With summertime here, it’s all about preparing some tasty treats that are quick and easy.  We usually have a packed summer schedule full of travel, the beach, and of course seeing all the new movie releases.  For all meals and even snacks, I prefer to keep it simple.  Check out these three recipes I will be making quite often this summer that are sure to please:

Sautéed Kale

Ingredients:

1 bag of kale

minced garlic

olive oil

salt & pepper

Instructions:

1. Turn heat on stovetop to medium

2. Coat bottom of pan with olive oil

3. Add kale (you can do in batches depending on pan size)

4. Stir to coat in oil

5. Add minced garlic, salt, and pepper

6. Sautée over medium heat just until kale starts to soften.

ENJOY!

Easy Guacamole

Ingredients:

2 whole avocados, seed/skin removed, and roughly sliced

Tony C’s seasoning

juice from half a lemon

Instructions:

1. Using a fork, spoon, or pastry mixer, squish up avocado until it turns into a lumpy/creamy texture

2. Add Tony C’s and lemon juice, stir

Enjoy on chips!

**You can add tomatoes, minced garlic, jalapenos, to get different spiciness and flavor.

Finally, in the summer we like to stay cool so the hot drinks (for the most part) are hidden away until winter.  Summer is full of lemonade, sweet tea, ice water and one of my favorites…iced coffee! I like to make it is using creamer ice cubes.  I brew a cup of French Vanilla flavored coffee and add these simple iced creamer cubes to keep it cool. It adds the sweetness of the creamer without getting the watered down taste ice cubes can sometimes give you.

Iced Creamer Cubes for Iced Coffee

Ingredients:

Favorite flavor(s) of cold coffee creamer (or half and half if you don’t used flavored creamer)

Instructions:

1. Pour creamer into ice cube tray and freeze

2. Add as little or as many cubes as you like to sweeten your coffee and keep it cold.

These are just a few of my favorite simple summer recipes that are staples for my family during the summer.  What are some of your favorite summer recipes?

Toni shares stories about parenting, life and everything in between on her blog A Daily Dose of Toni. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

When Nina Restieri, the creator of the momAgenda® brand asked me to vlog about my top five summer goals as a mom this summer, my first reaction was panic. How can I limit my goals to just five?  But after some reflection on the past four summers, I realized they were a blur of stress and over-scheduling.

My overarching goal is to keep my children’s summer as well as my own relaxed and enjoyable. Armed with my following five specific goals as well as my momAgenda Mini Daily, I think this summer is going to be a success!

Jessica McFadden is a mother of three children and the founder of A Parent in America, a lifestyle blog for parents and A Parent in Silver Spring, an award-winning site for families in the Washington, DC area. Connect with Jessica on Twitter and Facebook.

The following is a guest post from momAgendaCOMM

Summer is here. Your kids are out of school and have a multitude of summer activities planned from swimming parties and baseball practice to camp and doctors’ appointments. But remember, when the kids aren’t out and about, they are home. So how can you maintain your work-at-home business while juggling their schedule and yours and be productive in a more hectic atmosphere?

Here are a few ideas to create a successful work-at-home balance over the summer:

• Entice the kids with the allure of doing “big people’s work.” Have you ever seen a little boy following his dad around the yard, “mowing” with a little toy lawn mower? This will give your kids a sense of growth, not to mention a sense of contribution to your work. Offer a variety of things they can help with from packaging products and putting materials together to organizing your work space, or even coloring pictures to brighten up your office. And while they do this, you can be doing other tasks.
• Consider flex time as a reward for their help. Suggest taking a day or half a day to do no work and just spend time with them. You may also find that condensing your work week into four days works well to give you some flex time to spend with the kids.
• Keep the car packed. Load it with beach/pool stuff, sunscreen, bathing suits, extra changes of clothes, snacks, etc. which makes for a quick getaway if needed or allows you to stop at the park on the way home—either way, you are prepared.
• Plan a picnic and have the kids prepare the lunches with their own food ideas. It will allow them to be creative, and allow you to squeeze in a little more work time.
• Barter childcare with a neighbor or friend. For instance, you could host a pool party for the kids while your neighbor or friend runs errands, and then in exchange, you drop the kids off at your neighbor’s or friend’s place so you can meet with a client, finish some writing, or get some of the work you are behind on finished. Plus, you don’t have to limit yourself to one neighbor or friend.
• Reach out to other stay-at-home mothers in your community. See if other moms would be interested in bartering childcare. That way, if one neighbor can’t help on a day you have an important meeting, you have others you can rely on. You may even be able to barter carpooling if their child plays on the same team or is also going to the same camp.
• Utilize a big calendar. This is where you can see everyone’s activities including doctor appointments, camps, swimming lessons, sporting events, etc. Using this as a guide, find chunks of time where you can work uninterrupted and block off that time. Since the kids will usually be going to bed later and getting up later, find when you are most productive and grab either some early morning work time or stay up late and work one night a week.

With family vacations, family reunions, and the nice weather, your summer is already going to be busy, so take time to plan how you can stay productive while the kids are home, and how you can have some fun, too.

What are some of your secrets to creating a work-at-home balance over the summer?

Leah Jantzen is a Life and Business coach who works with highly motivated individuals looking to make profound changes in their lives. Before starting her coaching business, she was a guidance counselor for 12 years in her hometown on the North Shore of Long Island. Connect with Leah on Twitter and Facebook.

The following is a guest post from momAgendaCOMM

Summer is right around the corner so if you haven’t yet planned your summer family vacation, now is the time. If this is a last minute trip, you may not have started saving just yet, but don’t despair. There’s still time to pull together your budget and have a great vacation this summer!

Here are a few tips to help you save for your next getaway:

• Decide when and where you want to go, but be realistic. You should probably already have an idea of how much money you’ll have available for this vacation. Remember that you may need to have the funds available before your actual trip if you need to make a deposit on your trip or purchase airfare for the family.

• Choose a few ideal vacation spots and do some research to figure out how much it will all cost. I like using websites like Kayak or JetBlue Getaways to price out the entire vacation, but other sites like Priceline and Hotwire may offer better deals.

• When determining how much you’ll need to save, remember to factor in expenses like gas, airport parking, and pet care. Check several dates – sometimes leaving and returning on a weekend is less expensive than traveling Saturday to Saturday. If you find that your dream vacation is too expensive for this year, consider doing a road trip. You’ll save money because you won’t have to fly anywhere, and you won’t have to rent a car. Then, plan to start saving for next year’s vacation now!

• Use a momAgenda planner to assist you as you plan a vacation. My favorite is the Personal Portfolio in shimmering berry pink. It’s a great way to keep track of your savings plan, vacation dates, and payment deadlines.  Add in your travel dates, confirmation numbers, and payment dates so that you’ll have everything you need right at your fingertips. I also print out any confirmations and leave them in the front pocket of the planner for easy access.

What are some of the ways you plan for a summer family vacation?

Jodi is a mom of two with an MBA in finance and over ten years of corporate finance experience. She has been blogging since 2007 and she founded the mom review blog Mom’s Favorite Stuff. Connect with Jodi on Twitter and Facebook.

The following is a guest post from momAgendaCOMM

As the school year comes to a close, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of paperwork and artwork your child brings home, not including what you’ve collected throughout the year. No matter how much you’d like to keep all of these treasured mementos, by the time they graduate from high school, you’d have an entire room of paper.

Streamlining the paperwork that has inundated you all year doesn’t have to be a scary proposition. What it does take is a little time and an organizational method that works for your family and space.  Here are five ideas for you to use to help you corral your paperwork and reclaim your space.

1. Don’t keep every piece of artwork your child creates, no matter how tempted you are.  While art shows their true personality, it’s best to save the pieces that really sparkle.  Sit down and sort through them to select the pieces you truly love. It’s a difficult job, but one that is a worthwhile endeavor.

2. If you’re having a hard time picking through your kids’ artwork, or want to get rid of paper clutter entirely, make use of a scanner and scan them into a folder on your computer. You can burn the images to a DVD-ROM, thumb-drive, or back them up to one of the great products shared here by Leticia Barr for momAgenda.

3. Create photobooks which is a great way of developing printed scrapbooks of artwork and special recognitions for your kids. There are great companies producing easy to make photobooks, such as Picaboo and Shutterfly. With the click of a mouse, you can make books for the entire family, or per school year, to highlight accomplishments.

4.  Frame really special pieces of artwork. Create a display of abstract pieces and hang them in a beautiful display.  You can also follow this Pinterest example and use wooden pant hangers to hang pieces you love, rotating them through the year:

5. Use momAgenda’s School Years organizer which is one of my personal favorites. There is a folder for each year of your child’s time in school that holds a report card, class picture, as well as writing and art samples.  It’s the perfect organizational piece that easily slips into your bookcase, or can stay on the coffee table as a display piece.

Lisa Frame is an over-achieving Southern gal, freelance writer and community manager. A self-proclaimed arbiter of good taste, Lisa blogs at A Daily Pinch and specializes in social media marketing analysis. Connect with Lisa on Twitter and Facebook.

The following is a guest post from momAgendaCOMM

Technology is a way to help us stay connected, be on time, educate ourselves…and entertain our kids. There are literally thousands and thousands of apps out there that we can install, test out, and fall in love with.

There are certain apps that I use on my devices to stay on track. These include Evernote for taking notes and listing ideas, DocuSign Ink for signing contracts on the go, PayPal for sending and accepting payments, and Google Drive and DropBox for accessing my files that are in the Cloud. Of course there are many, many more that keep me productive.

But what about the kind of apps that are great for kids?

My daughters each got a Kindle Fire for Christmas. They are now ten years-old so they are more interested in tech than they are toys. There are many apps that my kids love to use, or that we use together when we have some family tech time.

I consulted with my daughter Kayla to find out which apps she loves. Here are her top five favorites:

1.     Ruzzle – Ruzzle is an awesome word find game that tests your spelling skills and your speed. I love playing against my kids. I admit that it has been a long time since I was in school. This is a great game to keep my mind sharp and refreshed on words that I may not have used in a while even if my girls beat me sometimes. Their minds are fresh with words that they learn each week in school on their spelling lists, so they can usually swipe them out fast.

2.     BrainPOP Featured Movie – BrainPOP shows your child an animated movie on different subjects related to current events, historical milestones, holidays, and more. After watching, they go through a quiz to see what they learned.

3.     Subway Surfer – Hey, even kids have to blow off steam sometimes. My child’s favorite game on their Kindle Fire is Subway Surfer. They navigate their character around, on top of, and behind incoming trains. It certainly helps you work on your motor skills.

4.     Fish Adventure – Fish Adventure is a fun interactive game that you play to learn how to care for fish and other sea creatures. Kids learn about taking care of sea creatures while watching their fish perform interactive actions which is so much fun for them!

5.     4 Pics 1 Word – 4 Pics 1 Word is a game that gets you thinking by having you guess the word that relates to the 4 images that you are presented with. It really gets kids (and adults) thinking. The photos are easy to guess in the beginning, but it gets harder as the game goes on.

What are some of apps that you and your children enjoy?

Kris writes about her love of gadgets, social media, technology, and anything else that crosses her mind on the blog Little Tech Girl. She is also the owner of Little TechGirl Media. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

As the seasons change to spring and we’re occupied with spring cleaning to purge our homes of unwanted items, it’s also important to take a look at the technology in our lives and to spend some time cleaning up our tech lives. Anecdotal evidence demonstrates that many valuable hours are often wasted because of slow computers. Psychological research also documents the negative influences of clutter – digital or otherwise – in our life.

Despite this research, few users take time to proactively clean out their computers. By removing digital clutter, you’re able to recover lost hours in your day thanks to a machine that will run more efficiently. Here are 6 other practices you should incorporate on a regular basis to keep your digital life running smoothly:

1. Scan for viruses.  BitDefender QuickScan is a free online virus scanner that looks for malware such as Trojan horses, viruses, worms, and spyware that installs itself with the intent of damaging your computer while you use it.  Running QuickScan helps determine what viruses your computer has and will fix them for free.

2. Install a program to declutter and remove and errors to keep your PC running at its optimal speed.  Programs like ChicaLogic’s Chica-PC Fix offer a free scan through their website.

3. Secure your computer against viruses and hackers.  AVG offers free trials of their Anti-Virus program to protect your computer against viruses and spyware while you’re browsing online or on social networking sites.  While you’re on the AVG site, get a 30 day trial of their Internet Security to keep your personal information safe from hackers and spammers.

4. Change your passwords monthly. These days site hacking seems to be happening all the time on major ecommerce and online banking institutions. Make it a practice to change your passwords every month to safeguard your personal data. If you’re worried about remembering your constantly changing passwords, a site like MasterLock Vault allows you to save passwords, user names, combination codes and other important documents for easy access online. Accounts are free and easy to set up using only an email account. Once your account is set up, you can also use templates to store data or digital copies of important documents such as passports, wills, and tax returns that you want to keep secure.

5. Back up your data to the cloud. Let’s be honest. We often don’t think about backing up our machines until it’s too late. It’s time to be proactive and begin backing up to the cloud to avoid risking loss of files, including precious photos and videos of your growing children. Services like Carbonite and Mozy are popular services that will automatically backup your files to the cloud on a regular basis.

6. Use apps and online tools to manage receipts and family finances. Since the IRS allows you to keep electronic receipts as long as they are kept in a way that correct taxes can be determined, relying on tech tools can help you declutter your paper life. Mint.com is a personal finance tool that aggregates your financial accounts in one place, making it easy to set and keep to budgets, identify money saving ideas while tracking spending and purchases in real time. Mint is available online, has a free iPhone and Android smartphone app, and interactive iPad and Android Tablet apps.

Leticia Barr is the Founder of Tech Savvy Mama, a site that assists parents in navigating the ever-changing world of technology. Connect with Leticia on Twitter and Facebook.

Warmer weather and flowers in bloom are the first signs that spring has finally come to the northeast. After shoveling snow and enduring some cold winter months, it is a wonderful feeling to set up the patio furniture and start enjoying time outdoors.

Spring is also the perfect time to get organized and clean out some of the clutter not only in our homes, but also in our tech lives. It is the time of year when we feel the urge to organize every bedroom closet, kitchen cabinet, garage drawer and yes – that massive inbox of unwanted old emails. Maybe it’s the warm weather that gives us the cleaning bug, but regardless of the kind of energy it provides, it truly is the best time to get organized.

Using the right resource to aid in this process is an absolute must, so choosing a product from momAgenda is essential. Especially since the school year is also coming to a close and summer activities are merely weeks away, we need the right products to help us along the way.

Aside from the tons of amazing planners to choose from at momAgenda, another product that should be in the purse of every busy mom is the momEssentials.

As moms, we are always in need of some important information right at our fingertips. From various dates, birthdays, events, medical records, and even website or password information, you never know when you might have to look something up. I can’t tell you how many times I sit at the doctor’s office and search aimlessly through my bag to find insurance, pharmacy and other health information. All of this can be added and kept in momEssentials for easy reference.

This is the very product every busy mom needs to have. Important information stays safe all in one place. It even comes in mini-size, perfect for when you’re on the go!

And for less than the cost of a Starbuck’s coffee, you could own your very own momEssentials and start organizing all of that important information today.

Heather is the Leader of the Council of Media Moms and owner of the popular mom blog Theta Mom®. She also owns her own business at Theta Mom® Media. Connect with Heather on Twitter and Facebook.

At momAgenda® we place high value on honest feedback from our customers, especially when it comes from women who are living with chaotic schedules, kids, jobs, and other responsibilities. Much of this communication comes to us through our amazing and growing online community via Facebook and Twitter. We place strong value in building these relationships online through social media.

I am so excited to announce the 2013 Team of COMM: Council of Media Moms, a group of influential bloggers led by our Brand Ambassador, Heather Reinhard, better known online as Theta Mom. The COMM Team will continue to provide us with important insight into the needs and wants of the momAgenda® community as well as maintain a professional online presence for the brand. These engaging, talented and influential bloggers will work closely together to market momAgenda® to a wide audience of women and moms.

Get to know Heather Reinhard and the entire momAgenda COMM Team – check out their full bios here.

This is a shot from their back room where they store all this gorgeous leather…

Here is more leather…

Here is a shot of the leather after is has been hand-cut; ready to be turned into a wallet, photo frame, or maybe a luggage tag.

This is a view of part of the factory, where products are handmade and then stored until they are ready to be shipped to a customer.