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I'm Shay! I’m a cookbook author, lifestyle blogger, travel agency owner, wife and mama who loves making every day special for my family.

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Mix & Match Mama

Let's Look ·

Let’s Look: Phone, Apps & Such!


Happy Wednesday, friends!  Today’s post is going to be short and sweet because…it’s officially the last day of summer at our house!

Where did the time go?!?!

We had an amazing summer, but now, it’s come to an end.

Today, I told my kids that we can sleep late, swim and enjoy this one last glorious day.

Today is also LET’S LOOK!  If you don’t know what this is, once a month, Erika and I do a little link up where we “look” at different aspects of our lives (and then if you blog, you share and link up too!).  It’s often a random little assortment of topics.

In January, we looked at our coffee bar areas.
In February, we looked at our love languages.
In March, we looked at a perfect night in.
In April, we looked at our fridge and pantry.
In May, we looked at our outdoor organization.
In June, we looked at our summer bucket list.
In July, we looked at our bathroom organization.

And today, we’re looking at our PHONE, APPS & SUCH!

I don’t know why, but this topic intrigues me!!  I love hearing all of the random (and often super useful!) apps you guys have on your phones!  This is a quick and easy little post, but hopefully, I’ll end the day with several new apps I *need* to add to my collection!

Before we get to apps, I asked Erika to share her frequently used emojis with me.

Listen, when you look at her emojis and then look at mine, it 100% sums up where we are in life right now…

These are Erika’s most used emojis and then, here are mine…

…why am I already using the jack-o-lantern?!

It’s August 11th!

Bahaha!

Erika has all the emotions…I have the weird summer/fall conflict happening on my phone.

I would LOVE to see what your most frequently used emojis are too!  If you are commenting from your phone, leave them in the comment section!!

Now, on to my phone.  My kids tell me I have WAY too many pages of apps. I have eight.  Typing it right there does sound aggressive, but I know where everything is and just don’t feel like I should delete things.  I mean, what if I need my Hallmark Christmas Movie app in July, I don’t want to have to download it again, right?!  Or My Disney Cruise Line app…I mean, I might be sailing sometime in the next…five years, so I should keep that one too.

For someone who loves to delete clutter, I have a hard time deleting my apps.

Here is my first page of apps.  I really don’t think I’ve added or taken away from this page in YEARS!

I feel like this first page here sums up my life.

Perfectly.

I cover all the basics: coffee, Jesus, the Red Sox, and connection with friends online.  I have a place for my work stuff (my Google folder), a place to check in on my favorite online community, a place for notes, to keep an eye on my kids (Gizmo), a little home security on there, I can remote start my car from that Cadillac app and weather, music and a map!

Please also note that I have zero unread emails or text messages because that drives me insane!  I have to check all of my messages and HATE when I see notifications.  Are you like me? Or do you have like 500 text message notifications?  I feel like there is no middle ground.  You either have a ton or you have none.

Okay, I need the skinny on YOUR VERY FAVORITE APPS!  Please share with me in the comment section the answers to these questions (if you can):

1: What app do you love the most for keeping your schedule organized?

2: What app do you love the most for editing photos?

3: What app do you love the most for keeping tabs on your kids and/or their social media use?

4: What’s your favorite app that no one else is using?

I would love your recs please!!

One last thing…

…seriously, this is my life.

Anyone else?!

I feel like my family lines up in front of me like they’re at the Apple store or something!

That wraps up this last day of summer for me!  Next month on Let’s Look…

…it’s all about the Meal Planning!

If you blogged Let’s Look too, please make sure you link up below!

Quick addition here, I just saw this and wanted to share:

…SALE ALERT!  Right now, Colleen Rothschild has 25% off her best sellers…and I use so many of them!! From the cleansing balm to the renewal cream, the extreme recovery cream, both eye creams and the super serum…those are my “always wear, every day” skincare products and right now, they’re on sale! Use code: bestseller

Have a great day, friends!

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Comments

  1. Constance says

    Girl you need to organize by folders! 😉 all social media in one..organization in another…home care/security, etc hahah so you can consolidate your 8 pages? Thanks for sharing! Love it!

    • Maria says

      I was going to say the same thing! Folders are a must! I have DINE, SHOP, GROCERY, HEALTH, TRAVEL etc… Just pull one app on top of another and rename the folder. All misc Apple apps I have in UTILITIES. Folders also consolidate the apps on my Home Screen so it doesn’t seem that I have as many apps as I really do.

    • Kate says

      Yes, I agree!! Get those apps in folders and you’ll easily get down to just a couple of pages!

    • Leslie says

      Yes to this! Everything is on one page in folders e.g. Social, Music, Photos, News, Travel, etc. The folders might be alphabetized too : )

  2. Joanne says

    I don’t have any apps for keeping organized, editing photos, or keeping tabs on my boys but I did share my favorite hiking app! We use AllTrails every single time we go hiking (which is usually once a week or so). It’s great for finding new trails and for helping us not get lost either.

  4. Erika Slaughter says

    Please someone suggest the best family calendar app!!! I need one that of practice is cancelled, I can delete it from my app but Tab gets an alert or sees it’s cancelled too? And I totally thought those emojis were part of that podcast we were working on but I couldn’t figure out how that related. ?

    • Laura says

      I LOVE Google calendar! You can create different color coded calendars for people or themes (ex work, personal, sports, school, mom, kid). If another person is invited to a calendar event they get an alert if it’s cancelled. It works better on computers than phones but still great. I was a paper planner person for yearssss but this sold me.

    • Brandi says

      My husband and I use Cozi. We just use the free version, which works fine for us, but the paid version is probably even better! He gets a notification whenever I make changes.

    • Audrey says

      Cozi calendar is awesome. Every person has a different color assigned to them, you can have other web based calendars post straight into it and it syncs on everyone’s app/phone. Sooo convenient and eliminates hubbie always asking what plans are!! Plus it’s free!!

    • Amanda G says

      I just spent time this month researching this and here is where I landed…

      We just started using fantastical. One of the things I loved was that it has easy entry, it doesn’t show duplicate events and uses what you already have in ical or google calendar. I can set up calendar “sets” so I can see just the kids, or just the hubby, or just the hubby and I.

      So, this is how we did it (because that took me the longest to figure out) for my family (traveling husband, 16yo, 12yo). Each of us has a calendar of a different color plus a “school” calendar that shows half days/holidays. I did this by setting up my kids on my ical in two different colors and syncing with my hubby. Everything goes on the calendar. Practices, addresses, who we are playing, which school the event is at, appointments, birthday parties, etc. They go on the appropriate persons calendar. If it’s something I know I’ll be driving to, I either duplicate the event and assign it to me as well. Then Fantasical shows multiple colors for that date.

      While Cozi does this as well, these were my selling points.
      *What really got me was how easy it was to look at on my phone. At a glance I can see next Tuesday there are three colors meaning three of us have some kind of plan and know I should look at it. As opposed to ical showing a black dot for everyday.
      *Natural language entry
      *Uses multiple calendars – so if work is google and home is ical, it all merges well.
      *Uses what I already had
      *Easy tasks that show up on the day in the calendar….
      *Honestly–it’s just easy to look at and enter info. Just go look on the website! 🙂 https://flexibits.com/fantastical

  5. Brandi says

    I just learned about an app yesterday called Prepear! It is kind of like Pinterest but ONLY for recipes, and you can also make weekly meal plans and grocery lists in the app. Haven’t used it long, but it seems really helpful!

  8. Christina says

    I have soooo many pictures on my phone ugh, do you recommend an app for getting them developed? Maybe a post about how you organize all your photos….sometime in the future.

    • Shae Mannering says

      I use the Shutterfly app. I have pic in folders on there by month (ex. 2021 Aug) Sometimes I have special folders with like all vacation pics but usually like this. I also make books because I enjoy doing so. My son just graduated HS. I did a book with memories of each of his HS years and it was fun to look through during all the graduation stuff. I take WAY too many pics and nobody will probably ever look at them or the books but they are there and organized if ever the need arises. 😉

  9. Susan says

    I am so looking forward to the comments! I love new apps! I feel you on tech support but why can I not get my screenshot of emjois to inset here??!! ??‍♀️ My favorite app is AnyList. Create lists for just about anything, We use it most with groceries. Share the list among family so my kids can add shampoo to the list when they are out.

      • Susan says

        You can also tie it to your Alexa so you simply say, Alexa add bread to the grocery list, and BAM, it’s on your list. I use the paid version so I can add pictures of items. Say you send your husband to the grocery store. You can put deodorant on the list but if it’s a particular kind you can add a pic so there’s no confusion on which kind! genius!!

    • Kate says

      I second this! AnyList is one of my absolute favorite apps! I love the fact that my hubby and I can both add to it at any time. You can rearrange the categories so that it makes sense for the stores you shop too (for example, at my Aldi produce is the first aisle, then snacks, then baking so I have my categories in that order – speeds up the shopping trips!) We also have other lists for specific stores, to do lists and present ideas. Oh, and the recipe import is great!! (Can you tell I love this app?!)

  10. Sarah says

    You should totally look into utilizing the App Library! You can save all your apps but it just takes them off the main screen. You can search by app title or category in the App Library whenever you need one! Hold down an app you don’t use frequently, push Remove App, and then instead of clicking Delete App, select Remove from Home Screen, and it will move them to the App Library on your phone. You just swipe one more page over from your last and they’ll all be there. Hot tip my husband taught me. ??

    • Wendy says

      Sarah, I don’t know you but you have honestly just made my day!!! I had no idea we could do this and I’ve always been annoyed at all the apps staring at me lol…thank you so much for sharing this amazing tip!! I stopped everything I was doing and just removed all my apps from my Home Screen!!! Whoohoo!! ?

  11. Rosa says

    For organization I love Google Keep. The technology person at my school introduced me to it. You can make tons of to-do lists and then cross things off of it once you complete them. It kept me so organized at the end of the school year and was something I could take with my everywhere instead of being tied to my planner.

  12. Brooke says

    I’ve got my apps organized in folders by color!! I blame The Home Edit for my love of putting things in rainbow order! At first I thought I’d be lost finding things, but you’d be surprised. You probably know the color of most apps! I love it and my Home Screen is so simple now! ? ?

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Really? I have heard of this, but I thought the same thing…I’ll never find anything. Maybe I’ll look on Pinterest to see how it looks!

      • Shelley says

        I have this too! Got the idea from the Home Edit and I love love love it! Took me about an hour to do it the first time and now I can never go back. It is amazing how your brain know what colors apps are and if you can’t find one the app search comes right up so it makes it easy! I think you would love it. I am going to Dm you a pic on Insta

      • Melissa Wilburn says

        Mine are also like this, but I have the first page as my most used apps, and then the 2nd page is everything else in folders by color. And, yes, it was crazy how easy it was to find them all that way.

    • Tamara K Lang says

      I have mine organized by category (like social media in one, games, banking, etc.) so I only have two screens. My teen/young adult children have them in Apha folders.

    • Erin Lloyd says

      Yes my son did this fir me and then added cute widgets to have a pic of the family with those colors in it on each page! Leave it to the teenagers to know the “cool” tricks!!

  13. Sara says

    ????☺️??????‍♀️??❤️???????
    Basically all of the emotions like Erica, with a little bit of back to school ?❤️? and praising Jesus ????! Lots of apps on my phone stress me out. I am a minimalist so I only like 1-2 pages! My most used apps are email, calendar, and Walmart!

  14. ASHLEY V says

    For rarely used apps, you can delete them from your Home Screen, but not your phone. The last page is the “App Library” with a search function that will hold all your apps by category (which you can customize) and also alphabetically. Super easy to find your apps and I’m down to one page of every day apps. So much easier than all the scrolling!

  15. Raissa says

    I met my best friend Sammy in 2009 as randomly assigned freshman roommates (@KU, not KState ?). We’ve both been following you since like 2013 when we saw your portion on Sean’s season. I’m originally from CT and moved back home after college, while Sammy remained in KS as it was always her home state. Our long distance friendship has maintained itself through the last 10+ years of me being back in CT, and our morning texts are usually kicked off by recapping your blog together. It’s *almost* like book club ?

    For our bestie trip this year, we decided we’re gonna go to TX so we can check out all the spots in McKinney we feel like we know from following you and your blog ? As neither of us are from there, we were wondering if you had any suggestions on where to stay around the McKinney / Dallas area. Ive been recapping your McKinney Square favorites – is it weird that at almost 30 I’m most excited to go to Mom and Popcorn?! ?

    Thanks for being such a genuine soul that comes across so relatable that a girl from CT and a girl from KS are flying over to McKinney ❤️

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Oh my goodness! I wish I could like and heart this comment! YOU GIRLS ARE SWEET!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for the love! Our little town of McKinney thanks you too 😉 .

  16. Heather says

    ???❤️????????‍♀️?????‍♀️?????????✔️???☺️????
    I have all the emotions like Erika… My enneagram number is also a 9.

  17. Heather says

    ??❤️????????‍♀️????????????☺️??✔️??????‍♀️??
    I have all the emotions like Erika. My enneagram number is also a 9. ?

  18. Chrissy says

    My teens use TimeTree for a calendar to share with me and their friends. I can add to their calendar. I get a notification if things are updated/added/deleted. My pencil/paper old school planner is the family bible, but I am nice enough to send things to their calendar if it pertains to them. A favorite uncommon app of mine is Flightradar24. I love looking up what planes are above me, where they’re coming from, where they’re going, as I sit on my back porch. That sentence just made me 80 years old.

  19. MelanieL says

    This is a fun topic! Right now Life360 is my most used app because my teenagers are driving (insert that wide eyed emoji here)! Also probably super unpopular but I turn off ALL notifications (except that Life360 app, LOL!) because it drives me crazy to see them. I’ll find them when I’m ready to open the app again, thank you very much. 🙂

  20. Nancy Steed says

    I use Life 360 to keep tabs on my family especially with my niece driving 2 hours to our house. List Ease is my grocery list go to. Spotify to listen to the Bestie Breakdown and Amazon music for driving. And I have the Hallmark app to for all the movies. Just a few of my favorites.

  21. Liz says

    Hi! I would love to know if/when your kids have phones. How do you deal with parenting and technology for them? It’s so hard nowadays!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      We just covered this on The Bestie Breakdown in episode 9! (You can listen on any podcast platform!) My kids do not have phones.

  22. Abby says

    For organization, I use the notes app. I have so many different notes and folders, it helps keep me sane.
    I use the basic features on the photos app on the iPhone, so nothing fancy there. It’s not an app but a feature on the iPhone, the pin feature to pin your text messages. It’s so nice to be able to organize them and keep some separate from others i.e. work or personal.

  23. Chrissy says

    8 pages!!!! You should definitely create folders! I keep my first page the same (my most frequently used) but everything else goes in a folder. “Travel” will house all 5 different airline apps I have, as well as several ride-sharing apps (maybe a good place for your Disney Cruise app!). “Health” has my Peloton app, Nike running app, etc! You’ll get used to the change super quickly…and not have to scroll through 8 pages 🙂

  24. Jess says

    What phone do you use? I’m still using a droid! Contemplating making the switch to apple but soo nervous I wont be able to navigate!

  25. Jennifer Bethune says

    ?????‍♀️????????????‍♀️????????????❤️???

    I like the Google calendar. You can color code events and there are different views (days, week, month). You know about the Bible app… I made it a big widget that takes up half my screen and shows the verse of the day. PS Express has great filters to change the look of your photos. My favorite tends to be the HDR filters.

  26. Erin Lloyd says

    Hi Shay! My husband and I LOVE the Cozi app! We can both enter things on the grocery list and add things to the calendar. You have multiple lists for target, grocery, Costco etc! Also the calendar you can assign everyone a color and it’s easy to see who has what activity. We needed to end my husband texting me saying does Brennan have a b-ball game on…. It’s been the best app to run our family!!

    • Audrey Winter says

      Erin, we also love Cozi…and you made me laugh because I love that my Hubbie doesn’t ask me the same questions 100 times as well!!

    • Amy says

      Our rule is, if it’s not on Cozi, it doesn’t happen! It’s the BEST. Notifies you when someone adds an event. Integrates with Google calendar. So simple. My 13-year-old loves it too!

  27. EW says

    For organizing my day, I use The Arena App. It’s a free app for iPhone and iPad that shows your to dos as big or small as they seem to you. Instead of listing them all out so “Buy peas” and “Create world peace” each take up a single line on a list, this allows you to ‘size’ your items so “Buy peas” is a small, manageable task and “Create world peace” is a larger, more complex task. It really helps me to see my to do list match the emotion/intensity that’s in my brain. And, it helps me schedule things, too. There’s a calendar view so you can batch your to dos around the items ALREADY ON YOUR CALENDAR. The calendar integration is pretty sweet.

  28. Maria says

    I am with Constance and Sarah. I use folders (that I specifically name) to keep like things together. For example, I have all my social media apps in one folder label Social Media. Any of my less frequently use apps I moved to the App Library. Both methods keeps everything organized and decluttered.

  29. Colleen T says

    1SE. It is one second a day. You add a 1 second clip of a video or even just a picture for each day. Sometimes I just record the kids brushing their teeth or in bed if I need a video for that day. I just add days 2-3 times a month and I’ve been using it for almost 2 years. It is SO fun to just look back and watch a 10 min video of all the daily clips of activities the kids do but also trips etc. You would LOVE it. It makes you take some more videos of the kids daily mundane tasks in the house but I know those are the things I’ll forget and want to remember. It is free. You can pay for storage but I don’t. I just save the entire thing to my phone 1-2 times a year.

  30. Julia says

    Your screenshots of apps on 8 pages give me anxiety (Enneagram 1 over here!) I organize them all by color per Home Edit and will never look back! They are in groups by color and now all my apps fit on one page!

    I love the Cozi app for keeping our schedules organized. Each person has his own color and my husband has it on his phone too so we can both add, edit, remove. I also sync it to Google Calendar and it displays on our Amazon Echo in the kitchen so everyone can see it!

    We use “Screen Time” in the Apple iPhone settings to control our kids’ screen time on their individual iPads and Apple devices. It allows us to control what apps they can have (you can prevent them from getting safari or a web browser!), who they can text with (only us and grandparents). The kids (9 and 11) don’t have phones yet and our school (which goes through 8th grade) prohibits them from having phones or even wearable technology. I was shocked Kensington’s middle school has QR codes in the cafeteria for kids to scan on their phones!

  32. Carly says

    Shay, what is the lip gloss and eye shadow color you had on in your stories yesterday? Looks so pretty!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Let me think…eye shadow was a tarte palette and the gloss was…what was it…I think it was a Lawless lipstick and gloss!

  33. Tanya Reimers says

    After watching The Home Edit I created folders by color and moved apps of that color into that folder. I hated pages and pages of apps, serious anxiety. On my home screen I have my most used apps, the next screen has 9 colored folders with the matching colored app. If I don’t remember the color of the app I slide down the screen and I can search for the app. Easy peasy. When I was OCD about keeping only the apps I used, I would delete, then need that app at some point, have to download it again, etc. Now I just move the app to the folder and if I never use that app again, that’s ok because it’s tucked neatly away in a folder. 🙂

  34. Abby says

    I like the Paprika app for recipes, groceries, menus, and meals. We add other stores to the grocery list like Target and Lowes so if one of us is out and about we know what is needed. I organize so many things in Evernote and use the web browser extension to clip part or full page views. It’s helpful to see what a plant or furniture looks like without having to look everything up again. We use Google calendar and I use the notifications for most things. For podcasts, I’m using Overcast and I like Libby for library books. When I’m waiting in the car pick up, I frequently use the Bloglovin’ app or Libby.

  35. Deena says

    My biggest thing on my phone is that I have my apps in folders that make sense to me. The most used apps are in the first page and if one is temporarily being used a lot, I just move it up. I have just one page of apps because of my folders and it makes me happy.

    I just use Google photos for editing but Photomyne is great if you have older photos that aren’t the best quality. Just skip the upgrade screen. I’m always looking for collage apps that are easy to use.

    Probably the app I use that people don’t know about is Copy Me That. You can save recipes to it, tag them, and edit for any changes you make. I like it so that we can use it on our phones or iPads.

  36. Sheri says

    With the new updates on iphone you should have an app library if you swipe all the way right. Then you can leave all apps that are rarely used in your library so you don’t have to redownload. All of the ones you use most can be on just a page or two (or three, no judgement!) It’s made it much easier for me.

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