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7 Cool Tech Gadgets For Mom

On April 30, 2020

Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to treat mom and shower her with gifts to show her just how much you care. Flowers and candy are always a crowd-pleaser, but why not make it a little extra special this year with our selection of Mother’s Day digital gifts? There’s no time like the present to get hunting for that perfect gift!

The Best Tech Gifts For Mother’s Day

Looking for a fun tech gift to give to mom this Mother’s Day? From indoor gardens to jewelry, we’ve pulled together a list of 7 cool tech gadgets for mom that are suitable for even the less tech-savvy parents out there. With a mix of thoughtful, practical, and humorous goodies, you can’t go wrong!

Hydroponic Garden Kit

With hydroponic gardening, your plants grow faster without the need for messy dirt. Minerals and nutrients are added to the water so that the plants begin to produce delicious fruits and vegetables, including lettuce, spinach, herbs, and even strawberries. So you can grow your own food at home without the need for digging and weeding!

It’s a fun and quirky way to harvest your own greens, herbs, and vegetables at home that comes with all the benefits of growing your own mini garden – without all the hard work. Ideal for those looking to add a spot of color to their kitchen décor, or for apartment moms with no access to a backyard.

Smart Jewelry

A fun tech twist on the classic gift for mom. Combine fashion and functionality to create the perfect Mother’s Day tech gift. From watches and bracelets, to necklaces, rings and even sunglasses, there are a range of smart jewelry pieces available on the market. Smart jewelry devices offer several tech uses, from tracking your breathing, sleep, activity and monthly cycles, to smart alarms that gently wake you in the morning. Although not every piece of smart jewelry has the same capabilities, so doing your research and finding something to suit mom is your best bet.

Smart Baby Monitor

Whether she’s a new mom or has a little one on the way, a smart baby monitor is the perfect gift. It connects to an app over WiFi, meaning you can easily monitor your baby from your mobile or tablet and unlike traditional designs, a smart monitor allows you to connect to multiple devices. Some smart baby monitors can also be paired to a home device like Alexa, so you can control the monitor with ease using your own voice.

You can monitor several children on one device by connecting to multiple cameras at the same time, which is ideal for moms who are juggling a busy household. A smart baby monitor is also the perfect gift if you’re working away from home and are missing your little ones – giving you a real-time view of what they’re up to.

Noise Cancelling Headphones

If you live in a busy household, this gift may also be a great way to give mom a break! Available in a range of sizes and styles, there’s a pair of noise cancelling headphones to suit every activity. As one of the best tech gifts for Mother’s Day, wireless headphones are ideal for night feeds, housework, exercise and much more. They’re also great when working from home, to block out the noise and focus on the task at hand. Choose this Mother’s Day tech gift and allow mom to sit back and relax.

Looking for an extra personal touch? Put together her very own personalized playlist with some of her favorite tunes to get her feeling motivated throughout the day.

Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with household chores, so anything that can help us along the way is a bonus. Although a smart vacuum cleaner won’t take the place of your regular model, it can make your life a little easier throughout the week. A robot vacuum can also get into those niggly places that your upright vacuum can’t – like under the sofa or below the bed! Plus, prices range from $50 dollars to $2,000, so there’s something for every budget.

Virtual Home Assistant

Available at a range of price points, home assistants are perfect Mother’s Day tech gifts. As well as playing music and answering questions, a virtual assistant comes with several uses that are great for the whole family:

Telling your children a bedtime story: Turning bedtime into a slightly more enjoyable activity for the little ones.
Creating a household intercom system: Making shouting the kids down for dinner that little bit easier.
Playing games: A range of games are available to download, including quizzes, mysteries and some of the classics.
Managing finances: From checking your balance to making bank transfers.

Home assistants are also compatible with a range of home appliances and devices, including smart photo frames – the next choice in our selection of cool tech gadgets for mom.

Smart Frame

What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than with a smart digital frame full of her favorite memories? The perfect way to share memories and make your mom feel extra special. Create a playlist full of your best family photos from over the years and get it set up ready for the morning. Better yet, why not pull together a selection of Mother’s Day photos from over the years to reminisce?

Available in a range of classic designs, there’s a Nixplay digital photo frame to suit every home décor and style. This Mother’s Day we’re also offering up to 30% off on selected frames until May 10th – find out more about how to treat your mom to the best tech gifts for Mother’s Day with Nixplay.

And that’s our list of 7 cool tech gadgets for mom! Now you’re all set to pick up the perfect Mother’s Day digital gifts to celebrate with the family. And don’t forget to share and display your Mother’s Day memories on your Nixplay digital photo frame. With the Nixplay app, using your frame has never been easier.

5 Unique Ways To Surprise Mom This Mother’s Day

By Mars Salazar

On April 27, 2020

In Holidays

Mother’s Day is coming up, and if you’re like us, you’re probably going to spend it at home, away from your loved ones. But you can still make it memorable for mom despite the distance! Here are some easy ways to do so.

Give her a call

Sometimes, it’s the simplest gestures that make the biggest difference. Pick up your phone and dial your mom to ask how she’s doing in these trying times. Tell her about your pup’s latest antics, ask for her special beef stew recipe so you can recreate it, and have the kids greet her a happy mother’s day over the phone. Think of it as a preview of your conversations when you get to see each other again in person!

Send her flowers

Flowers are a surefire way to brighten up someone’s day! A bouquet of mom’s favorite blooms should have her smiling from ear to ear in a jiffy. A houseplant would also be a good idea, while potted herbs would make a great present for the mom who enjoys cooking.

Set up an online party

Thanks to technology, you can easily celebrate with mom at the same time even if you’re miles away from each other. Simply set up a video call on a video conference program like Zoom, agree on a certain time, and dial in. You can even plan family activities, such as a cooking demo, as well as games, such as Pictionary and Charades, to make your call more fun!

Have her favorite food delivered

Yes, you can treat mom to a great dessert or meal even if you’re thousands of miles away! See if her favorite restaurant or bakery delivers and order a dish she loves in time for Mother’s Day. Don’t forget to request for food pictures! Speaking of which…

Send her photos

Delight mom with the most thoughtful gift: a trip down memory lane via a compilation of photos of her favorite moments! Gather as many photos as you can: snapshots of mom being a heartbreaker in her teens, her wedding photos, pictures with you and your siblings growing up, and images of her with her grandchildren.

Set up the photos on a Nixplay Frame so you and your family can keep adding to her album! Get up to 30 percent off on selected bestselling digital photo frames, only until May 10!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

Parenting 101: How to Work Together as a Team

By Nixplay Team

On July 15, 2019

In Lifestyle

Raising children should be a team effort. After all, parenting can be demanding and it certainly doesn’t come easy. The key is team parenting, which is defined as being united in you and your partner’s expectations, rules, guidelines, and methods of discipline. But it’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you and your partner have different parenting styles.

Differences in parenting styles can strain your marriage. Squabbles about how to raise kids can pile up, possibly causing irreparable damage. That’s why constant communication and teamwork are crucial. If you haven’t figured out how to do it yet, here are a few tips that can help you:

Ask each other for help.

Sharing the load is easier if both you and your partner are willing to ask each other for help. Breastfeeding, for example, can be challenging for mothers, but moms don’t always ask for help from their partner—and they should.

Fathers can help their spouses by holding their child after feeding. Baby Centre explains that this little moment is a great opportunity for a dad to bond with his child, and it’s an intimate way to show the mom that he is by her side. Showing each other genuine support is a great way to make each other’s lives easier. Delegate tasks and don’t wait to be told.

Find helpful tools that will make your life easier.

Technology has made parenting a little easier through apps and state-of-the-art baby monitors. The Raybaby Baby Monitor, for instance, allows parents to keep an eye on their baby through a video feed, and even monitors the child’s breathing patterns.

A sturdy pushchair or stroller should also be on your list. This will help keep your baby comfortable while you are traveling and moving around. iCandy has a great selection of pushchairs and prams in modern designs that can handle a multitude of terrains, Perfect for taking your baby to town or on a long walk through the park. Parents should take turns heading outside with their baby so both can rest. Taking your baby outside together is also a great way for parents to bond, and it will also get you out of the house, which can be hard with a newborn.

Be open to combining your parenting styles.

Since moms and dads often have different parenting styles, the key is to pick out the best points of both and combine them into one efficient style. Communicate with each other so you can find a comfortable compromise where both styles are given time to shine. Always coordinate with your partner before deciding on anything, from punishments to rewards. Take it from actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who agreed to treat their kids like they would other people—with respect and admiration.

Don’t argue in front of your children.

You never want to paint the other parent as the villain, so make sure you don’t contradict your partner in front of your children. Research conducted by Very Well Family reveals that a child as young as six months can be negatively affected by parental arguments. Seeing their parents fight can cause children to withdraw and develop emotional insecurities, anxiety, and behavioral issues. Studies have also found significantly decreased cognitive performance in children born and raised in homes where parents constantly fight and yell at each other.

Misunderstandings are normal among families, but it becomes problematic when the arguments get out of hand. Whenever you feel annoyed or angry with your partner, step outside or go in a room where you can be alone to catch your breath. Sometimes, all we really need is a minute to breathe.

Why All Moms Are Super Moms

By Kristen Bandy

On May 11, 2019

In Customer Testimonials

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Super Mom”?

Maybe you think of the mom who always has a clean house and enjoys having people over.

Perhaps it’s the mother who volunteers for every available opportunity at school.

Or you could be picturing the mom in the pickup line who looks like she just stepped out of the pages of a magazine.

If these are the moms you had in mind, you’d be right. They are all Super Moms.

In fact, all moms are Super Moms.

Society (and our own inner voice) had us believing that everything should be put together and perfect at all times to be a “Super Mom.”

We must juggle all our responsibilities with a full face of makeup, a clean house, and impeccably behaved kids.

Well, I’ve got news for society: Life isn’t always Instagram-perfect. It just can’t be. I know mine isn’t, and if you follow me on my blog, you’ve seen firsthand my imperfections in all their glory.

Even the mothers you look up to have something in their lives that isn’t perfect.

That’s right, guys. We all have something that keeps us up at night.

It’s time we realize that being a Super Mom doesn’t mean having kids who are dressed to the nines, looking like they stepped out of a magazine or a catalog.

It doesn’t mean having a house that always looks like it’s about to be photographed for Southern Living magazine.

and it sure doesn’t mean looking beautiful 100% of the time, and definitely not for school drop off at 8am.

So what is a Super Mom?

The essence of a Super Mom lies in all the little things that no one notices. It’s the things they do day in and day out to keep their families afloat.

Maybe it’s remembering to pick up your kids for early dismissal, even if you have to set 6 alarms.

Sometimes it’s as simple as putting a snack in your child’s backpack, even if it’s not the healthiest option in the pantry.

Maybe if you’re like me, it’s stumbling out of bed at 5:30 a.m. everyday to help your kid prepare for school (thank heavens for coffee, right?).

Most days, being a Super Mom entails small everyday stuff: Things like getting up for the umpteenth time to look again at what they made in the sandbox, even if it’s the first time you’ve sat down all day.

Super Moms are the ones who, despite clinging to their last threads of sanity, still show up for their kids.

Being a Super Mom entails embracing the not-so-picture-perfect reality of motherhood in every season, especially the hard ones.

All these seemingly insignificant things make us Super Moms. And these means all the mothers in our lives deserve to be called a Super Mom.

I have been blessed to have so many Super Moms in my life.

Moms whom I look up to.

Moms whom I text in the middle of the night when my kids have a weird sickness.

Moms who let me vent to them at the end of a long day and never judge me.

I am lucky to have a fantastic mom who worked so hard to provide for herself and her three girls, despite so many obstacles. She always went without so that we could have what we needed. Was she perfect? Nope. But she definitely is a Super Mom.

I have a wonderful stepmom who welcomed her new husband’s three girls, loved them like her own, and never made them feel unwanted. I think of how old she was when she became an instant mom, and I don’t know if I could have done the same thing. Was she perfect? Again, no. But she is also a SuperMom.

My two sisters, both Super Moms, have a lot on their plates but still manage to be amazing mothers.

I am surrounded by a small but mighty tribe of friends with different parenting styles, whom I turn to whenever I need someone who understands why I can barely form a sentence at the end of the day.
They listen. They empathize. They know what it’s like. And supporting your fellow moms makes you a Super Mom.

You know what else makes one a Super Mom?

Admitting that sometimes, you just can’t have it all together.

It’s important for mothers to share their real, unvarnished experiences as much as they share the perfect moments. My blog was conceived upon this thought. I love my life and every moment is worth sharing, even when things aren’t the best.

Your mom friends, especially, need to know that things will not always be sunshine and roses. Being open with the truths of motherhood makes you a Super Mom, and it helps us all to know that we are not alone in our struggles.

On more days than I care to admit, I go to bed thinking that I have been the worst mother. I lay in bed and list all the ways that I have failed my children in just one day. Can you believe that? All it takes is just one day for me to screw up the future generation.

This is how my brain works. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks this way. I get so many messages expressing these same doubts and insecurities. You all know it fills the pages of most mom-centered books.

During these moments of uncertainty and doubt, I take a minute to look through the pictures on my phone. I see my kids’ smiling faces, and I know that they are okay. That I am doing okay. And that things will be okay.

My calm-down ritual is even better now thanks to my Nixplay frame, which lets me take this moment one step further. As I’m going through the days’ pictures to remind myself that I’m not as terrible as I think, I move them to the Nixplay app. While I’m getting some much-needed sleep, the pictures are uploading to my frame.

In the morning, while stumbling bleary-eyed to the coffee pot, the first thing I see when the sleepiness fades away is a beautiful reminder that, on my worst days, my kids still think I’m awesome. How could I believe otherwise when I see their big smiles flit across my Nixplay frame’s screen?

Having my phone pictures on display is an effective reminder that my kids are loved, happy, and thriving. It’s such a simple thing, but it brings me so much joy.

I am doing the very best I can, and this is what makes me a Super Mom.

You may have no makeup on, a messy house, and the same black yoga pants as yesterday. But if, at the end of the day, your kids go to bed knowing that they are loved, cherished, and that you would do anything for them, guess what? You are still, and will always be, a Super Mom.

5 Amazing Mothers We Can All Look Up to

By Nixplay Team

On May 10, 2019

In Lifestyle

We can all probably agree that mothers are some of the strongest, most admirable people on the planet. Bringing a human into the world and raising him or her is no easy feat, and as such, they deserve all the love and admiration we can give them.

Throughout history, we have encountered countless amazing mothers who made it work, even if the odds were stacked against them. Here are a few larger-than-life Super Moms.

Sojourner Truth

*photo via* *Wikimedia, licensed under* *public domain*

African-American women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) escaped from slavery with her infant daughter in 1826. Shortly after this, Truth learned that her five-year-old son was illegally sold into slavery. She fought for her son’s freedom and won her case, marking one of the first incidents in which a black woman successfully challenged a white man in a United States court. She went on to devote her life to creating reforms in society, being one of the most vocal supporters of the abolitionist cause, prison reform, and universal suffrage.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Years before she became the second woman to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to juggle motherhood and the demands of being one of the nine female law students at Harvard. When her husband and fellow law student Martin D. Ginsburg contracted cancer in 1956, Ruth also attended his classes and took notes for him while continuing her own studies, all on top of taking care of her toddler daughter. Her sacrifices paid off: she graduated at the top of her class and went on to become one of the strongest voices of gender equality in the face of the law. Her two children, Jane and James, also found success in their chosen fields: Jane became a lawyer like mom and dad, while James became a record label executive.

J.K. Rowling

*photo via* *Wikimedia, licensed under* *Creative Commons*

Before she found success as the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling was a struggling single mom doing all she can to make ends meet. “I was a Single Parent, and a Single Parent On Benefits to boot,” she wrote. “Assumptions made about your morals, your motives for bringing your child into the world or your fitness to raise that child cut to the core of who you are.” When the Harry Potter books became big, she became a Patron of the National Council for One Parent Families (now Gingerbread), an organization that empowers single parents to support themselves and their families.

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

Broadway fans might be familiar with Eliza Schuyler Hamilton: She’s the wife of American founding father Alexander Hamilton, whose life is immortalized in his namesake bestselling musical. But Eliza’s life is just as worthy of being set into a play: she was her husband’s top supporter, did an exemplary job at maintaining the Hamilton household, and raised eight children. Two years after her husband’s death, Eliza co-founded the Orphan Asylum Society, which continues to exist today as the family and youth development organization Graham Windham. Not only is she a

Ann Jarvis

In 1858, while she was pregnant with her sixth child, Ann Jarvis sought to improve health and sanitary conditions in West Virginia by setting up Mother’s Day Work Clubs. These clubs provided assistance and education to families in an effort to reduce disease and infant mortality, raising money for medicine and hiring women to work in families where the mother suffered from health problems. When the American Civil War broke out, she acted as a mother to West Virginia by offering her clubs’ services neutrally to both Union and Confederate troops. After the war, she planned a “Mothers Friendship Day” to promote reconciliation and peace. On the first anniversary of her death, her daughter, Anna Marie Jarvis, organized the first official observance of Mother’s Day.

Wasn’t that inspiring? This Mother’s Day, treat your mom like royalty by surprising her with a Nixplay Frame! Get up to 25% off on selected frames, only until May 13!