My Raisin Family

Hey Guys! Just wanted to jump on real quick and let you know what is coming up on the blog! We have our Large Family Laundry Routine coming up next and then a monthly meal plan for May after that. If you are enjoying reading our blog, thank you! My aim is to get at least 2-3 posts out a month at this point as we have a lot of appointments and possibly a surgery for my daughter. We also have a couple of birthdays in May so I might put up a Birthday blog as well! Thank you for being patient with me through this, and I hope you all have a great day! Much Love, Jacqui!

Good Morning! As a busy mum of now 6, I know how hard it is to not just concentrate on the massive to-do lists in front of us every day. Just let me start with a disclaimer: I am by no means perfect at reading my Bible every day, I just try to include some form of the Bible in my day, because let's face it, I can't really live my best life without it. Let me just insert a picture of something my now 7 year old daughter made over a year ago. I don't know where the idea come from for her, but I sure am thankful she did. She didn't make a fuss about it, she took my shopping list into her room with a pen wrote out these beautiful words and simply put it on my desk, which is where it has been ever since. Every single time I look at it, I am reminded of the importance of being a good God example for our children. They look at what we do all the time and mimic our behaviour. So if we as mothers and fathers, continuously show our children that we are immersing ourselves...

Hey Guys! So sorry for the post being sooo late.... but here it is! My next tip for grocery shopping is to try, try, try to not take kids with you. I know this may be next to impossible for a lot of people, but there are other options. Whenever I take my kiddos shopping with me, I always end up with a stack of things I don't need, there are always temper tantrums because I said no to something. If I have the option to not take the kids into the grocery store, I don't. There is no use putting yourself through the stress of having to deal with kids tantrums and trying to stick to your list especially when you have a small budget. Tip Number 8 is to make use of the in-store points cards. Here in Australia, Coles have the FlyBuys cards and Woolworths have rewards cards (We don't really have any other ones where we are which is why i have only mentioned these two). The thing to remember when using these cards is to not let the bonus points affect your list too much....

Hey Guys! Today we are going to talk about saving time and money while grocery shopping! Having a family of 9 now (long story, sorry can't really go into it, but we now have a Mr3 and a Mr1!), I have had to really cut down my grocery budget and be a little more wise with every cent. After reading through a bunch of great books, I have managed to cut my weekly grocery budget down to around $100 for our large family, but still eat healthy food with the occasional sweet treat.  My number one tip would be to... Meal plan!  Meal planning may take some time, however if done consistently, you end up with an organised system that you can pull meals from when you don't have a lot of time. I keep my menu plan in my Kikki K planner so I always have access to my calendar so I know what I have on that week. Even when we do have planned nights out, I always plan and shop for a meal for that night anyway just in case. Some nights we have had a plan to go out for a meal with fr...

Welcome everyone! Well, the Christmas/Summer holidays are in full swing here and I thought I would share with you some of the cheap or free activities for the kiddos we have done or planned! #1: Our favourite books! We all spent the morning in our pj's and read our favourite books! Then we had some conversations about the books we read, asked questions like 'Why is this your favourite book?' and 'Who was our favourite character and why?' etc. This was a great way to start our summer holidays as it allowed everyone to relax after a really busy last week of school. I love doing this with the kids because of the educational aspect of it, getting to know how much the kiddos are comprehending what they are reading allows me to see how much they have grown in their understanding and vocabulary skills. #2: Swimming! We are lucky enough to have a pool in our yard and the kids have been enjoying the cool water most days. This is great for them to let out energy before...

Hey everyone! So last week was our morning routine, this week is our evening routine! I will go from after school pick up because, like our morning routine, our evenings do tend to go fast as well. So after school, they have a small snack like a few Shapes biccies or some yoghurt or cheese depending on whether they had any dairy snacks in their lunch boxes that day. I do try to cook dinner or at least prep it (chop veggies etc.) before I go get the kids from school to make it easier on us during homework time. The kids have a bit of a run around after they eat to burn some energy off before they get their homework out. We have a fairly big backyard so there is plenty of space for them all to play. A favourite game of theirs lately, is Ninja Warrior. So they use things like the trees and the swing set and the trampoline and most important, their imaginations. After they have had about 15 to 20 minutes outside, they come in, have a drink of water and get their homework done. For...

So, since this is the very first blog post, I thought we could start with our regular school term morning routine.  Our Morning Routine Our mornings get really busy and tend to go real fast due to the fact that we are a one car family and I have to take my husband to work every day. We are fortunate in that we also live with my mum so I do not have to get all the kids up and bring them with me.  So my day starts at 6am, when my alarm goes off and I keep pressing the snooze button until 6:30am mainly due to the fact that I am NOT a morning person. As soon as I do get up it is time to wake up the babies! First up, my 8 year old son. He usually wakes up pretty easily and I don't have to keep going back to get him out of bed. He is also the one who, when he feels helpful, gets the bowls out for breakfast along with the cereal.  Next is my 7 year old daughter. She can be a little tough to get up some mornings, but generally speaking she gets up within a few minutes of ...