Surprise Mom with a Mother’s Day Canvas Pop!

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and now is the perfect time to get the perfect gift ordered and shipped so it arrives just in time for mom. Every year my kids make their mom a card. We get out the glue, glitter, construction paper, scissors and more and craft together a beautiful card. This year though we are planning something different. So instead of doing the personalized card we usually do this year we are going for something a little more thoughtful, something a little more sentimental, something different, and something that will last a lifetime, this year we are getting canvas prints!

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This year the kids and I are going to go through hundreds of photos and find the best ones to send over to CanvasPop to print off several beautiful canvas prints! Sorting through wonderful memories that we have all created together is the perfect excuse to print off those precious moments for mom to hang on the wall. With two kids and myself we decided to go with three different canvas prints to surprise mom this year on her special day. Unique and made just for her these prints will look fantastic on our wall and will definitely last a lifetime.

While sifting through thousands of photos we even came across some that would be perfect for those other moms in our life. Aunts, grandmas, and those other motherly figures should get a chance to feel special this Mother’s Day as well. Sending over a few photos to CanvasPop could not be any easier. Just upload and make some selections and there ya go!

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So what are you waiting for? Head on over to CanvasPop and start digging through those selfies and candid photos to find the perfect canvas print to have printed for that special mom in your life. Save yourself the time and headache from getting crafty and making a big mess that either you or mom will have to clean up anyways. Spend that extra time going through those old photos. You may even find something that you totally forgot about like I usually do. My kids love going through pictures of old memories. It is something that we can spend hours doing and really enjoying the time spent together.

Click here and get started today!!!

If you need more inspiration for Mother’s Day, check out this Mother’s Day ideas page at CanvasPop and save with an exclusive Mother’s Day code!

St. Louis Dad partnered with CanvasPop for this post. Check out CanvasPop.com for more awesome canvas prints!

Getting Kids Interested In Music

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Children are interested in many things right from a young age, but they usually don’t start getting curious about music until they’re a bit older. Or at least, they don’t start to understand music until they’re older. Getting them interested in music from a young age is one of the best things you can do. It helps to give them a purpose in life, and helps to nurture a passion for such a beautiful thing. Music is going to help them through a lot of situations in life, so the sooner they find a love for it the better. Here’s how you can try and help grow that love.

Take Them To See It Live

Taking them to see music live is going to be so much fun for the both of you. It’s obviously better to do something like this when they’re old enough to understand and enjoy. If you take them too early all you’ll have on your hands is a potentially tired and fed up kid, not what you want when you’re trying to enjoy a concert. But when they are old enough, check out websites such as TicketOffices.com and ask them what sort of things they like. It’s important for them to find their own love for music first, whether that be a love of pop music or a love of rock music. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of it, you should still try and go to the concerts to help nurture that love for music from a young age. You could make it a family event and get everyone involved, or you could keep it personal and use it as a way to bond with your child. Some parents love sports and engaging with that, you could be the parent who loves music and helps them to develop that passion. You never know, what you do in the beginning could turn them into the next super star!

School Clubs

School is where they learn the most, from social skills to education, it’s where they learn everything to set them up for the rest of the life. The one thing that is going about schools is the fact they have so many different school clubs to entice all children to join. One of them is always music. Whether it be something like band practice, choir, you name it, they should have it. Not only is it a great way to get them interested in music, but it also gives them the chance to make new friends who have similar likes to them.

Play With Them

If you have that love for music, and if you know how to sing or play an instrument, then you should be looking to do this with them. No one is going to be able to understand how they learn, and have the patience to help them get to a professional standard. Plus, it’s a great way to bond with them and gets you spending some good old quality time with them.

This post is a collaborative effort by St. Louis Dad.

Southeastern Rodeo Association presents the 2nd Annual St. Louis Open Black Rodeo

Southeastern Rodeo Association returns to STL, bringing the 2nd Annual St Louis Open Black Rodeo to Chaifetz Arena.  Phenomenal feats of skill will be on display as cowboys and cowgirls will compete for prize money across various competition categories.

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TICKET PROMO CODE

Use promo code GDAD for discounted tickets! http://bit.ly/2GfP6R9

The discounted tickets are only $19.50 per ticket!

Cowboys and Cowgirls will be heading to #STL on May 5th for the 2nd Annual STL Open Black Rodeo at Chaifetz Arena!

The Southeastern Rodeo Association Black Rodeo will be in St. Louis at the Chaifetz Arena on May 5th! The Open Black Rodeo’s role is to educate the public on the importance of African-American cowboys’ work in the “Old West”. Professional cowboys and cowgirls will be competing for prize money!

The rodeo showcases professional cowboys and cowgirls in events including bronco riding, steer wrestling, calf roping, barrel racing, team roping and bull riding.

Expect a lot of action at the 2nd Annual St. Louis Open Black Rodeo!

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The 2018 Guide To All Things Smartphone

The smartphone market has been rapidly growing over the last few years. With companies working hard to best one another, consumers expecting more and more from their devices, and other areas of technology steaming ahead, it’s easy to see why this field is growing so fast. Of course, though, this doesn’t really help with it comes to choosing and owning your smartphone. Instead, it makes the process confusing, often resulting in poor choices and wasted money. To give you some support with this, this post will be exploring the important basics you need to know to be able to make the right choices when it comes to your phone.

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Choosing The Device

The phone you choose will drastically impact your experience for the next few years, and it makes sense to consider all of your options when you are looking for one. To begin this journey, it will be time to find all of the best contenders within your price range, gathering them up and comparing them against one another. When you take phones in the same budget margin and put them together, it will be hard to see any clear differences between the devices you have available. In reality, though, phones can differ hugely from manufacturer to manufacturer, making the next part of this effort even more important.

There are loads of review sites around the web which compare mobile phones and tell people which devices are the best deals. Websites like HandsetExpert can help with this, providing you with loads of great reviews, along with price guides to help you with your budget. At each budget level, you will find clear winners and losers, and it doesn’t always matter which brand you decide to go for. Most phones will have an area which they excel in above the others. For example, Sony usually produce great cameras and screens, whereas Apple is mostly heralded for their incredible design. This gives you a lot to research when you’re first looking to buy your phone.

Looking After It

Next, it will be time to think about the work which has to be done to maintain your phone. If you’ve had a smartphone in the past, you will have experienced the performance degradation which makes these devices so frustrating. For the most part, though, this sort of issue, among others, can easily be avoided with some tender loving care. Below, you can find some examples of the sort of work which can be done to keep a phone running smoothly, while also ensuring that you spend as little as possible.

 

  • Clearing Unused Apps: Flash storage can be a weird thing to manage, and will be slowed down when it is reaching capacity. To avoid this sort of complication, removing unused apps, files, and other things stored on the device is a great way to get started with your device maintenance. There are loads of apps out there which can help you with this.

 

  • Performing Clean-Ups: Along with removing the unused files which you can see, there could also be loads of hidden data which is causing your phone to slow down. Clean-up software has the power to tap into your device, giving you a clear idea of what can be done to make it faster, while also opening your storage to be used for bigger things. Like the work above, you can often find an app to handle this for you, and this will make the whole process much easier.

 

  • Refreshing The System: Finally, as the last bit of maintenance work which can done to your phone, it will be time to look at the operating system it has on it. Over the weeks and months, this sort of software will quickly degrade in performance. By performing a factory reset or replacing the OS entirely, you could make your phone feel a lot swifter, and it doesn’t have to cost anything in the process.

Making Repairs

Once a phone’s screen is cracked or the device won’t turn on, it can be very tempting to abandon it, and a lot of customers find themselves replacing broken phones almost as much as they buy new ones. This trend costs a huge amount in both money and the world’s resources, with a lot of precious and semi-precious metals and stones going into producing them. Of course, this means that when something goes wrong, it’s much better to try and repair your phone rather than replacing it. Below, you can find a couple of different routes to help you to achieve this goal.

Self-Repair: Over the last couple of years, it’s gotten a lot easier to handle work like repairing your own phone. With websites like iFixIt can provide you with both the guides and the tools you need to complete jobs ranging from simple connector to entire screen replacements, all presented with videos and easy to follow articles. This sort of approach is best for those with a passion for technology. It won’t be easy to repair some phones, and a lot of people will find these jobs to be fiddly and stressful.

Pro Help: If you’re one of these people, it could make sense to have someone else handle your repair work for you, as this will make the process a lot easier. When you’re looking for people to do this sort of work for you, it will be essential that you read reviews and do some background research to make sure that you’re choosing the right professional for you. This will always cost a little bit of money, but it will still be cheaper than replacing the entire phone. Of course, sometimes, you might not be able to repair your device, and buying a new one will be the only option you have.

Hopefully, with all of this in mind, 2018 will be the year which sees you mastering your affinity with smartphones. With technology always on the move, it can be hard to keep up with what is possible with devices like this. In reality, though, they should last more than a year, especially if you treat them correctly.

This post is a collaborative effort by St. Louis Dad.