Best Apps for Toddlers & Dads!

I haven't done an app review in a long time so I figured why not tell you Sierra's top 3 apps and my favorite 3 as well. These may not be the best apps out there but they are the top 3 we have been using as of late. Enjoy and feel free to tell us your favorite apps in the comments section below! -Craig

Sierra has recently been playing "Nighty Night" on our pals iPad so I gave in and bought it for the iPhone as well. It's a hybrid between a goodnight book / and an interactive game that allows you to put all the animals at the farm to bed one by one by shutting their lights off. There are a few other fun little interactions that you get to do by tapping the animals; some bark, moo, do a little dance, etc. It's beautifully illustrated and well worth the $1 for the iPhone or $3 on the iPad.

NightyNight - $2.99 (iPad) or 99 cents (iPhone) - Download Here

 

Next up is one of Sierra's all-time favorite apps: Tozzle. It's a puzzle game that allows the player to drag the objects from the corner and put them in the corresponding holes where they should go mimicking the wooden shape puzzles that are awesome but not so great when you're on the go. There are fun sound effects and it also reads the names of the letters, fruit and various other objects you create. They add new puzzles all the time and for $2 bucks it's WELL worth it. Tozzle has saved us from meltdowns in many of restaurant. Thanks Tozzle.

Tozzle - $1.99 (and theres also a free version!) - Download Here

 

I personally am not a fan of this game as it's basically the same couple of tasks over and over… and over. Wake the animal up, wash it, feed it - thats it. But the game wasn't made for me, it was made for toddlers - and my toddler LOVES it. It's 99 cents and for that you get 5 or 6 animals. You can pay more and unlock other animals as well. In addition to the wake/wash/feed/repeat portion of the game it also has a couple of other neat features; educational videos of the animals, a sticker book and a few little mini-games. It's pretty neat and Sierra loves it.

Curious George at the Zoo - 99 Cents - Download Here

 

OK so now onto the apps that I love. I'm a big fan of taking panoramic shots because I feel they just capture the moment and location a lot better than just a standard photograph. I used to use "360 panorama" which is good and all but just can't compare to the $2 "DMD Panorama", it works flawlessly and is very easy to use. The images it outputs are amazing and I highly suggest you pick this one up. Check out some of the panoramas here.

DMD Panorama - $1.99 - Download Here

 

I hate to say it because EVERYONE (and their mother) is on Instagram but yes Instagram is an app I have various accounts for and that I use everyday. I won't go into detail about why it's awesome because I assume you're already on it but if you're not what are you waiting for!?! Get on it and then follow us! Our username is: TheHipsterDad :-)

Instagram - FREE - Download Here

 

Last but not least is Cinemagram. Think Instagram but it allows you to animate certain portions of the photo. It's fun, creepy and you can make some AMAZING looking images!

Cinemagram - FREE - Download Here

 

Here are some cool examples of the type of images you can create:

Our Weekend + Mother's Day in Photos

Well HELLO blogger, long time no write! First off heres some THD news: We may be adding a third "hipster dad" soon which would mean a new blog design and a lot more posting! But enough about that! I just wanted to throw up some cute photos & captions from this past weekend. We had a very busy and fun filled three days complete with a very lovely Mother's Day so here we go!

Friday morning I dropped Sierra off at daycare and sadly went to work but the day flew by and the girls met me downtown for a family art outing. We went to the samson projects gallery in the South End of Boston to see "you dont deserve me" the new solo exhibition from one of my favorite artists and people, Steve Locke, who I had the pleasure of being taught by at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Here are a few of the pieces from the show. If you're in the area you should totally check it out. The work is amazing!! For directions and info check out samson's website here.

A lot of the paintings featured men sticking their tongues out which Sierra loved and walked around the gallery sticking her own tongue right back out at them. It was adorable and awesome to see her enjoying art. At around 7:00 we headed to our local vegan pizza shop and went home for Family Movie Night. We watched "Bee Movie" -- awesome. "WHY IS YOGURT NIGHT SO DIFFICULT?!"

Saturday morning the weather in Boston was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. It had been raining for about two straight weeks so as soon as we woke up we got out there and enjoyed it. We have been meaning to go to this awesome playground on the Charles for months so we finally did it and it was well worth it. Although a lot of the structures were geared towards older kids - a zipline included - Sierra still enjoyed herself and we saw lots of baby ducks which was awesome. After a nap and some lunch we headed to Foxboro to see our favorite soccer team, The New England Revolution.

Not only was the weather awesome but we won 4 - 1! Sierra also got to see her favorite part of the game, Slyde the Fox, the team's mascot. GO REVS! After the triumphant win we headed home where Sierra proceeded to stay up until midnight against our wished but finally passed out - and so did we.

Although we thought it was going to be raining for Mother's Day the sun decided to come out and play and the day was beautiful just like Saturday - thanks Mother Nature. In the morning we let Mama sleep in and Sierra and I called / FaceTimed all of our favorite Mamas to wish them a Happy Mother's Day!


There is a little warehouse near our home that holds Antique sales every Saturday and we are frequent visitors as you can see :-). It's on the Brighton/Watertown line and not to be missed if you're in the area. The guy is super nice and you can haggle down to basically whatever you want he's even given us stuff for free just because he thinks S is cute!

After we wished everyone a Happy Mother's Day we started our own with some vegan breakfast at the Allston Diner which you HAVE to try if you're in the area. They do vegan and non-vegan and it's so delicious / affordable. You won't be disappointed.

After brunch we hit up another playground near the diner where Sierra played with some new friends and ran so much she passed out once we were back in the car. With the sleeping toddler we decided to just drive around Boston and finally parked near the Charles for some windows down feet out the window relaxation.


After Sierra woke up we headed home to refuel with some lunch and possibly a beer. I cleaned out our sun porch while the girls blew bubbles in the driveway aka "our yard". To end the daywe headed out to Nahant Beach which is a 30-40 minutes drive from the city but well worth it. We had a nice picnic for dinner, dipped our feet in the water and watched the sunset. All in all it was a great weekend and I can not wait for the summer / more great weather! -Craig

Our weekend via Instagram ♥ v.2

This weekend was wonderful! We hung out with lots of friends and did lots of fun things. Saturdays weather was gorgeous and we took full advantage! Description of each photo below the big collage! Hope you all had a great weekend too!

xo Craig

1. Uncle Will and Sierra watching some Yo Gabba Gabba! on YouTube before heading out for the day. xo

2. Sierra checking herself out in the mirror at Forever 21 on Newbury St.

3. Liz, Andre and their adorable baby Eila (of Dear Husband, Dear Wife, Dear Baby Blog), Uncle Will, Aunty Jill and Jill's little brother Bruce along w/ myself, Lauren and Sierra enjoying our last meal at our beloved Otherside Cafe! They are closing in just under a week!! :-(

4. Sierra stealing a kiss form baby EIla!

5. Sierra needed a nap and passed out in the car so we parked along the Charles and enjoyed the beautiful weather, the breeze and some tunes on the radio.

6. When Sierra woke up we went to a graduation party for our pal Kate (of 4 if the Magic Number Blog)'s brothers' Grad party --- which had an open bar. Thanks for the whiskey Dan!

7. Kate's little boy Kieran (who you can see more of here) was trying to get a sip of cider but Mama says no way jose!

8. We ended our Saturday with a family stroll back to the Charles and watching the geese swim around.

9. On Sunday we celebrated Mamas b-day a little early w/ some cupcake making (and vegan batter eating of course!)

10. Sierra posing while listening to some of our Record Store Day scores.

11. Sierra taking the Rav for a test spin in the Whole Foods parking lot (we were parked I assure you all driving was imaginary… the beeping was real though).

12. Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles w/ Mama!

Disconnect Days

Social media is a great tool for keeping in touch with family, networking with clients from around the globe and sharing your opinions and lives with people you don't even know but can it get in the way of real life? My family and I are exploring that theory with what we are calling "Disconnect Days". Don't get me wrong, Lauren and I are big supporters of all things social media, both having (multiple) accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and of course Blogger but with 5-10 websites and accounts to check and update daily it begins to take up a lot of time! A normal night for us consist of listening to records, having a beer and enjoying one anothers time with our noses nestled sweetly in our.......iPhones. "Look at this cute photo Adriana just instagrammed!" or "WOW I can't believe what AJ just tweeted!" are normal conversation pieces around our home. Now I find nothing wrong with this, social networking is fun and especially useful for me for my freelance and business ventures but theres comes a point where you need to step back and smell the roses instead of putting vintage filters on a picture of them for your friends to post comments on.

"No time for cameras, we'll use our eyes instead" - Matt Johnson & Kim Schifino

Our first Disconnect Day (DD) was last Sunday and it happened to fall on a day that we had planned a cookout & pool party at our house. So the night before I texted everyone who would be attending and said "Tomorrow is Lauren and I's first disconnect day, long story but we won't be reachable by email or phone so the time is 1PM and you know the address see you tomorrow!". We woke up and Lauren asked "what time is it?" and instead of checking my phone I ran to the kitchen and checked the oven clock and DD was officially on. I did leave my phone on just incase somebody who was coming to my house was lost or needed to ask something - but I didn't answer texts or emails and once everyone had arrived I shut my phone off. It wasn't as hard as you would think and there was a noticeable change in our behavior. During the cookout I found myself more engaged in conversation and just enjoying my friends company instead of tweeting about how much I was enjoying it. Once everyone left for the day it was fun to just sit with Lauren and relax without both being on our laptops blogging or looking up soccer news. All in all I like our Disconnect Days and can not wait until Sunday to shut off the internet. You should give it a shot sometime!

Photos from DD (1 rule was our camera was allowed!)

Watermelon Babies!

Henry and his beautiful curls.

Christian knockin' back a cold one (root beer of course!) 

Sierra pulling a "Kiss and Run"

Cooling off in the pool!

This picture is way over-exposed but I love it anyway.

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Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Right now Lauren, Sierra and I are at the grandparent's house celebrating Easter and Lauren's Birthday. Currently we're lounging around in PJ's and opening Easter baskets. Hope everyone is having a great easter with their families and enjoying the day off from work! -C

EDIT:

Here is one more photo of Sierra in her Easter dress, try not to die from cuteness:

Here is Sierra investigating her new "Easter Puppy" stuffed animal from Nana.

One of the funnest things about coming to visit the grandparents is rediscovering old toys and things we haven't seen in awhile, like Sierra's old Bumbo, which she is much too big for now but insisted on eating her breakfast in.

Before Lauren, Sierra and I all lived together in Boston they both lived at Lauren's parents for awhile. Although living together was the best decision we ever made and I love it, it was fun having a slumber party in Sierra's first nursery. Check out these cute owl decals we decorated it with.