I started writing on Planning With Kids all the way back on January 2, 2008. At that time we only had four kids aged 10, 7, 5, and 2. Our youngest was born a year and a bit later on January 22, 2009. Almost 16 years later the kids are now 25, 22, 20, 17, and almost 15. My life is so very different from when I started. And while the teenage years have their challenges, I still feel family life became easier for me as the kids grew older. I often say there was a sweet spot when the eldest was 13 and the other kids were 11, 9, 6 and 3. If you have kids in that age range now, cherish those moment ..read more

For November my experiment was to practice a breathing exercise every day for at least 5 minutes and focus on breathing through my nose as much as possible at all times other than exercise. I was super consistent with this and managed to do it every day and I did notice a considerable difference in my mood and my patience levels. My goal this year has been to embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection and this monthly experiment was perfect in helping me work towards achieving my goal. Spending time focusing on breathing and practicing breathing techniques allo ..read more

With only a month or so until Christmas now is a great time to start thinking about your Christmas menu plan for 2023. Why start planning so early I hear you ask? Because it will make your life easier over the next month if you do! Starting your Christmas menu planning now means: You can space out the workload if you are hosting Christmas this year. Many of the menu plans below have sections where they list off what you can do 4 weeks out, 2 weeks out, 1 week out etc. Choosing a Christmas menu plan now that works for you means you can spend a small amount of time up front but then you can ju ..read more

Older teenagers can be the hardest age bracket to buy for. I know many who like to give some form of gift vouchers for older teens which I have done plenty of times but sometimes you do feel like buying them something physical and something that is a surprise. It is a tricky age to buy for because older teens can be super particular in their tastes. I am lucky now to have my older kids (in their 20s!) to act as great sounding boards for ideas for the older teenagers. In this post I have collated some of the favourite items we have in our house at the moment and that we have gifted to older te ..read more

Our Christmas wrapping station is all ready to go for Christmas 2023. I found this Christmas paper you can see in the photo above and it helped me choose a Scandinavian Christmas Theme for this year. I ordered the paper, gift tags and some ribbons online. I already had some left over ribbons and belli-bands that I can use (well mainly my daughter as she is the chief gift wrapper at our place) so didn’t need to order as much this year. In the Christmas wrapping station, we include: scissors tape ribbon belli-bands pens fine liners / textas gift tags and of course the Christmas wrapping paper ..read more

This collection of 10 non fiction books for Christmas presents in 2023 was super easy for me to collate as I just went through my wishlist of books and chose ones I think would make great gifts! Before I get to the list (if you wish to skip this part and head straight to the list click here) I will share with you a super simple but effective way I share Christmas gift ideas with my family. Shareable gift idea spreadsheet I have three wonderful sisters, the youngest of which is THE MOST organised person I know! It is often around this time of year she will email me asking for ideas on what to ..read more

For 2023 I have created a new and simpler Christmas expenditure tracker. While there isn’t a line for a budget in the spreadsheet, I am assuming you have set yourself a budget for how much you will spend this Christmas and you can work out how you are tracking against that. If you haven’t set a budget for how much you will spend this year, then sit down with the family and do that first. The free 2023 Christmas expenditure tracker is a Google Sheet. Please read the instructions in the first column so you can make a copy and make your own changes to the document. You can find it here: Free 202 ..read more

It is now just less than 10 weeks away until Christmas which is super exciting. The 10 week mark is when I like to start very slowly making plans and taking action for Christmas so I can spread out the workload and not get freaked out when December 1 rolls around with all the work I need to do. Planning and taking action ahead at this point helps in so many ways but I will list just a few reasons why I think you should start planning now: Having a planned approach to Christmas starting now means you can spend a few hours a week on tasks and avoid having to cram to get everything done in the ..read more

I saw a meme a few weeks ago that had Melbourne firmly placed in the season of “The spring of deception”. We had just had an amazing week of warm weather and true to form Melbourne has turned chilly again. But chilly does mean it is easy to get slow cooker meals over the line again with the kids. They are not that keen on slow cooker meals in summer. Now in the method for this Slow Cooker Beef Vindaloo I do write it up with some steps to brown the meat first. I do think this produces a slightly better taste in the end product but when I have been short on time, I have just made the paste then ..read more

This crunchy broccoli salad of mine was originally published on Essential Kids a number of years ago and I have linked to it a number of times because while it is definitely a salad for those that like broccoli, it is a tasty and satisfying addition to a main meal. Anyway at some point Essential Kids was taken over by Fairfax and then they scrapped the site altogether so when you click on any links for the recipes I had on Essential Kids they go through to 9 Honey Parenting. Over the coming months, I will be publishing some of the best recipes that I created for Essential Kids on Planning Wit ..read more