Google Home

Mom life is a busy life, parenting is no easy job and I always say that it isn’t easy being a good parent. With Craig and I both having careers and me busy with two toddlers all day and night while he works tirelessly on the house we are renovating after work, we love partnering with brands that make family life easier and I am so excited to announce my partnership with Google Home!

Getting the answers I need while in the kitchen is so easy now while cooking up a storm when we are hosting a dinner party, “Hey Google, how long do I barbecue tofu for?” – and Google answers me, it’s that simple guys!

Today I want to share with you the ways we use our Google Home, we’ve been using it for a month now and we are truly in love with this product. We were already big fans of Google Home products and when we planned our renovations we knew we would be installing NEST thermostats and their smoke alarms too, we love having a Smart Home and Google is the way to go in our opinion. With the Google Home and these systems we can ask Google to turn up or down the heat or AC, or even to turn on our kitchen or outside lights!?! You may remember our behind the scenes video with Google Home where Craig was programing our system to know what to do when we say “Hey Google, set the mood!”. Our Google Home will dim the kitchen lights for us and start playing our favourite romantic music…we could even have it turn on Suits on the tv if we asked it to!

One of the ways we use our Google Home the most is to play our favourite music, I mean even the kids can ask Google to play their favourite Disney track? How cute! Craig knows it’s a good day when he comes home and I have Bob Marley’s greatest hits or Frank Sinatra playing, that is my zen music haha! If it’s quiet, he knows he may be coming home to chaos and crankiness, let’s be real here – not every day is rainbows and unicorns while running a full time career & trying to be the best mum possible to two toddlers!

Craig loves having music playing in the background while he works around the house and so when we were building this house we made sure to have built-in speakers in our ceiling in all of the common areas, he can literally ask Google Home to play Jay-Z in the loft while he’s building the library wall….awesome right!? Craig is so in love with this thing that he bought one for his dad to use in his shop, he knows a good thing when he sees one haha!

If you don’t have built-in speakers you can still enjoy this feature, you can listen to your own personal playlists from services like Google Play Music and Spotify on the Google Home speaker itself or even a wifi enabled speaker system by using Chrome Cast. You can even enjoy podcasts, news and radio while making your morning coffee!!! Oh wait, did you know Google Home can start your coffee!?!?!? AHHHHH, can you hear the excitement through my typing lol? Yes guys, if you have a wifi enabled coffee machine you could be laying in bed doing a morning stretch and call out to Ggoogle to get that pot of goodness brewing!!!  I mean there is no beating around the bush any more, I can be laying in bed next to Craig and asking our Google Home what a family trip to Hawaii for 2 weeks is going for and get all the answers we need. Booking a vacation or researching locations never got easier guys, without being glued to a phone or laptop!

Okay, secondly we compile our grocery lists with our Google Home. I don’t know about you but I am a lists kind of gal, I love to write things down on paper BUT I always forget the list at home…ALWAYS. So now I can search through the fridge and call out to Google to add almond carrots, beets or bananas to our grocery list, and both Craig and I can access the list on our phones! Genius right? This is especially helpful if say while doing laundry I realize we are out of laundry soap – with a family of four and a hubby who has day work clothes and clothes he likes to wear when doing construction at home AND pyjamas…my laundry never ends. Having a shortage of laundry soap…ain’t nobody got time for that lol! Now we won’t forget anything on our shopping list! Some days there is no way I am headed to the grocery store with both kids, the weather could be insane or the kids could just be not in the mood for an outing (or me for wrangling them for one) or it’s just easier if Craig hits the grocery store on the way home. With Google Home we can stay on top of our busy schedules, Craig knows if I have a dentist appointment with the kids or a big photo shoot for the blog…he knows if it’s on him to pick up the eggs & butter haha! I also like that my Google Home can help me with timers in the kitchen when I am cooking, I simply say “ Hey Google, set a 20 minute timer for Quinoa!” and voila. No searching through the kitchen with messy hands to find my phone to check the time!

If you decide to use your Google Assistant to help manage your daily schedules you can even have Google alert you when you are running late for an appointment, which is me…always lol. I can honestly tell you that since I started using our Google Home for alerts about upcoming appointments, I have been 10-15 minutes EARLY for every thing. Craig thinks there is something wrong with me, my sister in law last week laughed so hard saying she couldn’t believe I made it to swimming lessons with the kids before she did!

In August I have decided to start using the Google Home to manage blog work too, it is so easy for me to get caught up in every day mom life or procrastinate and to stay on top of my deadlines I will be setting reminders so Google can tell me when packages for work are expecting and reminders on the days I am supposed to be shooting for that work and the dates for posting on the blog – so, so helpful!

I hope you guys have a chance to try out the Google Home and see how it can make your family life or following a busy schedule easier, this blog post was made in partnership with Google Home and we are so excited to have worked with a product that we love so much. We know you will love it too!