Monday, November 20, 2017

Our Family Dance Parties (& Why Music Is Important To Us)


Our Family Dance Parties (& Why Music Is Important To Us)
This post is in partnership with Sonos and CJ Affiliate's VIP Content Service. All opinions are my own.

As those of you who read here regularly or follow me on social media know, music is way of life for my family. My husband works in the music industry as the Stage Manager for a touring band, he and I met at a concert, and we've collectively attended many hundreds of shows and festivals for fun over the years. My former career as a clothing designer also involved vending and producing fashion shows at major music festivals throughout the country, for well over a decade.

It's probably no surprise that both of our little ones love music as much as we do (and have been going to listen to live music since the womb!). This makes me happy not just because all of us have a common affinity for music, but also because there are legitimate studies that show incredible benefits that music (and dance!) provide for growing brains. In fact, everything from overall cognitive development to memory to ability to learn new information can be improved by enjoying music.


Needless to say, there is always music playing at our house, and spontaneous family dance parties are a regular part of our daily lives. Essley will literally call out the words "dance party!" if she senses any sort of stress from us (man do I love that kid's sensitive heart). At that point we all stop what we're doing, and one of us (again, usually Essley) says to our Sonos One smart speaker, "Alexa, play _______." (Admittedly this is most often a song from Frozen or Trolls, but hey, we'll take it.) Just like that the room is filled with music - that has a surprisingly exuberant, layered sound quality - from the tiny black speaker (that this design-obsessed lady also happens to find very attractive) sitting on an end table (or wherever we happen to have it on that particular day). Instantly, we are connected as a family, our moods are improved, and we're all doing something we genuinely love. When Robbie is on the road and it's just the kids and me, the dance parties continue. They're a simple way for me to take breaks from work or home/kid stuff and hit the reset button, along with my little ones.


The new Sonos One smart speaker has legitimately been a game changer for this family of music lovers. First of all, it has Amazon Alexa built in, which allows us to do everything from request specific songs (or entire albums) to stream music to access our personal music libraries and more. If the music is too quiet, we just say "Alexa, turn it up!" If we don't recognize a song, we ask Alexa what's playing. If we want to a skip a song, we just tell her to skip it. Sonos One syncs voice, app, and touch commands, which makes it so we can manage our music just by saying a word, or tapping the app, or swiping the speaker - we choose how we want to control it. (We can also use our Sonos One Alexa to check the news or traffic, manage our smart phones, and a do a whole lot more, but that's a whole different post.) And it connects wirelessly to other Sonos speakers in other rooms, so you can have music playing throughout your entire home. It's amazing you guys. And it makes it so our family dance party sessions can be truly spontaneous, because there aren't any interruptions. We don't need to stop what we're doing and put on an album or go get a phone, find a song, plug it into a speaker and wait. In just a few seconds, we are dancing. Together.


And just because it's so adorable, here is a photo of the kids having a dance party, in the exact same spot, almost a year ago. It blows my mind how tiny they look! It also warms my heart to look through old pictures and be reminded of the fact that music has always been (and will hopefully always be) such an integral part of their lives.


Fellow music lovers, who else has family dance parties? And do any of you have the Sonos One yet? (If not, I highly recommend it! We love ours so much that I'm giving a couple for holiday gifts as well. Woohoo!)

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23 comments:

  1. This is soooo cute and the speaker sounds awesome!

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  2. Ok you guys look like you are having so much fun! Love it :)

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  3. I would probably ask it to play Trolls too, that's a good soundtrack hahah! This is the cutest post!!

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  4. This is my favorite post! Too cute!

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  5. This sounds like a lot of fun! Your kids look so cute and having fun dancing! ❤️

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  6. this is adorable. i cant wait to dance with my little one!!

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  7. This is really cute love it so much

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  8. This is awesome! I also have the Alexa speaker and my kid looooves to call her name and ask her to play music!
    xo
    Laura

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  9. Me, me!! I want one! We listen to music as a family on a regular basis! This is going on my Christmas 🎄 list!

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  10. This is so amazing! I want one! P.S. The love-story between you and your husband is so cute (I think it is so sweet that you met at a concert and share a mutual love of music).

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  11. Awww absoultely adore this post!

    Sabrina | Gypsy Tan
    https://gypsytan.com

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  12. What a fun family tradition!

    XOXO, Stuart
    http://stuartsays.com/

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  13. We have a Sonos and it is amazing. I love how easy it is to use. We have music on all the time over here too

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  14. As always I love the special things you and your family do! We have a Sonos One and it lives in the kitchen which we feel like is a perfect place for it because we can ask it to play while we're in the process of cooking and don't want to stop and wash our hands and look for something to play and then try to do the same thing all over again to check to see what song is playing or to skip a song. It actually adds to the conversation too because it gives us something to talk about if we've never heard the song before or if it reminds us of something!

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  15. So cute!! Dance parties are fun no matter what age!!

    --
    Brittney
    Missxbo.com

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  16. Amazing I love music 😍 this would be the perfect gadget for me!

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  17. I love music too! I need one of these in my household. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like an amazing speaker.

    Xoxo
    www.stylemefancy.com

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  18. Music is my life. I would like to share to you a free ringtone download site: https://bestringtonesfree.net/

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  19. That is exactly what we do! I love random dance parties in the house. I feel like it clears everyone's minds and just renews your mood a little bit. I'm going to have to check this Sonos out!

    xxx Kristina
    www.dearnovemberdays.com

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  20. This is so adorable! I great tradition and the Sonos is a pretty cool gadget! We love singing and dancing to music too!

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  21. This device sounds so cool! And I’m all about family dance parties! You two are so cute!

    xoxo, Rachel
    WithLoveAndStyle.com

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  22. What a cute idea! I love it.

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  23. These photos are great, i'm sure they will be cherished forever! Dance parties with the little ones are the best! Too cute!

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