Mum's gone 2 Aus

Following on from our recent articles on food and eating habits in Australia: Jamie Oliver – Australia needs you! and Children’s snacks and lunch box fillers: The healthier options in Australia, in today’s Photo Friday we’re sharing information and images on the “free from” food available in Australian supermarkets.

As we’ve mentioned before, when you first arrive in Australia and have a million and one things to… Read more

In Jamie Oliver – Australia needs you! we discussed food labelling standards in Australia and foods sold in Australian schools. When we arrived in Australia we went through a complete re-education in terms of identifying the most natural food brands for our children.

Our boys eat constantly and our eldest is more interested in playing during his breaks at school than eating. I find preparing an interesting and healthy packed lunch every day quite challenging; and… Read more

Whether you’ve just arrived in Australia or have been living here for a while holding or attending a Garage Sale is a very Aussie thing to do on a weekend. Australian’s love recycling and with the cost of living high buying cheaper second hand items is a savvy way to shop.

On Saturday May 5th 2012 the second Garage Sale Trail will be held across Australia; last year the initiative was a great success with 1,613… Read more

Has the My Family car sticker craze reached where you live in Australia? If you’re reading this from elsewhere in the world, are cars around you covered in these stickers?

In Sydney, over the last six months, we’ve noticed that every other car displays stick figure characters of the family that owns and rides in them. In case you’ve totally missed it, stickers are placed on the back window of the car.

My Family car stickers:

… Read more

In The challenges of making friends once you’re a parent we talked about the tricky process of setting up a friendship circle for Mum and Dad once you’ve relocated to Australia, or anywhere else in the world. We shared our top “making friends” tips for relocating parents and one of these tips was; “Don’t be tight with babysitting”. We recommended assigning a monthly budget to babysitting so that you can treat yourselves to grown up nights out with… Read more

Hot on the heels of finding school and childcare places in Sydney, is the surprisingly challenging task of finding a decent hairdresser.

When we lodged our Australian visa application in 2004, we recall being told that “hairdressing” was on the list of professions in the Australian skilled migration program. In 2010 the Australian government removed hairdressing from the skills list for independent permanent migration; regional or state sponsored migration for hairdressers may still be possible (see… Read more

In Photo Friday #42 we shared a picture of a new Havaianas vending machine, the first machine was installed in Sydney last year. Today we’d like to share another recent vending machine discovery regarding DVD hire…Oovie machines.

Oovie vending machines aren’t as new as the Havaianas machines and now we’ve started using the machines we’re seeing them everywhere.

Until recently we used our local DVD rental shop and paid around $5… Read more

In today’s Photo Friday we’re sharing a photo taken at our local shopping mall. Special thanks to Mum’s friend Leighanne for telling us about this new vending machine that sells thongs.

People reading from the UK may be getting an entirely different impression of what’s being sold; we are not talking about underwear.

The footwear of choice in Australia is thongs; called flip-flops, jandals, or slops depending where you are in the world. For… Read more

The Holo is a UK product now available in Australia. It’s the perfect tool to help pregnant women enjoy the Australian summer.

What’s a Holo?

The Holo is a lilo or inflatable with a hole.

If you are pregnant and your growing bump is stoping you from getting comfortable on your front, a Holo may be just what you need. It can be used at any stage of pregnancy from the moment it becomes impossible to… Read more