Images by trekkyandy and A National Acrobat

Over the last couple of months I have started increasing my use of social media, mainly on Twitter and StumbleUpon.

Part of becoming more engaged in social media has meant that when I see a post I like, not only do I bookmark it for future reference so that I can use it my monthly round up posts, I also “Stumble” it to share with other Stumblers.

If you are interested in trying out StumbleUpon, you can find some easy to follow instructions on Downloading StumbleUpon Toolbar on my other blog.

My top posts are divided equally amongst craft and parenting this month:

Craft

(1). Craft City Salute - Country Women’s Association
Crafting has definitely made its comeback and this craft blog, takes time to salute their forerunners.

(2). Sewing for the Home ~ Fabric Bulletin Board
I have been wanting to make one of these for some time now and did not know where to start. This is a great tutorial and I wish that I would be making it sooner, but don’t think I will get a chance to do so until the end of the year.

(3). Introducing…The Undercover Crate (another free tut for you)
Do you have any old milk crates lying around your house? Here is a tutorial that will show you how not only to make them useful but also beautiful.

(4). Before Dinner Skirts
The ever creative SouleMama shows off some skirts that she just whips up her her little girl before dinner. Oh how I envy such sewing skills!

(5). Fourth carnival for green crafts
This post has so many amazing ideas about how to recycle general household materials and turn them into gorgeous crafty goodness.

Parenting

(6). Patience and Understanding; Discipline and Arguments
This is written by a father with such honesty and reflection that it really made me reflect on my own behaviour.

(7). This Princess Votes For the Paupers
This post from Silicon Valley Moms talks about the upcoming presidential election in America, however the point about thinking about others instead of just ourselves can be applied to any situation in any country.

(8). The value of family dinners and giving our children presence
The Crunchy Domestic Goddess writes on a topic close to my heart. It was written on the lead up to Monday, Sept. 22 which marked the 8th annual Family Day - A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children in America. Makes me sad to think that we need to even have days like this.

(9). The Daily Balance of Parenting & Housework: Four Useful Reminders
It is nice to hear that other stay at home mums struggle with the balance between getting stuff done around the house and spending time with the children. SimpleMom has 4 simple reminders to help out here.

(10). Room re-do part III: a chalkboard and a felt board
The Artful parent shares a practical and cute idea on how she has redecorated her children’s rooms and provided a creative space for the children at the same time.

Technorati Tags: blogs, parenting, stumbleupon toolbar

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Just a quick note to let you know that I have a post up at Aussie Bloggers - Managing Blog Subscriptions. Not one child related word written there, but advice on how to manage 100s of blog subscriptions!

Technorati Tags: aussie bloggers, google reader

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Image by avlxyz

Growing up as a child in the 70s and 80s, traditional dinner fare consisted of meat and three veg. The only pasta we ate was spaghetti bolognaise and there was not a risotto or stir fry in sight.

This week’s menu plan could easily have been one from my own childhood. The children chose all the meals and these are definitely some of their favourites. As I reminisce with my friends about eating meat and three veg as a staple, I often think that my kids in the future will be saying the same of pasta and stir fries!

I would love to hear what was traditional fare in your house growing up!

Here is the family menu plan for the week:

Monday: Tuna Mornay

Tuesday: Chicken Schnitzel and Vegetables

Wednesday: Fried Rice

Thursday: Spaghetti Bolognaise

Friday: Left Overs

Saturday: Porcupine Meatballs

Sunday: Sausage and Vegetables

For more menu planning ideas head on over to Laura’s place at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“.

Technorati Tags: family freindly meals, menu plan, Recipes

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As mentioned before, the amount of time my children watch television is limited. When they do watch it, it tends to be mainly on non commercial channels or DVDs. So I was completing amazed by the results of study discussed in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this month. It looked at research undertaken at the University of Sydney. The study looked at more than 20,000 ads aired during popular children’s programs, finding more than one-quarter promoted junk food.

The article concluded that :

“Children are subjected up to three inducements to eat junk food for every hour of television they watch”

Not only are there heavily concentrated junk food ads, but junk food ads that screen during children’s programs are 18 times more likely to use gimmicks like competitions and celebrity power.

Lesley King who was a researcher involved in the study says that:

“These techniques are used even more for unhealthy foods at the [time] children are watching television,” she said. “These all appear to be strongly reliant on these tactics to influence the decisions [children make].”

There is a move by some state governments to introduce legislation to regulate the advertisements that are on during children’ television show. I acknowledge that parents have a role in monitoring what and how much children watch, but when only one hour of children’s television exposes them to three junk food ads, I really think that it is time that there is some level of regulation introduced.

What do you think? Time to curb the level of junk food advertising aimed at our kids, or is it solely up to parents to manage?

Technorati Tags: children's television, junk food

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Each year I like to make my own tags for Christmas presents. I pick a theme based on colour or pattern and match up wrapping paper and tags. I have contemplated making my own paper (by decorating plain paper) but generally run out of time, so haven’t actually done this.

This year I have decided to go with gold and silver for my theme and have just made a start on my Christmas Present Tags. I decided on the theme based on the materials I already had in the house, so they have not made any new expenditure that I have to add to the Christmas Budget which is great.

In the above photo, you will see a variety of types of Christmas present tags that I made from plain white cardboard. For the first time, I have sewn some small baubles on to the card for something different and think they look quite effective.

I used a standard needle and thread to attach the bauble to the card. To ensure the bauble stays in place, I made another sticth very close to the original and place the needle to the inside of the card.

I had made faint pencil marks on the inside of the card so that I knew where to place the stitch and repeated these steps until I had completed my design.

To finish off the Christmas Present Tags, I use a hole punch to place a hole in the top left hand corner and thread some ribbon through the hole. The ribbon can then be used to easily attach the tag to the Christmas Present.

Technorati Tags: christmas planning, christmas present tags, homemade

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A lovely reader included this in an email to me recently:

I really liked the idea of your weekly family meeting I was wonder though what sort of topics are brought up at these meetings and if the children bring up issues in your house and if so what sort of issues are they bringing up. I am definitely going to start having family meetings at our house but i just am not sure how to make my 6 & 4 yr olds understand the purpose of having a family meeting.

PURPOSE
Background for those of you who may not have read a previous post on having a family meeting, the purpose of our family meetings are:

• To provide a communication strategy to deal with contentious issues.
• To create a forum where all voices are equal.
• Create a forum to jointly plan activities and areas of home life.
• To role mode and offer opportunities for the kids to practice decision making, negotiation and problem solving skills.
• To create a sense of ownership of family decisions.

If I were to repeat the above purpose to my four year old she would probably just stare at me and say that family meetings are for “sharing stories and solving problems”. At its core that is really what we do and Mr Infrastructure and I really try to encourage both the problem solving and the idea generation to come from the children.

We have been successful in obtaining valuable input from the children in these meetings by making sure that our expectations are age appropriate and that all their contributions are respected (no matter how off beat they are!).

PARENT INPUT
I think the best way to introduce small children to family meetings is to role model the types of issues you would like to discuss. We try very hard to keep the meetings positive family interactions and try to avoid them to turning into a “wingefest”. So for the first few meetings, I would suggest that the parents have a couple of positive or fun things to discuss, along with any issues that they may have. Here are some examples of things in this category that I have brought to our family meetings:

• Acknowledging the children’s support of the time I spent on the 30 Day Challenge.
• What would they like to do on the school holidays?
• Ideas on how to celebrate Grand Final Day (Australian Rules Football).
• Highlighting children’s achievements at the end of the school year.

More serious issues can then be brought up in this positive environment. Mr I and myself have brought up things like:

• Packing up one game, before going on to another.
• Leaving food scraps like apple cores around the house.
• Managing birthday party celebrations.
• Respecting each others need for private time.

We tend to state the problem and then open the discussion for solutions, leaving our opinions to last. Hopefully we can come to a resolution without the need for too much parent input.

CHILDREN’S INPUT
In terms of what the children bring to the meeting, it is helpful if you have the minutes book easily accessible. We use the back of the minutes book to note down issues that the children may bring to me during the fortnight (we are currently having fortnightly meetings).

This works wonderfully well in two key ways:

• It places responsibility for resolving the problem on to the child.
• It stops the complaining as they know it will be addressed seriously at the next family meeting.

There is an amazing range of issues that my children have brought to the family meetings and I have noted some of them below:

• Thinker wanted to stay up later on school nights.
• Possum wanted Babaganouski to stop pulling her hair.
• Little Rascal no longer wanted to have a bath with his younger brother and sister.
• Little Rascal wanted to make something out of wood.
• Thinker wanted to be able to get up in the middle of the night and watch the Soccer World Cup.
• Thinker wanted to go the beach.
• Possum wanted to see dad’s work.
• Little Rascal wanted to go fishing.

No doubt any or all of these items could have been solved outside a family meeting and there is certainly times when these types of issues are resolved instantly and amongst only two family members. Part of the point of the family meetings for the younger children is to get them to understand how they work, what they are for and how they should behave in them.

Another reason why the children will tend to wait and bring these issues up in the family meeting is (I think) for the accountability this places on mum and dad to carry out any actions that they are assigned in the meeting. The previous meetings minutes are reviewed at the start of every family meeting, and mum and dad do have to own up to whether or not the task is completed!

Over the years that we have been conducting family meetings, the children start to bring more serious issues to the table and also with them solutions that they have created themselves to propose for the rest of the family to discuss. We now have in place a framework for communicating in the family, that will make managing a house with five adolescents with competing needs much easier. Everyone will understand the process needed to follow to change/adapt/adopt family practices and to share ideas.

CONSENSUS DECISION MAKING
Consensus decision making is key to successful family meetings. Each family member needs to know that their opinion, regardless of their age is considered with the same weight. Through their knowledge of this, they are far more likely to contribute and to carry out the actions of the family meeting.

Good luck with your family meetings, and I hope you find them as useful and helpful as we do!

Technorati Tags: consensus decision making, family meetings

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Image by johnpetru82

I read lots of blogs from mums in the northern hemisphere and during our winter this year, I came across the term “staycation”. It is a term many use to describe their holidays when they don’t actually leave and go anywhere. We are having a “staycation” these school holidays and will be in lovely Melbourne for the whole two weeks.

Luckily for us Melbourne has an enormous range of free and cheap children’s activities during the holidays. Here are ten of my favourites:

(1). ACMI Free Kids Flicks
In Federation Square, Melbourne, this school holidays there is a number of kids movies on at ACMI. The stand out for me is the animated adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (free). It screens daily from Mon to Fri of both weeks of the holidays at 10.30am.

EDIT: Other films during the holidays are at a fee of $5 per ticket.

(2). The Melbourne Magic Festival
The Melbourne Magic Festival is being held at Northcote Town Hall from Sept 22 to Oct 4. Depending on the age group of your children there are a variety of magic acts from comedy, to clowns and illusions.

(3). Puss In Boots Pantomime
He’s behind you!!!! The Tivoli Theatre in Malvern has regular children’s productions and this school holidays it is Puss In Boots. Highlight of course would be the fairy bread and lemonade (incl in ticket price) at interval.

(4). Just Macbeth
Running from the 19th Sept to 5th Oct, “Just Macbeth! by Andy Griffiths is a really silly version of Shakespeare’s great big gory tragedy.” Suitable for children from 7 onwards.

(5). State Library of Victoria
The Play Pod is a colourful and kid-friendly space in Experimedia. Children can dip into their favourite picture-books, view children’s digital art, or borrow an activity pack and make their own book, or a replica of Ned Kelly’s helmet! (Young children should be supervised by an adult.)

The Play Pod is open to the standard library hours. No bookings are required and it is free.

(6). Immigration Museum
All About Me - Who are you and where do you come from? Children can take part in our special activities and learn more about yourself, your siblings, parents and grandparents. Then they can design their own family tree using our specially created 3-dimensional template. Entry to the museum is $6 for adults and children are free. Activities are also free.

(7). National Gallery Of Victoria (Australia)
NGV Australia is also located at Federation Square in Melbourne. The theme for Artcart during the first week of the school holidays is Found & Made. From 12pm - 3pm children can see how sculptor Robert Klippel turned toy parts and other found objects into mini-sculptures. Children can then see what they can find at Artcart to create their own mini-sculpture. Free

(8). Melbourne Fringe Festival - The Mermaid’s Daughter
There are a handful of events in the Fringe Festival aimed at families. The pick for me is The Mermaid’s Daughter. It is a shadow puppet play with traditional African music, folklore and storytelling.

(9). CERES
CERES is located on 4.5 hectares (10 acres) on the banks of the Merri Creek, in East Brunswick, close to Melbourne’s centre. CERES runs on renewable energy, is a 55 tonne carbon sink, conserves and recycles its water and waste, grows organic food, and allows visitors to explore environmentally friendly ways of living.

Spring school holidays is the perfect time to take the kids for a tour of this wonderful place. Donation entry.

(10). Gasworks - Swordfighting
Gasworks has an amazing program of workshops for children of all ages during the holidays from acting to media workshops to….Swordfighting. The choice was clear for Little Rascal when he was showed the options!

The workshop is taken by a nationally accredited coach, Chris Jones who teaches the basic skills of fencing and sword fighting in an intensive class. Cost is $18 and see their website for various days and times.

So much to do, so little time! I love to take the kids to fun, new and interesting activities but do try to balance it with days at home pottering as well. We have a great list to choose from here and will be doing only a few of these children’s activities during the school holidays. If you are on school holidays, I hope you have a fun and relaxing time whatever you are up to.

Technorati Tags: Children's Activities, Melbourne, School holidays

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We have two week school holidays now, which both myself and the children have been looking forward to. As such I am planning on enjoying the slower pace and will be keeping the food simple, choosing meals which require minimum effort!

Monday: Baked Penne With Bacon

Baking: 100s Of Biscuits
Fantastic recipe which I picked up from Kate at Picklebums. Baking these with the kids also doubles as a great school holiday activity as well.

Tuesday: Beef Stir Fry with Asian Greens

Wednesday: Grilled Fish and Steamed Vegetables

Thursday: Spicy Chutney Chicken with Mixed Rice

Friday: Homemade Pizza

Saturday: Mexibake

Sunday: Lamb Chops and Salad

For more menu planning ideas head on over to Laura’s place at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“.

Technorati Tags: family friendly food, Menu Planning, Recipes

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1. Colours, 2. March 13, 2006: Chalk Rainbow, 3. Ok, what’s the deal?, 4. Colors, colors, colors!, 5. More from the Heidelberg Project, 6. United Colors of Legotton, 7. Water balls, 8. high in the sky, 9. i want candy.

The blue theme that I had installed on Planning With Kids in May, was supposed to be temporary until I could work out how to bring my dots from my old incompatible theme, across to the new theme on the updated version of Wordpress.

Well four months later, I decided to start a fresh and bring some colour to Planning With Kids, which I think represents what I write about much more than the plain blue. To celebrate the return of colour I have created a colour mosaic. If you would like to create a mosaic you can do so by following these steps:

(1). Use Compfight to search for flickr images - select the Commercial option and you will get only photos that are okay to be shared.

(2). Use bighugelabs to make the mosaic. It will give you a handy pre-made list to copy and paste into your blog, so that you can make sure to credit where the photos came from.

(3). You can then either save it to your computer or upload it to your flickr account.

There is still a couple of tweaks that I need to make to the site which I will be doing over the next couple of days. Thanks for putting up with the technical changes (and talk) over the week end.

Technorati Tags: colour, mosaic, wordpress theme

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Just a quick note to let you know that in a couple of hours, I will upgrading the blog to the newest version of Wordpress. During this time, the site will be briefly unavailable. Hopefully, there will be no repeat of my disastrous upgrade to 2.5 and the site will be back up and running with no problems. See you then!

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