusive clearance sales on a sunny Saturday morning.

Today’s sale was held at an old, but charming, local community hall. I turned up nice and early and joined the very long queue that had already formed.

At 10am on the dot, they opened the doors and everyone poured in. There were dozens of racks and tables covered with STUFF! Dresses, jackets, jeans, shoes, bags, accessories, you name it.

The markdown prices were REALLY incredible. From $250 down to $50. And tonnes of $20 and $10 items. It was look, grab, look, grab, LOOK, GRAB, GRAB, GRAB.

Then with arms full of clothes, people slowly made their way to the change rooms.

Now I suspect that this is a norm for these kind of sales – but the change rooms are NOT NORMAL change rooms. It is just a room, for changing in.

In fact, it was just a big store room, with chairs and a couple of mirrors.

Everyone, with their bundles of goodies, found a corner, created a little haystack of clothes on the floor and just got on with it.

Off with their clothes – thighs, boobs, legs were flying everywhere.

The room was jam packed with women on a mission.

The room was humming with chatter. It was like being in a cloud of random girl speak – Do I look fat in this? Is this see-through? This makes me arms look huge! Can you see my bra? This would look great with jeans. I’m so wearing this to Sharon’s party! Neh it looks crap. I don’t know where I would wear this. It’s only $5 so I may as well buy it.

It was the oddest thing ever.

And I found some spectacular bargains! Can’t wait to share with you all!

Anyway, if you’re in Perth and you’re interested in finding info on any more designer clearance sales, join Tu’s Facebook Group!

I’ve forgotten the strange pleasure of turning lumps of hard vegetables into velvety, soft, creamy mush, then filling up freezer bags of colourful ice cubes.

And at the risk of sounding like a complete nerd, I just have to say – vegetable colours are so beautiful.

So without further ado, I hereby introduce you to baby food porn and all its pureed goodness!

This is raw pumpkin, chopped, ready for steaming and pureeing.

Pureed pumpkin. I find it hilarious that it looks the same coming out, as it does going in.

Ok move along, don’t look and think about it for too long.

Chopped carrots. Just check out the colour of the orange!

Broccoli, green beans and mushy white rice. Doesn’t the deep green just scream CALCIUM!

I slop all the goop into ice cube trays. When it’s all frozen, I transfer them into labelled freezer bags.

Then before feeding time, I defrost various combinations of green mush and orange mush, or mix it with mashed banana, apple puree or pear puree.

When I make apple and pear puree, it always turns out too tart, or just funny tasting. So I buy ready-made fruit purees and mix it with my own vegetable mixes.

I’ve been making baby food by the truck load these last few days.

I’m sure there’s a growth spurt on the way. Or just a very big poo.

I went shopping the other day and picked up two new shoes from Betts.

I plonked them on the floor and had a good laugh.

Can you say MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES?

(Black ones are called Galaxy, cream ones are Society.)

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Fashion and Shopping Directory.

With a family of young children, I never thought myself to be a regular jet setter.

However last year, in July I flew to Singapore for 4 days for my birthday. Then in August I flew interstate to Melbourne for 5 days for a blogging trip. Then in October I took another interstate flight to Adelaide for 3 days to interview Lance Armstrong.

Prior to each trip, I was very rushed and busy. And in terms of travel accessories and belongings, I was very ill-equipped.

I threw things in plastic shopping bags, I bundled up my papers with rubber bands, I used a lot of zip lock bags, I used cheap bottles to store my face and body washes (which of course, leaked and spilled everywhere) and I put all my jewellery in a little cloth bag (which made everything get tangled up.)

I guess I see myself as a very inexperienced traveller, and sought to find some good quality travel accessories - so I could at least be more equipped the next time I travel.

I came across CiaoBella Travel, an online shop that stocks all kinds of handy bags, luggage tags, travel pillows, beauty products, travel clothes and more, for a stylish traveller.

I loved their site, contacted them, received some goods to review, and yay, it was ALL GREAT STUFF!

Pictured above, I tested out this very stylish, silver mesh jewellery pouch. It features 2 pockets, a necklace clip, and you can poke your earring studs through the material if you want. They have some other very cool jewellery cases too.

Ok so I don’t know about you, but by the end of my trips, I end up with 3 or 4 bags in my suitcase. Some bags for rubbish, some for new clothes, some for shoes, some for wet clothes, and I get them all mixed up, and I’m always terrified that I might throw away the wrong bag, so I always spend a lot of time opening up this bag and that bag to check check check.

Anyway, I thought these laundry lingerie & shoe bags were such a cute and simple idea. They can definitely fit more than what I have photographed here.

Another fab idea, is this Wash Me Wear Me Bag! Basically two cloth bags (with lining) sewn together. You put your clean undies in one pouch, and the dirty ones in the other!

Here’s something I have always needed – a travel wallet to keep all my important documents in one place, with a buckle.

And I think my favourite of the lot are these super stylish and practical Fold Out Bath and Cosmetic Bags that fold out and hang vertically!

Anyway, even if these things are not for you, travel accessories make excellent gifts for Christmas.

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Fashion and Shopping Directory.

We stopped by a jetty and noticed that the tide had gone out.

The boys looked at each other, looked back at us, then RAN AND JUMPED OFF THE JETTY INTO ANKLE DEEP MUD!

They looked for treasure and all kinds of goodies hidden in the black sludge - collecting old bottles, bottle tops, cans, drinking straws, chip packets, tipping the muddy contents out on the jetty and smearing it all over themselves.

My husband and I stood there thinking – Is there something wrong with us? How on earth did we manage to raise such feral kids, who celebrate over a pile of rubbish? Other parents must think we deprive our children of childhood necessities like Ben10 and soap.

They were SO dirty by the end of it. Their jeans, t-shirts, hands, faces, and hair were covered with mud and sand! And they smelt SO BAD - like dead fish and seaweed! Gah! BOYS!

They looked for messages inside the bottles. And my oldest boy kept saying hilarious things like, “Mum what’s a bottle of COLD? Do they mean that the bottle is cold? But what if it’s warm? And why would someone buy a bottle of LITTLE CREATURES, and do you actually drink the creatures??”

Then we noticed that our 4.5 year old, Sean, had a missing boot. He said it flew off somewhere, and I was quite annoyed that he failed to notify us about it, when it happened.

We searched and searched and eventually found it stuck in the mud, several paces off the shore. Sitting like a lonely, washed up sea animal.

What was more interesting, was how me managed to keep his sock so clean!

My mother used to tell me stories about “when she was a child”.

She grew up in a family of 10 children, and never had any money for toys. She and her sisters used to play with “dolls” which were actually sticks wrapped up in scraps of cloth. They used to collect bottle tops, glass jars, marbles, wood, broken furniture, and other bits of rubbish by the side of the road, and turn them into toys and games.

Of course, I re-tell my children these same stories.

I inflict them with the WOODEN STICK DOLL STORY, whenever my children whinge “Muuuuum I’m boooooored!”

Then there’s the story of when grandpa was a kid. Did you know he had to walk for MILES in the snow… in shoes that were too small for his feet… and he had to cut off the front of the shoe to make room for his toes!

Or the one where grandma’s family had 12 PEOPLE LIVING IN ONE SMALL HOUSE the size of our garage!

Then of course, I just had to throw my own stories into the mix, just so that they have ample ammunition for THEIR OWN CHILDREN in the future.

“Did you know my sister and I never played computer games. We’d spend all day climbing trees and swinging on vines in the jungle behind our house. We would make secret hideouts. And we would even draw on rocks and sticks and turn them into play things.”

So the other day, what do you know… I stumbled across my children playing with these rock cars.

It’s even more tricky when the wedding is held in a hot afternoon, following by a reception-dinner til midnight.

Trying to dress for hot and cold weather gives me such a headache.

Not to mention, my outfit had to be “nursing friendly”, as I needed to breast feed my baby.

I had to find something that could:

1) Look good as day wear and evening wear,

2) Look somewhat Spring-ish and formal,

3) Had to look good with a jacket (because I hate the cold and mosquitoes!)

This is what I came up with.

A floral top from Review. Dusky pink tulip mini skirt from Forever New. Black jacket. And some moderately fierce shoes from Betts.

I also had a white flower accessory in my hair, but it didn’t make it to the wedding, because my baby yanked it off and ate it.

So I decided to use my baby as my fashion accessory instead - it’s very trendy these days (unless you’re the one getting married!).

He was cute as can be, and very well behaved until he puked up on my jacket!!

Well once upon a time, I did have short hair.

This is what I looked like in 1998 - I was 20. Don’t you love the passport photo?

One day, eleven years ago, my hair was long and straight, and I suddenly thought – IT’S TIME.

I walked into a hair salon in Singapore, and said, I’d like a bob thanks.

The hairdresser, who was a lovely, young Singaporean man said, “Eh? Bob? Wah?””

And I was like, “Eh? Do you speak English? Bob! Short! Cut it all off!”

He then spent 15 minutes trying to talk me out of it.

But I waved my hands around saying, “No no! I’ve already thought about it! My love life is going no where! I need a holiday! I need a change! Cut it off! All! Now!“

He was so nice to me after that.

He actually cut it a bit shorter and sleeker than in the picture here – longer at the front and shorter at the back.

Anyway, it was the shortest I ever had my hair. Everyone said it looked great on me, that it made me look taller and my neck look longer.

But it took me AGES to get used to using a SMALL amount of shampoo when washing my hair. I’d get into the shower, squirt a HUGE GLOB into my palm, and think ARGH TOO MUCH! And try to squeeze the shampoo back into the bottle. So, short hair =  little shampoo.

And all the blow drying and styling was annoying. I couldn’t just wake up, tie my hair back in a ponytail and go. I had to use so much product to stop myself from looking like a bear.

And then I had to visit my hairdresser every 4 weeks for a trim. It was so expensive to maintain.

This is me in 1998 or 1999, I can’t actually remember. The other person in the picture is my little sister, and she was feeling very blurry that day. Hi Sis!

I think I kept my hair short for about a year. I tried a few variations of this length – the “Posh” bob, a more jagged bob, wispy ends that curled up, ends that curled in, and a few different shades. Then I got bored with it.

I was tempted to cut it REALLY short, and try the whole cute pixie-look, or spiky biker-chick look! But I didn’t like the idea of being mistaken for a guy. Hey, that might’ve been kind of interesting! Being a biker chick, that is.

And then I really, really wanted to dye it pink, blue or purple, just for fun.

But in the end, I was very busy with work, so I just decided to slowly grow it out again.

Mind you, it looked terrible for ages! I looked like a school girl until it grew to about shoulder length.

And my hair has been long past my shoulders ever since, and getting longer and longer.

So there you have it.

The very short history of my not-so-short hair.