family activities

Honestly, haven't we all rocked out to an air guitar at some point in our lives? (Or maybe this morning in the shower -- ahem .) Pretending to be Lenny Kravitz or Joan Jett shredding the axe and professing our love for rock 'n' roll out …

When I'm driving around running errands, I usually have NPR on the radio, unless I'm listening to Spawned , of course. The stories that almost always end up with me in tears, searching for a Kleenex in the console, are the reports from S…

Calling all you ghosts, pirates, zombies, superheroes, and that small army of Queen Elsas -- it's time for your closeup. Because one of the best parts of Halloween for us, besides stealing our kids' fun-size Snickers, is getting photos o…

I finally sat down and took a good hard look at my cable bill and...whoa. When I consider that there are probably only 4-5 cable channels I really watch, aside from premiums HBO and Showtime; I do pretty much all my watching on Netflix ,…

W e are a house divided. My husband is an Android user (but I love him anyway), and I am an iPhone user. We need a calendar app that works with both, allows for the importing of Google calendar an iCal and automatically refreshes it. Is …

Sure, Spring Break is cool when you and the family are jetting off somewhere fun, but what about those of us who decide to stay close to home? Are we not entitled to enjoy some rollin' good times, too? Short answer: Yes! Indeed, we are. …

There's a new obsession in my house: trivia apps. We're battling for bragging rights over questions like, What was the real name of novelist George Orwell? Or, W hat color is young Anna's nightgown in Frozen? Frankly, I think it's perfec…

In addition to fun-sized everything, one of the best parts of Halloween is seeing all of the adorable ( adoraboo ?) photos of people's kids in costume . Some of you are so clever with these costume ideas you dream up for your kids! We wa…

If you're looking for the spendy kids' holiday gift of the season (and I know, I can't believe I'm thinking about this already either) I think I've found it in the new Razor Deluxe Crazy Cart ride-on car . I spent a few minutes tearing t…

It's hard to believe that when our first children were born, capturing them on video meant getting out a clunky camera, hoping the batteries were good and that the card still had some memory left, then finding the right cords to connect …

When it comes to apps, we're all about finding the newest and coolest ones that help the busy family machine run a little smoother. And as we ramp up to back-to-school season, life is probably about to get even more hectic. Oh forget pro…

Long before we had kids, I knew my husband was going to be a fun dad. (I also knew I was going to be the uptight mom who shook her head and sighed a lot.) So when I checked out the Kid Dad Fun app , I started cracking up immediately. Thi…

I have to say that I have mastered the art of a good selfie, as you might be able to tell from my Instagram feed , but I'm getting especially good at taking a selfie with kids. Because let's be honest, it's the only way I'll actually mak…

Last night I was thrilled to join founder Anna Fader in celebrating the anniversary of Mommy Poppins , her terrific regional website network for parents looking for the best stuff to do with their kids. They've now been saving families (…

Every Saturday morning, I wake up and check the website Mommy Poppins to see what's going on in New York City with kids. So do tens of thousands of other parents; so it made perfect sense that they would convert all those great listings …

Long ago, the only way to communicate with geeks in a galaxy far, far away was to write a letter, stick a stamp on it, decorate the envelope with unicorns and fairies, and mail it. Then we got email. And Twitter. And Facebook. And tumblr…

This was probably one of the biggest years for kids' gadgets, but we definitely had our top favorites, and ones that we'd want in our own kids' hands. Kristen Nabi 2 With so many kids' tablets on the markets, I'm going to have to pick th…

We're thrilled to be working with our newest sponsor, Plantronics , whose highly rated Bluetooth Headset, the Voyager Legend, helps conversations come together. Plus we get to give one away! With the holiday season officially here, we al…

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about many different ways to connect kids with their grandparents . While I covered the big ones like Skype, Facetime, Google+ and others, I just discovered a new one that is solely designed for connecting you…

F or the last few years on Cool Mom Picks, we've ended the year with our Editors' Picks for best of the year. We're excited to do the same on Cool Mom Tech this year, starting with the best video games that the whole family will love. AB…

By now, the Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 family competitions have become a big part of holiday time rituals. If not, it totally should be. Do you know the photo opps you can grab of one precocious 4 year-old making a go of an Abba Da…

I'd hardly consider myself a video gamer, but give me a dance game and you'll have to rip that Wii remote out of my hand. So when I discovered that the makers of my all-time favorite game Just Dance released a new one dedicated to the be…

The idea of trips with the girlfriends or big family vacations sound amazing until you actually have to plan and organize them. Then, let's just say the magic disappears pretty quickly. That's why I'm super excited about a new site that …

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." One of my favorite quotes by Marcel Proust. So the name Proust seems appropriate for a new website designed to help people share their stories with family…