Just 24 hours to go until Lauren's party (have you picked up on the fact that parties are Big Deals in our family) and I am cautiously optimistic about getting a reasonable amount of sleep tonight. For Robyn's Amazing Race party Peter and I probably had about an hour between us.

So far, the chefs' hats are cut out ready for the kids to decorate and assemble them, the digital photos for the treasure hunt are printed, my mom has finished the treasure map of the garden, the ice cream, wafers, and little-umbrella-things for the DIY ice-cream sundaes are bought, half the treasure for the hunt has been bought, and the cake has been planned. Just got to do some shopping this afternoon for the usual party food, ingredients and decorations for the gingerbread, birthday cake and sundaes, and then make the cake this evening. It's a tradition for Peter and me to be icing the birthday cake, bleary-eyed in the kitchen, in the small hours of the morning. This year I think I will provide some comforting beverages for company.

I love parties. I was talking with some other moms while the girls were doing gym. I am weird, apparently, as they all dread their kids' parties. I'm sort of half playing around with the idea of starting up a home-made parties business one day. Only drawback might be not making any actual money. Or so I thought until I heard how much some other parents are willing to pay on parties. One of the most time-consuming aspects of parties is the planning time and thinking up new and fresh ideas that my kids will love. But to roll out an already tried and tested party would be much less effort. Another option would be to provide the venue as well (hook up with a catering company and hire a cleaner-upper person). Oh well, I guess I have another item to add to my To Do list, along with buy cat food, take curtains to cleaners, and 20 other things.

* Develop amazing home parties business and have lots of fun and make little bit of money.