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Our Journal
Family
March 31, 2016
Top 5 Spring Activities for Kids of Every Age
Spring is here and that means the flowers are blooming, the air is fresh, and you’ve switched from hot to iced coffee. Here are our top five favorite activities to do with your kids this spring, organized by age.
3 and Under
Spring is often accompanied by many rainy days. Use those days for some fun spring crafts with your kids indoors. We love this Footprint Flower Pot idea from Crafty Morning!
4-6 Years
Make play dough! If your kids are a little too advanced for the craft above, but you still need to entertain them on a rainy day, this is a perfect baking and crafting combo. Let them help you bake the play dough, and they’ll love playing with it even more. Get creative with this homemade play dough recipe from I Heart Nap Time.
7- 10 Years
Pick and press flowers. Take the beauty of nature home with you. Let your kids have fun picking flowers outside, and then go home to press them. Check out this guide to pressing flowers from 5 Minutes for Mom.
10 and Up
Explore new passions. Photography is a fun way for your kids to experience the outdoors and get artsy at the same time. Phones double as great cameras these days, or you can go old-school and pick up a vintage film camera from a consignment shop. Either way, hand over the reins and let them have fun.
All Ages
Have a picnic. When the sun does come out, get outside and soak it in! Grab a blanket and some snacks, and enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Perfect for babies and older children alike. If your kids are school aged or older you may want to bring a ball or frisbee for them to enjoy too.
March 14, 2016
Fitbit Blaze Giveaway with Flayk App, Ends 3/29
3 Easy Steps to Enter to Win a Fitbit Blaze:
- Download the Flayk app on iOS or Android
- Create a Flayk Account for your family
- Tell Conservamom you’ve entered!
Originally published on: Conservamom
Welcome to the Get Organized + Fit with Flayk Giveaway!
Hosted by Conservamom
Being CEO of my house can be hard. With 5 kids keeping up with all their various activities is close to impossible at times. Although I get tons of help from my hubby it can be tough being on the same page all the time between all our schedules and day to day life. Thankfully I discovered Flayk, a free, family/life management app now available for free download in both the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store. It has become a lifesaver!
Flayk allows families to coordinate activities, assign responsibilities, share to-do and shopping lists and award points for completed actions in a single app that can be used by multiple families and groups. One of the app’s core features is the ability for users toflayk events, which alerts the group in the event of an unexpected conflict – from car trouble to a meeting that runs long –and allows someone else to quickly pick up the task and keep the day moving smoothly.
As detailed in ADWEEK, Flayk is the perfect solution for families looking to simplify life in 2016 as well as a technology “must have” for the new aged organized family.
Flayk Basic is free, and for a limited time, Flayk Premium, a seamless, ad-free experience with expanded features, is free for the first month. Flayk Premium is regularly priced at $1.99/month or $18.99/year.
Flayk is the only family management app on the market to introduce an innovative rewards system that lets families assign point values to specific activities. Family members can earn points for completing tasks and redeem them for specific rewards of the family’s choosing, for example, a raise in allowance, a curfew extension, dinner at a favorite restaurant or a pass on a chore.
Flayk recognizes that diversity with its customizable, central hub to organize all kinds of families, whether they live under one roof or are in multiple locations.
In spirit of holding on to those 2016 Mom Resolutions and preparing for the spring season ahead, Flayk is offering a chance to win an all new Fitbit Blaze™ – Fitbit’s New Smart Fitness Watch including a breakthrough features such as PurePulse™ Heart Rate Monitor, Connected GPS, On-Screen Workouts and Color Touchscreen.
Make sure to enter by downloading the Flayk app (IOS or Android) and setting up a profile!
Disclosure: All opinions are 100% mine. This giveaway is in no way associated with, sponsored, administered, or endorsed by Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest or any other social media network.All opinions and experiences are Conservamom‘s. Open to US residents only , must be 18+. Confirmed Winner(s) will be contacted through email and have 48 hours to respond before a new winner will be drawn. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. The sponsor will be responsible for product fulfillment to winner(s) of the giveaway. The disclosure is done in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission 10 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. For questions or to see your product featured in an Event you can contact Elia At Conservamom
January 20, 2016
2016 Mom Resolutions
The New Year is a time when people revisit their personal goals, and make vows to be more of the person they want to be. The new calendar gives people the incentive to leave their unmet goals from the previous year behind, and start fresh. Moms are a particular group that are quite hard on themselves, and have a tendency to make lofty goals. Here’s our list of important, yet achievable Mom Resolutions for 2016.
Make a routine, and stick to it!
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Make more time for family dinners.
Schedule more personal time.
Plan more family game nights.
Breathe.
Which Mom Resolution resonates with you the most?
December 15, 2015
10 Tips for Holiday Family Travel
By Debbie Roberts
When you’re from a cold midwestern state, the sound of the waves crashing, the smell of saltwater in the air, and the warm feeling of sun shining on your back sounds like the best way to spend a vacation in winter. Although sometimes nostalgic for a white Christmas, spending the holidays on the beach in Florida sounds like a dream come true. Until you think about how you’ll get there. Not just traveling with your entire family, but traveling during the holidays with your entire family.
I’m no newcomer to holiday travel. M Read More
November 23, 2015
Who’s Bringing What to Thanksgiving Dinner? Coordinating the Family Meal Plan
Written by: Danielle Dannenberg
Coordinating the Thanksgiving dinner menu for a big family requires a level of organization comparable to planning school bus routes or air traffic control patterns. I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to hosting holidays at our house, but it’s only because I want everyone to be calm, cool, and collected the day of the event. Imagine the chaos that would ensure if we ended up with five turkeys and no mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving!
For potluck-style holidays where the main attraction is the dinner table, I take extra measures to make sure everyone brings a different dish and we have a balanced meal. This usually manifests in the form of an elaborate flow chart, which evolves into a detailed family email, and potentially annoyance when Aunt Debbie hits “reply all.” Let’s not talk about the year when Uncle Mike didn’t get the memo and we had to suffer without chocolate pecan pie…
This year I’m trying something a little different and I have a good feeling about it. I’m lucky enough to be a part of the Flayk Beta Testing Group, which means I get special access to the app before it’s released to the public.
I’ve started making dish-specific lists for each meal I’m cooking. I listed out each ingredient for my favorite gluten free sweet potato casserole and vegetarian wild mushroom gravy recipes. Hopefully this way I’ll know if I need brown sugar… before Thursday morning rolls around.
Plus, I’ve decided to nix the mass email and am going to attempt to coordinate what everyone’s bringing through the app. Using the calendar feature I created an event for each dish and assigned the appropriate person as the event owner. I even set up automatic reminders 1 week and 2 days in advance so I don’t have to do the nagging myself! Flayk will send them a phone notification to remind them about the smoked turkey or the apple pie.
It also gives people backup if, for some reason, they can’t show up with the dish they were assigned. For instance, if Nancy can’t bring the stuffing, she can easily flayk it, everyone will get a notification, and someone’s likely to claim it in a heartbeat because we all know it’s not Thanksgiving without stuffing― much easier than the email chain.
Thanks to Flayk, we’re on track for a stress-free, balanced meal ― complete with mashed potatoes and chocolate pecan pie.
October 22, 2015
The Two Most Important Things I Learned About Family Management as a Nanny
Written by: Flayk Beta Tester
As a nanny of two kids it’s my responsibility to drop off and pick up Noah and Ethan for all of their scheduled activities. Their parents make the plans and then rely on me to make sure they make it to music class, swim practice, speech therapy, and playdates. Once in awhile, Noah’s swim practice collides with a playdate their mom has set for Ethan and the mom and I have to coordinate to make sure we’ve got it covered. I’ve been with this family for two years and these are the top two do’s and don’ts I would recommend to keep your family organization on point.
# 1: Do communicate daily to stay on top of changes in plans and new activities
If you set a schedule at the beginning of the week and assume it will stick, you face the risk of life getting in the way. Let’s face it, we’ve all had to back out on commitments if something more pressing comes up. When something on the schedule changes it benefits everyone to communicate this as early as possible. Now we use Flayk to let the family know if someone can no longer follow through with a task. Ethan’s mom might plan to pick him up from school, but if a work meeting runs late she will flayk the task to me to let me know right away and find out if I can fill in for her.
Last week I committed to going grocery shopping for the family, only to realize that with a few extra playdates I only had about 15 minutes without the kids every day, certainly not enough to check off all the items on the list. Since I was able to flayk the task early Friday morning, they knew right away and the dad could stop by the store on his way home from work. So much easier than frantically texting all of them. Plus, if I had waited until they got home on Friday to tell them I didn’t have a chance to go grocery shopping, they would have had to go out again after an already long week.
# 2: Don’t rely on sticky notes to do the job
The kids’ mom and I laugh about this now, but it wasn’t funny at the time. In the morning the two of us agreed that I would bring Noah to the park for a playdate from 2-4 and she would pick up Ethan from swim practice, which also ended at 4. I took the kids to the library before she left for work and since we usually came home for lunch she left a note on the counter telling me she forgot about a parent-teacher conference that afternoon and asking if I could actually pick Ethan up from swim practice ― this was back before we all had Flayk. Well, the kids and I ended up having a picnic lunch that day and never came home for lunch, which means I never saw the note. When their mom and I got home at the same time that night we were both shocked to see that Ethan wasn’t with the other. A look of panic rose on each of our faces as we realized no one picked Ethan up from swim practice! Of course, Ethan was fine, but the miscommunication we faced proves that notes on the fridge don’t always do the job. Life isn’t perfect, things come up and you have to be able to rely on flexible solutions.
April 27, 2015
Goodbye Dinner Table Talk: Is communicating through social media and mobile messaging the norm for families today?
Written by: Danielle Dannenberg Photo by: Lock & Stock Photography
Back in the early days of technology, we only used cell phones when we left the house. When we were at home we had the landline and – of course – each other. Now it wouldn’t be uncommon for a kid to message their parent from another room in the same house or for a parent to check a notification on their smartphone during dinner. In fact, according to a study by Edison Research, less than half of families sit down for a meal without distractions on a daily basis. It’s easy to blame tech-native kids for this constant presence, but research proves parents are equally responsible.
Today, 84% of all American moms own smartphones, exceeding the average 64% of American adults (according to studies by Edison Research and Pew Research Center, 2015). On top of this, 4 out 5 of moms with smartphones said their phone is almost always within arms reach (“Media and Moms 2014,” Edison Research). But moms aren’t the only tech-savvy parents; according to a study by Pew Research Center, 75% of all parents in the U.S., moms and dads alike, used social media in 2015.
We rely on technology for nearly everything, from communicating to planning, scheduling, playing, learning, and even filling awkward silences in the room. Technology can make us feel closer to our friends and can even generate positive experiences for families. 89% of moms said they share technology experiences with their children (“The Truth About Moms,” McCann Truth Central). If technology is going to become a bigger part of our lives then the most we can ask for is that we share more connected experiences together. As long as we balance virtual interaction with real down-to-earth family time.
Flayk combines both into one seamless experience. With the app you can manage family plans digitally so that you can be more present when you’re together. If like many moms, your phone is always at your fingertips, organizing your family will be easier than ever with Flayk.