Bonggamom Finds

Living Positively

2011-06-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago I turned thirty-nine. I'm not one of those people who dreads turning forty (that's one good thing about having a husband who's fourteen years your senior -- you never feel old), and though there's a lot I still want to do in life, I don't feel like I missed out on so many things in my youth that I need to make up for it with a midlife crisis. But milestone birthdays are always a great excuse for me to take stock of my life and see what needs changing. So I'm using the advent of the Big Four-Oh to be more proactive about my life and live more positively. Here's what Living Positively means for me:

I will strive to do better, be better.
Many times over the past few years I've felt as though I'm stuck in a rut. I've come to realize that the only reason I feel stuck is because I'm not doing anything about it. To that end, I've made a list of Forty Things I want to do before I'm Forty. Some of the items on that list are frivolous at best (buying heels, getting a navel ring). Others are (volunteering, spending more time with my husband). All of the items are designed in some way to build a healthier, happier, more confident -- in short, better -- me. I may not get to accomplishing everything on the list, but just having this list written down has given me a sense of purpose, and as I begin working on the items on the list, I'm already feeling more proactive and positive.

I use my blog as a force for good.
I'm still in awe of the amazing reach and influence that women bloggers have. I'm even more in awe to think that a part of that reach and influence, however small, belongs to me. It would be crazy not to use my voice in the blogosphere to try and make a difference. That's why I never hesitate to blog about issues and causes I feel are important. Over the years I have blogged about breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, malaria, disaster awareness, support for families, the importance of outdoor play and other causes that matter to me. If even one person reads my blog, becomes more aware of an issue or sees how easy it can be to help, I'm happy.

I will think positive, hope for the best and prepare for the worst
Even as I write this, the concept of Living Positively has taken on a new meaning. I've just gotten back from an appointment with my gynecologist -- and she found a lump on each of my breasts. The teeniest, tiniest lumps, so small that I could only feel one after she showed me exactly where to look, and I still can't feel the other one at all. She says it's no reason to excited about at this point, because there is 1 lump on each breast, and she had difficulty finding one of the lumps a second time, so they may just be lymph nodes (whatever that means). But given my family history of breast cancer, she told me to get a mammogram right away, so I'm scheduled for one this week. Despite her reassurances, I'm a bit freaked out, but I'm trying to stay positive. She's not worried, so I'm going to try not to be. I'm taking a deep breath and hoping for the best. If the worst happens, I'll deal with it.

With so much self-reflection going on, the timing could not have been better to receive an invitation from Coca-Cola and BlogHer to take part in a very special event, Conversations with Coca-Cola. I'll be traveling to Atlanta next week to the Coca-Cola headquarters, where I'll be joining the folks from BlogHer and other bloggers for two days of interesting and insightful discussions about Living Positively -- personally, around the blogosphere and in our community.

On a lighter note, I'm also excited to be going behind the scenes at Coca-Cola and learning more about how they make their beverages, as well as meeting with top Coca-Cola executives. And that reminds me, if you want me to ask them anything on your behalf, please leave a comment on this post, and I'll make sure your voice is heard!

Disclosure: Coke will be paying for my travel, lodging and activities for my upcoming Atlanta trip, and BlogHer is compensating me for writing this post. All views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Help Sprite Refresh our Parks and Get Kids Playing

2011-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Update 5/26/11: The giveaway has been extended to 5/31/11! )

(Update 5/19/11: See below for a new, easy method to enter to win a $100 Shutterfly gift card!)

When my twins were little we used to joke about how they needed to be "let out" to run around and get their wiggles out, every single day, rain or shine, as if they were puppies. The day was just not complete until they had a chance to get outside and play. We don't live near a park, so on cold days I was only too happy to open the door and let the boys run out into our gated back yard. I'll never forget the time we realized that a simple latch was no longer enough to keep them in -- at age two, 3Po and Jammy figured out how to ram their Little Tykes car into the gate hard enough to loosen the latch. I only found out about their new little trick when I poked my head out the door and saw them racing down the driveway into the street!

Now that they're older, their need for outdoor play is as strong as ever; if anything, it has intensified. As they've grown bigger, our back yard has "shrunk" (I found that out when a missed basketball shot broke our guest bedroom window) -- so I'm really glad that our local school places so much importance on the value of play. The boys get time to play during recess and lunch, PE twice a week, and the school fields are open after school and on weekends. I've found that they are actually more prepared to settle down and concentrate if they've just had a long, satisfying bout of outdoor play, so it's good for more than just getting them to sleep at night -- it's good for their mind, body and soul.

You don't have to believe me; just ask the experts. Studies have shown how play enhances learning skills (along with social and emotional skills) and that physical activity boosts student performance (the New York Times even calls it the "Fourth R"). In fact, play is so important to optimal child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child.

That's why I'm so happy to blog about Sprite's ongoing effort, Spark Parks, to refresh parks, playgrounds and active spaces across the nation. In April, The Sprite Spark Parks Project is teaming up with Habitat for Humanity to build and refurbish homes and active spaces. Now everyone can help out by collecting special green tabs from Sprite cans!

Here's how it works:

1) Look for Sprite or Sprite Zero cans with green tabs during the month of April.

2) Start collecting Sprite green tabs now and help raise money to build and refurbish homes and active spaces. For each green tab from Sprite or Sprite Zero received by 6/30/2011, Sprite will donate 10 cents per tab, up to $500,000 (Sprite has guaranteed a minimum $250k donation), to Habitat for Humanity.

3) Place the green tabs in a regular or padded envelope. If using a regular envelope, please limit the number of tabs to 20 per envelope. Affix the appropriate postage and check with your post office to confirm the postage if necessary. Mail the tabs by 6/30/2011 to:

Sprite Green Tabs
PO Box 52666
Knoxville, TN 37950

Visit the official Spark Park Sprite Hub page for more information.

How simple is that? I can't wait to start my own green tab collection so we can help other kids reap the benefits of outdoor play!

Need a bit more motivation to start collecting those green tabs? How about the thought of an extra $2,000 donation from BlogHer to Habitat for Humanity?! If you upload a photo of your Sprite green tab collection to your blog or Facebook page, then leave a link to your photo in the comments section of this post, BlogHer will donate 10 cents to Habitat for Humanity, up to $2,000!

Still need more convincing? How about the chance to win a $100 Shutterfly.com gift card?

Win a $100 gift card to Shutterfly.com
One lucky Bonggamom Finds winner will receive a $100 Shutterfly.com gift card!

To enter, you can do any of the following:

(Update 5/26/11: The giveaway has been extended to 5/31/11! )

(Update 5/19/11: I've added a fifth entry method to make it easier than ever to enter! Choose up to two entry methods below.)

a) New, easy entry method: Leave a comment telling us how you plan to keep your family in motion this summer. Volunteering, community/team sports, or how about summer
camps? Tell us!

b) Take a fun photo of your Green Tab collection, upload the photo onto your blog or Facebook page, then leave a comment on this post with a link to the blog/FB post.

c) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post.

d) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post.

e) No Twitter account or blog? Visit the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

As mentioned above, any of these 5 entry methods counts, but it would be awesome if you chose option (b) as one of your entries, because BlogHer is donating 10 cents to Habitat for Humanity for every photo uploaded, up to $2000! Don't have a blog or Facebook account? Don't want to post to yours? No problem! Use mine! Put your photo up on facebook.com/bonggamomfinds!

You can also gain an extra entry by completing any of the 4 remaining options, for a total of 2 entries. Entries will be accepted between 5/5/2011 and (new deadline!) 5/31/2011. Don't forget to visit the BlogHer Promotions & Prizes section for more chances to win a $100 Shutterfly gift card. Good luck!

Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. The official rules are available here

Disclaimer: This is a compensated post. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Staying Well with Walgreens this Winter

2011-03-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Walgreens.

We've just come back from a 3-day ski trip at Tahoe, and it's amazing how much stuff you need to pack just for 3 days. Part of it, of course is all the extra gear and paraphernalia you need when you go out in the snow, and another part of it is traveling with a fussy Englishman who refuses to give up his endless daily cups of tea. But there's the stuff you can't really avoid, like clothes and shoes and toiletries and medicines -- and given the wintry season, we need more of those than ever to stay happy and healthy!

I was recently chosen by Walgreen's and BlogHer to review the Walgreens' Brand Health and Wellness products of my choice, and the invitation could not have come at a better time, since I was stocking up for our trip, and we buy Walgreens' brand products all the time anyway. Here are three Walgreens' Brand Health and Wellness products that we rely on for our winter getaways:

Suncare
When it's cold and dull and grey, the last thing you're thinking of is sunscreen, but actually the sun's rays are just as strong; even though your body is bundled up, your face and hands need sun protection just as much as they do in the summer. And when you're in the snow, protecting your face is more important than ever! That's why we pack sunscreen sticks whenever we go up to Tahoe.

I love Walgreen's Oil-Free Sunscreen Sticks -- they're so easy to apply. You don't even have to get your hands all sticky because you hold the plastic tube and apply it, like lipstick all over your face. The Sunscreen Stick for babies is white, which I don't particularly care for, since you do have to use your hands to blend it in, but Alfie really likes it because you can easily see which areas you've already applied.

Pain/fever/cold relief
Whenever we go to the snow, it always seems like one of the kids comes down with some kind of virus while we're up there. So we always take a small stash of junior-strength ibuprofen to keep them comfortable and fever-free, just in case. It has to be ibuprofen, not acetaminophen, because my twins have some kind of protein deficiency that could result in chronic anemia when they take in certain foods or chemicals -- and acetaminophen is one of them. For some reason, chewable junior-strength ibuprofen is really quite difficult to find. I've really only been able to find them at Walgreen's, so when they're in stock I really stock up.

Junior-strength ibuprofen in liquid form is pretty readily available (and the Walgreen's brand has that too), but it's so much more convenient to have it in chewable form when traveling.

Allergies
All of us are allergic to something or other, and it's not a seasonal thing either. 3Po's eczema bothers him year-round, Alfie's hay fever has turned into a year-round malady and the rest of us get the dreaded puffy/watery/itchy eye from time to time.

Once again, it's Walgreen's Children's Allergy Relief to the rescue. Their chewables work just as well as the name brand antihistamine that I've been using my entire life -- until I discovered that the Walgreen's brand works just as well, and costs less. Alfie and I find that the children's version works fine for us (if my symptoms are particularly strong, I just take a double kids' dose) and the kids. We have a box of these permanently in our van, and we make sure we pack a second box in our toiletry bag whenever we travel anywhere.

If you compare the ingredients in Walgreens Brand products versus name-brand products, there's really no difference! They have the same ingredients, and they work just as well. The only difference is the price! I've even discovered another great reason to purchase Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products: a portion of every purchase of these products supports the Walgreens Way to Well Fund™, which brings preventative wellness services to local communities. There's no reason not to try Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness products! Visit the site for more information and check it out. Plus, if you enter my giveaway below, you might even win a $100 Walgreens gift card to try out the products yourself!

Win a $100 Walgreens Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will receive a $100 Walgreens gift card, courtesy of BlogHer.

Required Entry
Leave a comment on this post and tell me which Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Product(s) you need this winter season. This entry must be completed before extra entries qualify.

Extra Entry
For an extra entry, you can do ONE of the following (for a total of 2 entries). Please leave a separate comment for each extra entry.

1) Tweet this:
Enter to win a $100 Walgreen's gift card on @bonggafinds #giveaways http://tinyurl.com/bonggagiveaways

.... and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

2) Blog about this promotion (please make sure your blog post has a link to this post) and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

3) For those with no Twitter or blog, visit the Official Rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

More Giveaways
More BlogHer reviewers are writing about their experiences with Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products, and they've all got giveaways! Visit the Exclusive Offers section for even more chances to win a $100 Walgreen's gift card.

The Rules
This giveaway starts at 9:00AM PST on March 14 and ends at 11:59PM PST on April 13, 2011; I will draw a winner at random on April 14 and post the winner's name after he/she confirm acceptance. Winner must confirm within 72 hrs of my email, otherwise a new winner will be selected. US residents only, 18 or older. No duplicate comments, please. Visit the Official Rules. Good Luck!

Disclosure: This is a compensated post. Giveaway prize has been provided by BlogHer. Product information is provided by the featured company/product and is indicated in italics. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Morning Rituals

2010-10-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Morning rituals can be soothing, like a cup of coffee. They can be energizing, like a sunrise yoga session or a morning run. They can be loving, like my son tiptoeing into our bedroom to snuggle under the covers with mom and dad. They can be ordinary, like the bowl of cereal my kids eat every single day. And they can even be super, out-of-this-world scary... and fun.

One of my favorite annual events is the Halloween Breakfast that the kids' school puts on every year. If Halloween falls on a weekend, the breakfast is held on the Friday before Halloween; otherwise, it's held on Halloween morning. This is one day of the year when I don't need to poke and prod the kids to get out of bed. They're up with the sun, donning their costumes, spray-painting their hair, applying fake skeleton tattoos to their arms, painting scars on their cheeks, ponytailing their hair with fancy purple-and-black bows.

The whole school shows up in costume, from the tiniest kindergartener to the principal to the teachers' aides. Some parents show up in costume, some don't, but one thing that parents always show up with is a camera, because the sight of all these kids in costumes is too precious to miss. Kids run around and compare costumes, ham it up for the camera, gobble down a donut hole and gulp down some orange juice before rushing back out to greet more of their friends. They especially love seeing their teachers in costume

On ordinary days, when the school bell rings it's time to get into the classroom, but at the Halloween Breakfast the fun has just started. The whole school lines up for a costume parade than takes them through the school corridors, which are flanked with parents armed with cameras, like a bunch of paparazzi. The whole school forms a gigantic circle on the field and the principal calls out groups of kids to take a bow, i.e. all the princess characters, all the skeletons, all the superheroes, etc... It's a small, simple touch to make each child feel like people are admiring his or her costume and telling each other how great it looks. Afterwards, the kids go back to their classes and have a Halloween party (with all that excitement and all that sugar, I doubt if too much studying goes on!). The Halloween Breakfast is one morning tradition that our family never misses, and it's one of the reasons why Halloween is my favorite holiday!

Do you have a yearly morning tradition that your family participates in?

Whatever morning rituals you and your family participate in, I hope you'll add Bonggamom Finds to it! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite go-to breakfast when time is tight and you're in a rush.

For a second entry, you can:
· Tweet about this post with a link to it (and put your tweet URL in a separate comment below)
· Blog about this post with a link to it (and put your blog post URL in a separate comment below)

Entries will be accepted until 5PM EST until November 1, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Are You Ready for Halloween?

2010-10-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Pop-Tarts.

I can't believe Halloween is less than a week away. It's scary how time flies! But I think we're ready: house is decorated, the candy has been purchased, and most important of all, we have their costumes put together.

Costumes are my favorite part of Halloween. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart; I love to dress up, and Halloween gives perfectly sane and subdued adults complete license to let go and be any character they want to be, no matter how silly, nutty or scary. At every Halloween party I've ever thrown, I ask the grownups to wear costumes, and despite some initial misgivings, they all let their hair down and end up having a great time.

Now that I have a family, Halloween is five times better than it was before, because not only do I get to dress myself up in costume, I have four other people to plan costumes for! Not that I'm the Halloween police chief or anything like that. When the kids were babies I did choose their costumes, but now that they're bigger they get complete freedom to choose their costumes -- although I do admit to trying to nudge their preferences one way or another, depending on which costumes happen to be on sale or whether I can coordinate the whole family's costumes. Most years we end up with an eclectic collection of costumes, but on one or two years the stars have aligned and blessed me with 3 kids who actually want to be the same thing for Halloween. One year we were all Disney characters, and last year we were all pirates, which was great for the photos.

This year the kids' interests have converged once again; they've all decided to be scary creatures for Halloween. The Pea and her best friend have decided to be vampire twins, and this year, instead of buying a costume, she wants to put one together herself. At first I was really happy at the thought of not having to spend a huge amount of money on a costume -- until she came to me with a list of all the clothes and accessories she claims she needs to look like a real vampire. Capes, necklaces, fake fangs, fake blood, makeup, tights, skirts.... vampires would need to live forever in order to amass enough money to be able to afford a getup like The Pea is planning!

The boys are going to be skeletons, but not ordinary skeletons, oh no. Apparently plain old skeletons just don't cut it with the 6-year-old set anymore. Jammy is going to be a skeleton rocker; he's got an awesome mask with bones sticking up on the top of the skull, like a skeletal punk rock hairdo. 3Po is a zombie skeleton:

It looks like Alfie and I are going to be zombies this Halloween too. Because how can I resist the opportunity to pose for great Halloween family photos?

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what costume you'll be wearing for Halloween.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted on this post and on my Kellogg's Choc-o-Lantern Pop Tarts recipe post until October 31, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 9 other chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Halloween Pop-Tarts exclusive offers page. Good luck!

Goodness Comes in a Bowl

2010-10-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

We recently bought a new dishwasher, and one of the things I like best about it is that it has plenty of space for bowls. It's surprising how many bowls we go though during the day. When I cook, I like to put my ingredients in neat little bowls, like they do on all the cooking shows. I use bowls to mix, microwave, serve and store our food. Oh, and we eat from bowls too!

When the kids were younger, they used bowls exclusively; the sides of the bowls kept food from spilling over when they were trying to scoop up their food into a spoon. Now that they're older, I still use bowls to serve them snacks; nuts, chips, crackers, cut fruit, dry cereal are just some of the snacks that are so much easier to eat from a bowl than a plate.

Snacks aside, we eat quite a few meals from bowls. How else can you have cereal and milk for breakfast? Or oatmeal? Or yogurt? I serve soup at least once a week, sometimes twice -- heck, I love soup and if it were up to me, I could probably eat it every day -- which adds even more bowls to our pile of dirty dishes. Pasta? In a bowl. Rice? Hey, I'm Asian, of course it goes in a bowl! And let's not forget dessert: ice cream, pudding, and anything served a la mode has got to go into a bowl.

Whatever you like to put in your bowl, don't forget to sprinkle some Bonggamom Finds on top! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite food in a bowl.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 25, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Halloween Fun with Choc-O-Lantern Pop-Tarts

2010-10-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Pop-Tarts.

When Pop-Tarts and BlogHer asked me to create a recipe using Limited Edition Choc-o-Lantern Pop-Tarts, they had no idea what kind of monster they were unleashing. Halloween happens to be my thing, and every year I enjoy cooking up a fun Halloween showpiece for our annual Halloween party.

To get started, I thought about which Halloween icon Pop-Tarts most resembled, and the answer was easy: a tombstone! However, Pop-Tarts is one step ahead of me; when my sample Choc-o-Lantern Pop-Tarts arrived, they already had a recipe for a Pop-Tarts Graveyard on the back of the box.

Back to square one. What else comes to mind when I munch on Pop-Tarts and think of Halloween? How about pirate's treasure chest? Or a coffin? Eureka! I had the most spine-tingling, bone-chilling, spectacular Halloween recipe ever! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Behold, my Halloween Surprise Box.

Okay, it's not a coffin; I didn't want to deal with cutting up the Pop-Tarts into coffin shapes. It's not even a treasure chest, because Jammy insisted treasure chests have curved lids, and wouldn't let me call it a treasure chest. So it's a Surprise Box -- but whatever it's called, it's fun, spooky, and 100% Halloween. Here's how to make it:

Ingredients
6 Kellogg's Choc-o-Lantern Pop-Tarts
1/4 cup orange or brown colored candy melts (We used light brown, peanut-butter flavored candy melts. You can also use royal icing; here's a good recipe)
1 box brownie mix
1 box instant chocolate pudding
2 gummy fingers
2 bamboo skewers
assorted Halloween-themed candies to decorate

	Step 1: Place the candy melts in a ziploc bag and microwave on 50% power for 45 seconds, or until melted. Snip a corner of the ziploc bag. Stand one of the Pop-Tarts on one edge, then carefully pipe some candy melt icing on the edge of the Pop-Tarts. "Glue" it onto a second of the Pop-Tarts to make a corner.
	Step 2: Repeat for the other corner. I used the Pop-Tarts box to prop both corners up until the candy melts dried.
	Step 3: Pulse one of the Pop-Tarts in a food processor until crumbly, then set aside
	Step 4: Prepare the brownies according to package directions and cool completely. When cool, cut into chunks and fill the box about 2/3 full (you'll have plenty of leftover brownies to nibble on!)
	Step 5: Carefully thread the gummy fingers onto the bamboo skewers.
	Step 6: Prepare the chocolate pudding according to package directions. When the pudding is set, spoon about half of the pudding on top of the brownies, or until the box is full. (Sorry, I don't have a photo of the pudding, but you get the idea)
	Step 7: Stick the skewered gummy fingers into the front corner of the box, then carefully prop the last of the Pop-Tarts on top of the fingers. Let the other end of the Pop-Tarts rest on one of the box edges, like a lid. Pipe more candy melt or royal icing on the edge of the box and on top of the gummy fingers to "glue" the lid in place.
	Step 8: This is the fun part: decorate the box with Halloween-themed candies. Get some gummy worms oozing out of the pudding or drape them over the lid. Stick some gummy eyeballs or bones or skulls in there. Sprinkle the crumbled Pop-Tarts over the pudding and around the to resemble dirt. Go wild!

To serve, pick out all the candies and lift off the lid. Then scoop up the brownies and pudding into individual dishes. Then divide up the Pop-Tarts and candies (there should be extra brownies and pudding) and enjoy. I know, it looks too pretty, I mean spooky, to eat, but it's gotta be done. This recipe is so much fun to make, and so much fun to eat, it's positively scary!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite Halloween treat.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 31, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 9 other chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Halloween Pop-Tarts exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Secret to a Great Breakfast

2010-10-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

We eat 365 breakfasts every year, and about 300 of them involve cereal and milk. At that rate, you'd think we'd be sick of cereal and milk by now. The truth is, we can't get enough of cereal and milk! We have a huge assortment of cereals in our cupboard so everyone has a wide variety to choose from and no-one gets bored. And we can always add all kinds of toppings and secret ingredients to spice up our mornings even more. Each member of my family has their own never-fail breakfast item:

Alfie's secret cereal weapon is fruit. Whatever kind of cereal he eats that morning, he never fails to top it with some kind of fresh fruit, be it blueberries (his favorite), raspberries, strawberries or bananas.

Mine is yogurt, my go-to breakfast item (I'm the only member of our family that doesn't eat cereal and milk for breakfast on a regular basis). Even when I have oatmeal or cereal, I like to pour a bit of yogurt on top for that sweet, creamy taste.

3Po also likes yogurt, especially when he has Rice Krispies and milk because it gets all thick and clumpy, almost like a gloppy Rice Krispie treat!

The Pea loves maple syrup, which she uses to make smiley faces on her pancakes or oatmeal or cereal (needless to say, when she uses it I try to make sure her cereal is one of the lower-sugar varieties like Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes!).

Jammy loves raisins in his cereal. He'll pop them into his mouth like candy! Raisin Bran is high on his list of favorite cereals, but he'll eat raisins (or other dried fruit) on almost any kind of cereal.

It's no secret: with so many ways to enjoy cereal, why would we ever get bored?

Whatever you like to eat in the mornings, don't forget to add some Bonggamom Finds to spice things up! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite go-to breakfast when time is tight and you're in a rush.

For a second entry, you can:
· Tweet about this post with a link to it (and put your tweet URL in a separate comment below)
· Blog about this post with a link to it (and put your blog post URL in a separate comment below)

Sweepstakes ends 5 PM EST on October 18, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

The Morning Rush

2010-10-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

If you've been following my Kellogg's Moms Breakfast Club posts, you know by now that mornings are a mad rush in my household. I like to stay in bed as late as possible, so it's imperative that everything gets done quickly and according to plan. The key word really is planning, and preparation! Here are some things we do to streamline and simplify our mornings:

1) Get ready the night before
Before the kids go to bed I ask them to make sure all their homework is done and in their backpacks, along with any library books, folders and anything else they need to give to their teachers the next day. We also go over what activities we have the next day (i.e., dance, soccer, playdates, etc...) so we know what else needs to be ready.

2) Pre-pack lunches
Many parents like to pack lunches the night before, but I like to assemble my kids' sandwiches right before I pack them, especially when I make sandwiches that might get soggy if the fillings have time to soak through the bread. That doesn't mean I can't get everything set up to make things easier for me in the morning. I pre-chill milk and juice boxes, and cut up fruit the night before. Some lunches can be prepared ahead of time, like pita bread and carrots with hummus, or leftover pasta. You can make a bagel with cream cheese and jelly the night before and refrigerate it. In fact, I like to freeze a giant batch of PBJ sandwiches so I can just pull them out of the freezer and throw it in their lunchboxes.

3) Simplify breakfast
On school mornings I don't have time to mess around with pancakes or waffles or bacon and eggs. I don't even like preparing oatmeal -- hey, that's an extra 2 minutes in the microwave, and another 2 minutes to cool it down! Yup, our schedule is that tight. So unless the kids have gotten to the breakfast table in record time, they stick to cereal and milk. What could be simpler? It's yummy, healthy, filling and ready to eat in an instant.

Whatever you eat when you're in a rush, don't forget to make time to enjoy some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite go-to breakfast when time is tight and you're in a rush.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 11, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Weekend Mornings

2010-09-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

With such hectic morning weekdays, you'd think we'd be glad to take it easy and relax on the weekends. But no, we had to be the family with the daughter who takes skating lessons, whose class had to be on Saturday mornings at 8:45. So we have to be out of the house by 8:20, which is only 20 minutes later than our weekday schedule. And this year 3Po and Jammy have joined a soccer league that holds games on Saturday mornings.

As early as 8:00AM.

There goes my beauty sleep. Saturday mornings have become an extension of weekday mornings where I put on my drill sergeant hat and get everyone up and running on a bowl of cereal, milk and fruit. Good thing they love it, huh?

But Sundays are sacred. As the song goes, Never Never on a Sunday, a Sunday, a Sunday, 'cause that's my day of rest. Sundays are meant to be savored, and that includes breakfast. Actually, most Sundays the family still has cereal and milk, but if the kids ask for made-from-scratch oatmeal or waffles, instead of giving them an Are You Kidding Me?? look, I'll smile sweetly and say, Of course, honey.

So on Sundays, they get sliced fresh strawberries swirled into vanilla yogurt, sprinkled with cinnamon and granola.

Or they might get the banana oatmeal bread that I baked the night before, smeared with butter and jam.

On special occasions like a Halloween weekend, a Valentine's weekend, or a birthday weekend, I'll go all out and make themed pancakes or waffles.

If they're really lucky, I'll even go the FULL MONTY with a full English breakfast of sausage, beans, eggs, fried tomatoes, and yes, even chips (fries). Of course, after having this kind of a feast, they're never hungry at lunchtime, so more often than not they end up having cereal and milk for lunch!

Whatever you have for breakfast on weekends, why not have some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your family's favorite weekend breakfast foods.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 4, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

When Good Mornings really are Good

2010-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

What's my ideal morning like? It's a day when I get to sleep past 8:00 AM. If I'm really being greedy, I'd say it's a day when I get to sleep past 8:00AM, stay in bed till 9:00AM, then go downstairs and discover that Alfie and the kids have already had breakfast AND cleaned up after themselves, so I have the kitchen all to myself, to enjoy a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal or yogurt or bagels or toast, to read my Newsweek or check email on my phone, while everyone else sits in the living room (or anywhere but the kitchen).

This is what I call a Good Morning.

You can imagine how often that happens.

Most days, a good morning is one where we get to leave for school by 8:00 AM without forgetting anything or without me screaming at any of the kids. If everything goes according to schedule, I'm a happy camper. If the schedule falls apart, so do I. Which means that starting my day on a positive note depends on several things:

1) Brush my teeth
This has nothing to do with my schedule and everything to with my schedule. If I don't get rid of that stale feeling in my mouth, I can't wake up. To get up and do what I have to do, I don't need to take a shower, I don't need freshly-ironed clothes, I don't even need breakfast (I do, actually, but I prefer to wait until the morning rush is over, when I can sit and enjoy it) -- all I need to do is get that toothbrush in my mouth and that mouthwash in my throat. The minty smell and taste wakes me up and gets me started. There's nothing like having clean, minty-fresh breath to get me through the morning!

2) No Surprises
If I know what needs to be done for the day, I can plan accordingly. If it's a Tuesday, the kids need to have their Monday Envelopes. If it's a Thursday, they need their library books. Does The Pea have a field trip that week? Musn't forget to send some money. I try to write out a list of things to do the night before, or put everything that needs to go with the kids in the morning right in front of the back door, so we don't forget it.

3) It's a Team Effort
Those days when mama did everything are long gone. Now that the kids are older, I expect them to choose their own outfits, get their own breakfast (which is why they always have cereal and milk) and pack their own bags. I handle lunch prep, breakfast cleanup, sunscreen application and schedule management. And it works like a charm -- not only do things get done faster, I'm also teaching them to be independent and helpful. Seeing them get their own bowls, pour their own cereal and stack their dirty dishes in the sink always cheers me up!

Whatever you do to make your mornings good, make them even better with Bonggamom Finds! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and share some tips on how to start the day on a positive note.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until September 27, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

My Not-So-Ordinary Family

2010-09-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content from BlogHer and ABC's No Ordinary Family.

This season ABC is coming out with a new family-friendly show featuring an ordinary family with some extraordinary powers. Titled No Ordinary Family, the show stars Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz as married couple Jim and Stephanie Powell, who take a vacation with their two kids to the Amazon -- and return with some amazing superpowers. Jim finds he has gained super strength, Stephanie has super speed, daughter Daphne has clairvoyant powers and son JJ has super intelligence.

Well.

I suppose, if you like super speed and strength and all that, the Powells sound pretty impressive.

Until you check out my family.We look like a normal, ordinary suburban family. But we've got superpowers like you can't believe.

My son can duplicate himself.
Oh hang on, I actually have two sons who look exactly alike. They've got the power to make mud and grass stains and holes and tears magically appear on their clothes and shoes. They've also got the power to drive me absolutely crazy. And 3Po swears the wart on his leg can do addition and subtraction.

My daughter has a similar power (no, not the mathematical wart). She has the power to make messes appear around the house, seconds after she has cleared them up. Her specialty is paper and glitter messes that leave minute particles behind no matter how often I vacuum them.

My husband, Alfie, is a master of disguise. He can pose as a nerdy engineer, devoted dad, soccer fanatic, or motorcycle dude and no one would know it was the same guy. Need proof?

He can transform into famous celebrities.

Or into your worst nightmare.

Or something even more horrifying.

Americans think he's English, the English think he's Australian, and Australians have no idea where on earth he comes from. How's that for a super chameleon? Oh, and he can unclog any toilet in the world. And he's a super husband to boot.

I haven't forgotten about myself. I've got powers too. I can whip up dinner in 10 minutes with just a can of beans and strawberry jello. I can avoid doing laundry for 10 days and still find clean clothes for everyone to wear. But my greatest power is my Super Vision: I can look at my ordinary family and see the most extraordinary, amazing, lovable people in the entire universe.

Want to do something extraordinary? You could help one lucky family win a VIP Trip to Disney World! ABC’s No Ordinary Family hosted a video contest to find the Most Extraordinary Family in America and starting September 27th you can help vote for the winner! Between September 27 and October 1, watch the top 5 video submissions and vote for your favorite. Click here for details and be sure to vote!

This post is sponsored content by ABC's No Ordinary Family. For more information about the show, go to their webpage or "Like" the official Facebook page for on-going updates, plus behind-the-scenes updates. And for more special offers courtesy of BlogHer and No Ordinary Family, check out the BlogHer.com special offers page . The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Getting Back on Track

2010-09-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content from BlogHer and the makers of One A Day Multivitamins.

You know what they say: The higher you fly, the farther you fall. And boy, did we fly high this summer. We spread our wings and soared to far-off places like Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Dover, Birmingham and more. After five weeks of driving on the "wrong" side of the road, living out of a suitcase, doting in-laws who did all the laundry in between trips, going to bed late because the sun was shining until nine-thirty in the evening, and trying a new English chocolate bar every day, it's not surprising that coming back home felt like more of a crash-landing than usual (Literally -- the day before we left the UK, Jammy did a spectacular face-plant into the sidewalk after skateboarding without a helmet, which was only further evidence of how far removed we had become from our normal rules and habits).

Going home meant going from walking in places like this:

To this:

Getting back to our schooltime routine this year involves quite a bit more than getting used to waking up early, so we're doing a couple of things to help ourselves out:

* Take it one small step at a time.
We were so far out of our regular routine that changing everything back at once would have been way too much. So we've been doing it gradually. We've traveled to the UK often enough to know that it takes about a week for us to get over our jet lag, so I made sure we arrived in the US two weeks before the start of the schoolyear. I also scheduled a few playdates for the kids because they literally hadn't seen any of their friends the whole summer, and we won't be signing up for too many afterschool activities this fall so the kids aren't too overwhelmed with organized activities.

* Write things down
After such a long break, tasks seem to be popping up like daisies -- I need to block off calendar dates for school events, sign up to volunteer, sign up for afterschool classes, schedule doctors' appointments and a million other things like the Spring Cleaning I never got around to finishing. Rather than rushing to do the first thing that pops into my mind, I find that making lists really helps me see the big picture and prioritize what needs to be done first. Plus, crossing things off lists is really, really satisfying.

* Make it a game
I'm taking a cue from Mary Poppins and adding spoonfuls of sugar to ease the painful process of watching the clock. We've turned our morning and evening routine into a game -- every morning the first child to be ready for school gets a point, and every evening there's another point up for grabs to the first child to be ready for bed. We keep track of points on a chart, and at the end of September the child with the most points gets to choose whatever activity they want for a family day.

By the way, games aren't just for kids -- thanks to the makers of One-A-Day Multi-vitamins, I've discovered a new online tool (I suspect it's called an "online tool" because we're grownups and all, but it's actually fun like a game) that can help ease you back into a routine and maintain a focused lifestyle. Players can "create" their own Wellness Tree by choosing 3 areas that matter most -- finances, career, health, spirituality, relationships, etc.., there's no wrong answer -- and "grow" their tree by committing to simple daily actions that develop those areas. So whether you've been to the UK, or to hell and back, My Tree is an easy, fun way to help you get back on track!

Win a $150 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $150 Visa Gift card courtesy of the makers of One a Day Multi-vitamins and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and share your best tip for finding and sticking to a good daily routine.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 21, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 5 more chances to win $150 from other participating bloggers, plus a chance to win $100 on the BlogHer One A Day exclusive offers page. Good luck!

Disclosure: this is sponsored content courtesy of BlogHer and the makers of One a Day Multi-vitamins. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

From Summertime to Schooltime

2010-09-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Last week I reminisced about our glorious summer adventures and how much we enjoyed seeing and doing new things. Now school has started and we're back to our old, regular routine. Instead of discovering walking down country lanes, we're navigating suburbia to get to school. Instead of enjoying the regional cuisine of Paris' 18th quarter, we're back to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Instead of packing 3-ounce containers of liquid into a clear plastic Ziploc bag (don't you hate that?), we're stuffing homework and books into a backpack.

Man, getting back to the same old, same old is a drag. But we managed to do it, thanks to my secret weapon -- Jet Lag. Jet lag usually sucks -- who wants their kids waking up at 3:00 AM? -- but it actually helped us because the kids were sleeping and waking up so early. Instead of helping them wake up a little bit earlier every day, we helped them wake up a little bit later every day, until we got to our schooltime wake-up and bedtime hours.

Okay, that doesn't really help unless you've traveled halfway around the world. My real secret weapon -- two secret weapons, actually -- was starting early and being consistent.

Start Early
We arrived from the UK two weeks before school started, so we had plenty of time to get back to our school schedule -- and we had time to ease in gradually. You know that thing about boiling live crabs, right? If you put them straight into boiling water they'll freak out and probably snap your fingers off, but if you put them in cold water and heat it up gradually, they'll never know what hit (or killed) them. It's the same with my kids: you say goodnight just a wee bit later every day, and open up the curtains a wee bit earlier the next day. Let them stay in their pajamas for an hour one day, then forty-five minutes the next day, and so on.

Whether we're hiking through a forest or walking to school, we always start the day with a nutritious breakfast -- and for my kids, that means cereal and milk.

Be Consistent
Doing new things is great, but we did maintain some semblance of a routine throughout the summer, and it really helped us get back on track for the new school year. I may have eased up on my "reading before videogames" rule, but we tried to make sure each kid read something each and every day. They may not have had to make their beds while we stayed in hotels, but I did ask them to fold their clothes and put them away. The kids may have lazed around in their pajamas for hours on end, but they still got up every morning and had cereal for breakfast. Not that I had to turn into a dragon lady to get the kids to do that -- they love cereal and milk anyway, so I left well enough alone!

Whatever is on your back-to-school breakfast table, have some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I've partnered with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what kind of breakfast you serve your kids before they head off to school.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until September 20, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Looking back at Summer

2010-09-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

The kids have only been back to school for two weeks, and already the summer seems like a million years ago. We're already looking back at what we did like old fogies: "Do you remember when...." But in our defense, it truly was a magical summer, full of new experiences and adventures. Here's a small sample of what we did:

Learned to balance on a skateboard...

.... and in a big, plastic bubble.

Did some serious shopping.

Made our way around towns where no-one spoke English.

Ate the best bread in the world.

Crossed under the English Channel in our car, on a train.

Saw how chocolate is made.

Crossed bridges and canals.

Ate the best ice cream in the world.

Saw this.

After all that we did, you might think that coming back home feels like a return to drudgery and routine. Well, at first things did seem a bit flat, after all that excitement and novelty. But not everything was new. The kids still took showers every night (well, almost) and went to bed at the same time (well, maybe a bit later than usual). They still read books and worked on their summer activity workbooks. And we still got up every morning and had cereal for breakfast. Even for our trip to Paris, we packed boxes of our favorite cereals in the car and passed on the French croissants for breakfast (don't worry, we still had our fill of those for lunch!). Doing new things is great -- but it's always nice to have some things stay the same.

Whatever you plan to do this fall, don't forget to fuel up with a good breakfast -- and have some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me which activity your family enjoyed the most this summer.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until September 13, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

The Breakfast Squeeze

2010-08-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Schoolday mornings at our house tend to be Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma'am! affairs. I prefer to snooze in bed until I absolutely have to get up -- and then stay in bed five minutes longer. The kids don't start getting ready until I do, so we have 40 minutes at most to get dressed, eat breakfast, pack lunch, and walk to school. It's a mad rush, but I swear there is order in the chaos.

Weekday breakfast? Um, yeah, in your dreams. Or in Alfie's dreams, anyway.

Having a quick breakfast is a crucial component on schooldays -- my routine assumes that the kids make their own breakfast and clean it up themselves, since I use that time to make their lunches (and to wash whatever bottles or sandwich boxes I was too lazy to wash the day before). That means the kids eat milk and cereal almost exclusively from Monday till Friday. Sometimes they ask for oatmeal, and on good days I'll make it for them, but on bad days I look them in the eye and ask them, "Oatmeal?? Look at me! I don't even have time to get my own breakfast! I'm doing all this stuff for you. Do you really think I have two extra minutes to microwave your oatmeal?!" (imagine a low-pitched voice, rising gradually in an operatic crescendo, ending on a hysterical note). They usually get the picture and head for the cereal cupboard.

Yes, I'm a tyrannical Morning Mommy Dearest, but my morning routine is like a finely-tuned precision instrument: throw a cog in it (like discovering we've run out of bread for sandwiches or realizing that The Pea didn't do her homework the night before), and everything falls apart. And when the morning routine falls apart, mommy falls apart and turns into a crabby, stressed haridan. So the kids pour themselves Special K and Mini Wheats for breakfast -- along with a bright-eyed, smiling June Cleaver Mommy.

Whatever you eat when you're in a rush, don't forget to make time to enjoy some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite go-to breakfast when time is tight and you're in a rush.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until September 6, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Our Family's Cereal Habit

2010-08-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Alfie is a creature of habit. He drinks tea six or seven times a day, and he always snacks on walnuts, cheese and blueberries. Every morning he turns the tv on to wake himself up. Then he does some yoga poses and takes a shower. And almost every single day of his life, he eats a bowl of cereal and milk for breakfast.

While I prefer more variety in my morning meal, I've had no problem fostering Alfie's cereal habit in my kids (hey, mornings are hectic, and the less breakfast preparation involved, the better for me). We just buy an array of cereals so everyone can pick and choose what they like, and no-one has to get bored eating the same kind of cereal every day. Our cereal cupboard looks like a United Nations of cereals, with no two alike (I store duplicates in a higher cupboard because there isn't enough room).

Since I'm participating in the Kellogg's BlogHer program, I thought it would be fun to ask each member of the family which Kellogg's cereals they like best. As I suspected, I got wildly different answers from each one:

Alfie
Cocoa Krispies
Special K Red Berries
Smorz
Bonggamom
Special K Blueberry
Frosted Mini-Wheats Strawberry Delight
Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate

The Pea
Corn Pops
Frosted Flakes
Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate

Jammy
Raisin Bran
Special K Fruit & Yogurt
Corn Pops

3Po
Rice Krispies
Special K Chocolatey Delight
Corn Pops

Well, maybe not that different. 3Po and Jammy both love Special K and Corn Pops, but then again, they're twins. All the kids love Corn Pops, which is funny because I only buy it when my mom comes to visit; she adores Corn Pops -- eats it as morning, noon and night-- and I guess she passed on her love of Corn Pops to her grandchildren! Hmmm, I think they should do some research on whether love of cereal is hereditary :) I wonder what kinds of Kellogg's cereals my grandchildren will be eating?

Whatever cereal makes you smile, try sprinkling some Bonggamom Finds on top! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite Kellogg's breakfast cereal.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until August 30, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Summer Fun

2010-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Oh where, oh where has the summertime gone? We've got two weeks until school starts, which is just enough time for one last hurrah. Or two. Or three. Or fourteen. Hey, we've gotta make the most of each lazy, carefree summer day before we get back to the daily schooltime grind! Here's a list of fourteen things I want to do before the summer ends:

1) Visit a theme park
What's summer without the thrills and chills of an amusement park? We purchased a season pass to Gilroy Gardens, a small, local (i.e. not crowded!) theme park, so the kids could get their fill of roller coasters, twirling teacups, giant swing rides and giant rocking viking boats. If they had their way, we'd be there every day, but fortunately for my poor, nauseated stomach we've got other activities on our agenda.

2) See the animals at the zoo
This spring we bought an annual membership to the Oakland Zoo this summer, and so far we've only visited once. We're definitely visiting the zoo at least once more before school starts because I hate the thought of wasting the membership. Oh, and because the kids like seeing those tiny Day-Glo colored frogs.

3) Camp out
We need another week to recover from our European travels, but next week I want to throw our tents and sleeping bags into the car and head to a nearby camping ground for some outdoor fun.

4) Visit a museum
There's no shortage of family-friendly museums in the Bay Area, and each one is guaranteed to give us a fun, educational day.

5) Have some fish and chips

Like we didn't have fish and chips once or twice a week while we were in the UK. But we love fish and chips and can't get enough of the stuff. Besides, while we're munching on our food we can reminisce about our fish and chips in Volendam, or in Portsmouth, or in Devizes, or in any of the other places we ate fish and chips in this summer.

6) Read
The kids have just a week to go before the summer reading program at our local library ends. They've actually reached their reading goals -- they just need to write out their reading logs -- but they love reading so much that adding a couple of books to their total isn't a big deal.

7) Go to the beach
It seems crazy to think that we live in California and haven't been to the beach even once this summer!

8) Go to a water park
The kids have never been to Water World, and it looks like it's going to be a hot weekend. Guess where we're going?

9) Skate

The Pea is just at the cusp of moving up a grade in her figure skating lessons so she wants to spend as much time in the ice rink as she can. As for 3Po and Jammy, they want to skate too -- skateboard, that is. They each received a skateboard from their grandparents as a belated birthday present, and they're eager to carve up those concrete halfpipes at the skate park.

10) Eat some summertime fruit
Our local farmer's market has the best organic peaches and nectarines in the world, but their season is coming to an end. The market will stay open till December, but the organic peach stall will close in a couple of weeks, so we're making the most of it and stuffing ourselves with the sweet, juicy fruit.

11) Learn something new
The Pea wanted to learn how to knit this summer, and with just two weeks left I doubt if she'll be starting schoolyear knitting scarves. But there's no time like the present to start, and if I buy a how-to book and some yarn and spend some time with her, she might at least get to know the difference between a knit and a purl.

12) Plan a sleepover
The great thing about a summertime sleepover is that you can have it on any day of the week -- there's no school to wake up early for -- and save the weekends for family, when everyone is home.

13) Chill
It's summertime. I've got to leave some time to do absolutely nothing.

14) Prepare for school.
Truth be told, I think the kids are ready to go back to school. They miss their friends, and they want to get back to their various lessons and organized activities. And I'm looking forward to getting the house back to myself after they're all in class. So we're celebrating by shopping for some spiffy new lunchboxes and back-to-school outfits. I think it's going to be a great schoolyear, and -- dare I say it?? -- I can't wait to get started!

Whatever you plan to do for the rest of the summer, don't forget to fuel up with a good breakfast -- and have some Bonggamom Finds on the side! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what your family likes to eat for breakfast.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until August 23, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Spending time with family

2010-08-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and McDonald's.

I love the name of the new McDonald's campaign I'm participating in through BlogHer -- Family Time. Happy Time. -- because that's exactly how I feel. My happiest childhood memories are of spending time with my big, noisy, crazy, loving family of parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. Whether it was playing capture-the-flag with the grownups on the beach, stuffing ourselves with Korean barbecue (and paying the price later) or trash-talking each other throughout a marathon mah-jongg session, I was surrounded by people who loved me and spent time with me, so I grew up confident in my abilities and secure in the knowledge that I would never be alone.

Now Alfie and I live thousands of miles away from where we grew up, and our "small" family of five has no relatives close by, but I'm determined to give my children happy family memories of their own. So we try to do things together as a family whenever we can. We love trying new foods, we love traveling to new places, and we love it even more when we can combine the two! So far we've taken our kids to over 30 cities (not counting the cities surrounding our home town) in 5 countries, and we're constantly saving up so we can travel and taste our way through even more places!

Of course, not all of our family time involves budget-breaking activities. We go for bike rides and picnics in the park. Once in a while Alfie puts on his skipper's hat and takes us all out sailing. We play a highly competitive games of Blokus, Monopoly and gin rummy, and I do believe it won't be long before we're ready to make some fun family memories playing poker and mah-jongg. Finally, almost every single night, even though all the kids already know how to read, we gather together for a bedtime story. The kids snuggle up beside (and on top of) Alfie on the bed as he reads from a book and I stretch out on the floor, close my eyes and enjoy the sounds of my children's laughter (No matter what kind of story we read, we always end up laughing because Alfie can never resist adding some sort of embellishment to the narrative. Try keeping a straight face while listening to a middle-aged, balding Englishman fake a fairy princess voice!). Family time is truly happy time at our home, and every day we're together enjoying ourselves is a blessing!

Just how lucky we are to be able to spend family time together became clear to me when I attended the McDonald's Family Time Getaway in June 2010. One of the most enjoyable and meaningful activities of our trip was visiting the Ronald McDonald House® (RMH®) in Oak Lawn, IL. Like all Ronald McDonald Houses around the US and worldwide, it's a haven for families with children who need medical care, giving them the chance to live close to specialized treatment centers at little to no cost.

The RMH® we visited is located just across the street from Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital, and has housed over 200 families in its 16 bedrooms since its opening in 2008. It's a beautiful place, nestled among tall, shady trees. We were given the grand tour, from the fully-stocked communal kitchen to the bedrooms, from the sitting rooms to the children's playroom, from the handicapped-accessible tree house looking out into the trees to the bright, airy stairwell with its beautiful spiraling wooden staircase. The family bedrooms were filled with thoughtful touches like extra space for suitcases, a writing desk and chair, and a guest journal where families can write out their thoughts and prayers for the next occupants of the room to read.

Above all, it seemed to exude a sense of peace, quiet and comfort. Later on, we heard video testimonies from families who had stayed in this house which confirmed my initial impression -- that this really was a place where they could retreat to after the sterile environment of the hospital, rest and recharge. It was a very emotional moment for all of the bloggers, and we all left with a sense of admiration for the great service that each Ronald McDonald House provides to families -- allowing them to stay together and spend time as a family just when they need it the most.

After this experience, all ten of us bloggers were thrilled when McDonald's announced they were initiating a new online fundraising campaign to benefit RMHC® -- "Family Time. Happy Time" -- and invited us to help them spread the word. The campaign encourages families to pledge minutes of "happy time" together and share their own creative activities with other families via McDonald's Facebook page or their personal blogs. For each minute pledged, McDonald's will donate one penny to the Ronald McDonald House Charities® (RMHC®) -- up to1 million minutes and $10,000! I'm so excited to be participating because it's a win-win for everyone: the money will be used toward family time activities for RMHC guests, participating families will be motivated to spend more quality time together, and they can feel good knowing they are helping other families do the same.

Click here to pledge some Family Time and help McDonald's give some Happy Time to families in need!

Here are even more ways you can support the Ronald McDonald House Charities:

* Drop your spare change into RMHC Donation boxes, located at participating McDonald's restaurants.

* Buy a Happy Meal! Starting this summer, participating McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. will donate one penny to RMHC from each purchase of a Happy Meal® and Mighty Kids Meal®.

Win It!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a McDonald's Prize Pack!

The prize pack contains:
* 1 Smile Tote Bag
* 1 set of 6-8 Happy Meal Toys
* $25 McDonald's Arch Card
* 1 McDonald's character vintage tee
* 1 Pen Buddy notebook
* 1 EOS Organic Lip Balm multi-pack
* 1 16=oz. stainless McDonald's tumbler
* 1 Just Give Gift Card for any charity of winner's choice

To enter, go pledge family time on the McDonald's Make Family Time Happy Time widget and let us know what you pledged in the comment section for a chance to win. And, if you have a favorite family memory tied to McDonald’s, I’d love to hear about it!

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until 5:00 PM PST on August 24, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain extra entries by going to the BlogHer special offers page, because the other bloggers who went to the McDonald's Family Time Getaway are also giving away prize packs. Good luck!

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and McDonald's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

The Breakfast Routine

2010-08-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

Growing up, I never ate breakfast. You'd think that the daughter of a doctor would have known better than to skip the most important meal of the day, but my dad always got up later than we did, and I don't think he ever knew that his kids were sleeping in until the last minute and rushing into the car to get to school. Or maybe my parents just figured that if I ate a snack during our school's 10AM recess break, we'd be okay.

Now I'm a parent of three school-aged children, and our morning routine couldn't be more different. Okay, maybe it's not that different. My kids also sleep in until the last minute and rush to get ready. But we do sit at our kitchen table to have breakfast every single day. The benefits to mind and body of eating a good breakfast each morning can't be ignored! I had to make a real effort to cultivate the breakfast habit in myself, but now I'm just like Alfie and the kids -- I need that morning fuel to jump start my day.

It's usually cereal and milk for the kids, but on those rare occasions that pancakes appear on 3Po's breakfast plate, he sure cleans it up!

Exactly what that fuel is varies from day to day -- for me, at least. The kids and Alfie start each day like clockwork; almost every single day they have a bowl of cereal and milk, some fruit and a glass of juice or water. I, on the other hand, crave more variety. Sometimes I have fruit and yogurt. Sometimes I crave a bowl of oatmeal. Sometimes I'll munch on toast with scrambled eggs. Sometimes I'll treat myself to a croissant, or a waffle smeared with cream cheese and honey. There are even times when I have last night's leftovers! On those days Alfie can barely look at my breakfast plate, but as I keep reminding him, different cultures have different morning eating habits:

* Filipinos like chorizo and rice
* The Japanese like miso soup and fish
* Cubans like beans and rice
* Bavarian cultures like sausage, pretzels..... and beer!

It's not much different from a traditional English breakfast of bacon, eggs and tomato, is it? I figure, as long as it's healthy, it doesn't really matter what you eat for breakfast, as long as you do eat breakfast.

Does anyone want to join me this morning for some leftover pea soup?

Whatever your morning fuel is, don't forget to have some Bonggamom Finds with your breakfast! I'm partnering with BlogHer and Kellogg's to bring you some fun breakfast topics, from morning routines to cereal to family breakfast traditions and more. Join me every week through October 2010 for a new discussion -- and a new giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card!

Win a $100 Visa Gift Card
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of Kellogg's and BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what your family likes to eat for breakfast.

You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until August 16, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 24 extra chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page. Good luck!

The Mom's Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids' cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. To learn more about the program, visit www.betterbythebowl.com.

Kellogg's helps moms keep their morning simple with cereal varieties for everyone in the family. For more information, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and Kellogg's. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Things I learned at the McDonalds Family Weekend

2010-07-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and McDonald's.

When some of my friends found out that I had been invited by McDonald's to visit their campus in Illinois, there were a few raised eyebrows and questions. You're going? Are you going to be eating hamburgers and fries for three days? Can you ask them to add carrots and grapes to the kids' Happy Meals? What do they put in those McDonald's fries?? Given the obesity epidemic in the US, it's no surprise that McDonald's is constantly under fire for nutritional content and marketing to kids, and I've often wondered what they put in those fries myself -- but I've never thought of McDonald's as one of those "evil corporations". McDonald's is quite a popular restaurant in the Philippines, where eating at a McDonald's is still considered a treat by many. And whenever we vacation in the UK, we frequently eat at McDonald's -- and find ourselves pleasantly surprised by the delicious, healthy options we've found on the UK menu. So I resolved to keep an open mind and enter the McDonald's Family Time Getaway ready and willing to learn. I was eager to attend because I would have a chance like no other to give my opinions, offer feedback, ask questions, and find out what goes on behind the Golden Arches.

I'm so glad we attended, and so grateful to McDonald's for opening up their doors to me, my family, and the other bloggers. We enjoyed three full days of presentations, tours and activities, including a scavenger hunt, a family barbecue, a session with the president of McDonald's USA, a visit to a Ronald McDonald House, a cooking session and a tasting of some of their newest products. And I learned lots of things about McDonald's business practices and culture that have left me with a much more positive impression of McDonald's as a corporation, Here are five things that I learned about McDonald's during our busy, entertaining, eye-opening weekend:

5) You can customize your McDonald's hamburger practically any way you want. The kids and I got to stand behind the counter during our behind-the-scenes restaurant tour, and building a custom burger is as easy as putting your finger to the touchscreen. No pickles? No problem. Two slices of cheese? Easy-peasy. Extra lettuce and no onions? Coming right up. Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun? They have exactly the burger you want....

4) The only Happy Meal that appears on ads is the one that meets US nutritional guidelines for kids: a Happy Meal with 4-pc Chicken McNuggets, Apple Dippers and lowfat white milk. Also, Ronald McDonald never directly markets Happy Meals to kids. He appears in McDonald's ads promoting healthy and fun lifestyles, and he has also appeared in a number of public campaigns including seat belt safety and bicycle helmet safety. Oh, in case you were wondering: there's only ONE Ronald McDonald. When we asked the staff if the same guy was playing Ronald for the whole weekend, we were told, "He IS Ronald!". I guess he's like Santa Claus, and he can be in thousands of restaurants worldwide.

3) McDonald's restaurants around the world have a variety of healthy options for kids' meals. For example, kids in the UK can get carrots or grapes and apples with their Happy Meals. Kids in Spain can have cherry tomatoes. Kids in Japan can have sweetcorn. And if US-based parents complain about the lack of healthy options in US Happy Meals, perhaps we'd better take a closer look at ourselves: McDonald's has test-marketed healthy Happy Meal side dishes like the ones I mentioned, but not enough parents bought them for their kids to make it economically viable to introduce nationwide. In short, McDonald's tried, but the healthy stuff didn't sell.

2) There's nothing in Chicken McNuggets other than an injection of teriyaki flavor solution, breadcrumbs and white meat. That's it. No breadcrumbs or other fillers. And no hormones either; the use of hormones to grow chickens quicker has been banned for quite a while, and McDonald's chicken suppliers do not use it.

1) The French fries are just that. No preservatives, no chemicals, no fillers. They are real potatoes that have been cut into strips, partially fried, flash frozen, and delivered to your local McDonald's. Once they're at a restaurant, a crew member puts them in the deep fryer, takes them out when they're done, and salts them. So when anyone asks you, "What do they put in those McDonald's fries???", you can tell them, "Just potatoes. I have it on highest authority -- Bonggamom told me".

This summer, we're vacationing in the UK for a month. Guess which fast-food restaurant we'll be visiting while we're there? That's right, the one with the carrots, grapes and apples!

Win It!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a McDonald’s Family Fun Prize Pack (ARV $100) which contains:

* A Smile Tote Bag
* A $25 AMC Gift Card
* A $20 McDonald's Arch Card
* A Fleece Blanket
* A Frisbee
* A pack of McDonald's French Fry Playing Cards

To enter, just leave a comment on this post and share a fun McDonald's related moment in your life or ask me any question you like about the McDonald's Family Time Getaway, or any question about McDonald's in general. You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted until Aug. 10, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain extra entries by going to the BlogHer special offers page, because the other bloggers who went to the McDonalds Family Weekend are also giving away prize packs. Good luck!

Feel like Snacking? Get Cracking with Ritz Crackerfuls

2010-07-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Ritz.

What's my idea of a catastrophe? Losing my internet connection. I run my household (i.e. pay bills, order groceries, schedule package pickups) online. I parent (i.e sign the kids up for summer camp, register for school, shop for bathing suits and books, get parenting advice) online. I work (i.e. blog) online. I play (i.e. read blogs, tweet, watch movies, catch up on news, go shopping, download songs, plan a roadtrip from Britain to France) online. Practically the only things I don't do online these days is apply bandages, brush teeth and paint nails!

So I'm always in front of the computer. With all that I do online, I could sit myself down at 8AM and not get up until 8PM! (If I had a toilet installed beside the printer, I could go even longer). I know it's a bad habit, but I really tend to lose myself -- food on the stove could burn, my kids could run away, civilizations could rise and fall while I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing online. When that happens, I end my day with tired eyes, an aching head, cramped muscles, a bloated feeling (from gobbling down junk food because I was starving didn't make the time to eat something nutritious), not to mention hungry, rowdy kids and an exasperated husband. Not good. So I do make an effort to take a breather, break up my day and remind myself that I do have a life away from that screen. Here are 3 things I like to do:

1) Go for a run
These days it's more of a jog than a run... actually it's more like a shuffle... okay, a walk. But whatever the speed, it's the perfect way to get some blood back into my feet, stretch out my back, and clear the cobwebs from my head.

2) Do some housework.
I hate, hate, hate doing household chores, but I've found that if I make time for them and force myself to do them, I actually feel better afterwards. It's funny to think of chores giving me a break, but they have many of the same benefits that taking a walk does (I get to stretch, rest my eyes, clear my head), and I actually accomplish something constructive.

3) Grab a snack
I make it a point to get something to eat a couple of hours after having lunch, because that's the only way to avoid The Dreaded Mid-Day Munchies. You know, that sudden rush of gnawing hunger that hits you between 4 and 5PM. It takes me by surprise and leaves me so famished I end up grabbing whatever happens to be around, whether it's leftover ice cream or four servings of cheese. I find that if I grab a snack just when the first feelings of hunger begin to dawn, I can make better decisions about what I'm eating.

Which brings me to Ritz Crackerfuls

BlogHer and Ritz sent me some Ritz Crackerfuls to enjoy and review, and I have to say they're a great way to fight those Mid-Day Munchies! For one thing, they're delicious: I love the nuttiness of the whole grain crackers and the creaminess of the cheese filling (I especially love the smoky flavor of the Cheddar and Bacon). The combination is complex and sophisticated, it actually gets me chewing each mouthful slowly, so I can appreciate the flavors and make the most out of each bite. We all know that eating your food slowly is a great tactic for feeling full longer, and that's what ends up happening. Of course, the whole grains in the crackers have a lot to do with that too!

I do feel guilty about the environmental consequences, but I admit to enjoying the convenience of individually-wrapped crackers, so I can just grab one and hurry back online :) But the bottom line is, I feel good about reaching for Ritz Crackers when I'm busy because they've got whole grains that keep me full, so I know I won't be hungry for something else ten minutes later. This is one snack that I'm NOT packing into the kids' camp lunchboxes -- I'm saving Ritz Crackerfuls for ME.

Here's some information about Ritz Crackerfuls from Ritz:
Whether you are running errands or running to meetings, Ritz Crackerfuls are the perfect snack to keep you satisfied. Each is made with 6 grams of whole grains and real cheese, so you can feel good about what you are eating and know that it is substantial enough to keep you going until you have time for your next meal. Also, since each is individually wrapped it is perfect to just throw in your bag and go.

Save $1.00 on Ritz Crackerfuls
Save $1.00 on Ritz Crackerfuls filled crackers. Click here to get and print your coupon!

Win a $100 Visa Giftcard
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will receive a $100 Visa Giftcard courtesy of Ritz Crackerfuls! To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and tell me what snack keeps you going until you have time for your next meal.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I entered the Ritz Crackerfuls $100 giveaway on Bonggamom Finds!! http://tinyurl.com/2u3u57f

2) Write this on the Ritz Crackers Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

Hey Ritz fans -- get cracking and enter the Ritz Crackerfuls $100 giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! Enter at http://tinyurl.com/2u3u57f, ends 7/31.

3) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

You could win $100 courtesy of Ritz Crackers and @blogherdeals! Enter now on http://tinyurl.com/2u3u57f #giveaway

Maximum of 4 entries per person. This giveaway begins at 10:00AM PST on July 9 and ends at midnight PST on July 31, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on August 1 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for complete giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Ritz Crackerfuls website. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Crackerfuls posts (links are on the BlogHer.com Ritz Crackerfuls page )-- you'll have 16 more chances to win!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in this review. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Oh where, oh where did that McDonald's post go?

2010-06-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for the post I did last night on our first day at McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, IL, you won't find it here. Since I'm on this trip as a BlogHer reviewer, any posts we write have to be hosted on an ad-free page, so I had to move my post over to the Bonggamom Finds ad-free section. Click here to go to my McDay 1 Post (Come on, you know you want to! )

Random Thoughts on Day 1 of our McDonalds Adventure

2010-06-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

We've been up and since 5:30 AM, so what am I doing, 15 hours later, straddling a toilet, facing the bathroom wall, with my laptop perched on the toilet back? I'm in a (bath)room at the Hyatt Lodge at the McDonald's Campus in Oak Brook, IL and my kids are asleep (hence the need to sit on the toilet for such an extended period of time. Fortunately there's a shaving power outlet nearby). I'm at the McDonald's Family Time Getaway event, joining 9 other bloggers at McDonalds' and BlogHer's invitation, to see what goes on behind the Golden Arches, ask some questions, and get to know the company better.

I'm too exhausted to write out a nicely crafted, insightful, witty-in-all-the-right-places post (not that I can ever do that even in the best of situations), so for now I'll leave you with some mediocre photos (sorry, I decided to pass on our bulky, heavy DSLR and take our 8-year-old point-and-shoot camera whose lens cover doesn't even retract properly, but kickass McDonalds' photographers have been roaming around all day so I'll get to share much better photos after it's all over) and some random thoughts that passed through my mind throughout the day:

1) I think it's going to be a great trip. We hadn't even left Silicon Valley yet and the kids were already having a great time, reveling in their first-ever limo ride. To quote The Pea: Ooooooh, a limo!! It's so smoooooth.... and it doesn't even smell funny.

2) This flight should be called Twin Air... there are 3 sets of twins on it! And 2 sets happen to be headed to the same place -- mine, and a couple of adorable girls, Ro and Ree, whose mother M3 happens to blog at Do They Have Salsa in China. I think I've made a new bloggy friend!

3) McDonald's has a hotel on the grounds of their headquarters?!!!

4) Dang, I wish I had brought my swimsuit. I guess I'll just have to content myself with tweeting and checking email by the pool.

5) What did I do to deserve this?? I'm in the company of some majorly amazing bloggers: BooMama, LooneyTunes, Suburban Turmoil.... I'm nothing compared to them....

6) Get a hold of yourself, idiot, and stand up tall! You may own just a teensy corner of the blogosphere but you're doing what you love and that's what matters. Besides, you're a well-respected writer for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.... oh, wait. SV Moms is closing at the end of this month. Sniff.... I'm nothing.......

7) Speaking of Suburban Turmoil, I'm bummed that I didn't register in time for the CheeseburgHer party at BlogHer 2010. I had so much fun at this party last year, but I procrastinated on registering this year, and now it's full, and I'm on the wait list. Since Lindsay is at this event too, I'm wondering, if I can ask reeeeelly nicely, maybe she could sneak me in? Or, since McDonald's is a CheeseburgHer sponsor, maybe they could sneak me in? Those McDonald's Snuggies at the Mom 2.0 CheeseburgHer were the best swag ever and I want in!

8) McDonald's headquarters is beautiful. It's lush and green, full of big, old trees, grass and flowers. There's a lake stocked with fish that you can go paddleboating on, and paths for walking and biking. The only thing I don't like about it are the mosquitoes. It's like being back in Manila!

9) I'm impressed with the planning and effort that went into the whole event, especially the kids' activities. They hired a kids' event company to oversee the kids' activities, and they seem to have one staff member for each child. When we checked in, we received a huge bag full of Last Airbender Happy Meal Toys, and at dinnertime there were more kiddie goodies, including an old-fashioned metal lunchbox for each kid, stickers and balloons.

10) Six years old is NOT too old to make friends with Ronald McDonald.

Summer Fun with Tropicana

2010-06-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

You could win a $50 Visa giftcard, keep reading to find out how to enter!

My family and I have been enjoying Tropicana's Juicy Rewards for a while, and now that summer is here we need those Juicy savings more than ever. I've signed the kids up for one week of camp and we're traveling for five weeks, but we've still got all the rest of the summer to fill up with fun things to do. I love scheduling day trips to museums, parks and amusement centers, so every little discount helps.

The Basics
Juicy Rewards is a great program from Tropicana that helps you save on the stuff your family loves to do, just by buying stuff your family already loves -- orange juice. Each specially marked carton of Tropicana Pure Premium or Trop50 has a special code that you enter online to get Juicy Reward Points. You can redeem Juicy Reward Points for discounts on fun activities and gear (for more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site). As a BlogHer Juicy Insider, I get to try out some of the activities that you can redeem discounts for, and tell you all about it.

The Bongga
One of the best things about Juicy Rewards Points is that they can be redeemed for discounts at so many popular places, not just obscure, out-of-the-way places that need to offer coupons to draw people in. Our latest Juicy excursion was to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, one of the first themed amusement parks in the US and a huge favorite in the Bay Area. It's a tried and tested favorite with my kids, and they're always ready for a visit.

Children's Fairyland is a sweet little place for young kids, filled with storybook sets that kids can run through and play in. One of my kids' favorites is the Alice in Wonderland set, which leads kids down a rabbithole-slide, through some underground tunnels and into a card maze. This must be how Alice felt when the whole pack of cards fluttered down on her!

Fairyland holds puppet show performances two or three times a day. Their productions are excellent (this one is "Wind in the Willows) and everyone enjoys them.

The park has a few gentle rides like a carousel, a train and a small ferris wheel. This is the "scariest" ride of the park, a giant dragon slide. Okay, it's not exactly a thriller amusement park, but kids of all ages love it, and they can actually go wicked fast on that slidy aluminum surface.

Since I was able to redeem two 2-for-1 admission coupons with my Juicy Rewards points, I told The Pea she could invite her best friend. The Pea is always getting invited by this girl's family so I thought it was time I returned the favor -- and thanks to Juicy Rewards, I didn't feel the bite in my wallet even with four kids. They all had a blast, and even made some new friends at the park (see photo above), spending quite a bit of time playing with (and on) them.

Children's Fairyland is really a wonderful place to hang out for the day!

The Blah
I've just discovered the first serious flaw in the Juicy Rewards program! You can only redeem a maximum of 3 rewards in each category (i.e. Museums, Aquariums, Batting Cages & Arcades, Amusement & Water Parks, etc..) -- not 3 rewards per establishment, per category. For example, you can only get dining discounts 3 times -- once for Baskin Robbins, once for Arby's, and a third time for some other local place, or any combination. But you're limited to three, and only three, dining coupons.

Same goes for the other categories. So we can only enjoy discounts to 3 museums of any kind, even if we've gathered enough Juicy Rewards points to pay for 5! I was hugely disappointed because it means we can't redeem Juicy Rewards points to enjoy discounts at our favorite places again and again. C'mon Juicy Rewards, puh-leeeeeeeze remove the 3-discount limit!

The Bottom Line
Despite the 3-discount-per-category limit, Tropicana's Juicy Rewards program is still a great way to save on things to do. It just means you get to try new things all the time, which is especially great during the summer when you and your kids are looking for things to do. They're adding new discounts all the time, so you're sure to find a deal you'll want to use!

On a final note, I'm sad to say that this is my last formal post as a Juicy Rewards Insider. My Juicy Rewards Posts might be ending, but the fun goes on. You can bet I'll be buying Tropicana juice, entering codes, maxing out my points, and redeeming all the rewards I can. Make sure you squeeze every last drop of savings you can from Tropicana's Juicy Rewards Program until it ends in November!

Register with and Tropicana Juicy Rewards and get one additional Juicy Rewards Point for free!
To get you started, BlogHer and Tropicana have teamed up to offer new Juicy Rewards members a bonus Juicy Rewards point! How great is that: you get one step closer to redeeming a Juicy Reward, at no cost to you.

To get your bonus point:
1. Go to http://www.tropicana.com/
2. Set-up your Tropicana Juicy Rewards account (just take a minute!)
3. Visit the "Enter Codes" page within the site and get started with BLOGG-HER11 *

*Note* This one-time use code is valid for new accounts ONLY. Must be entered within 6 hours of creating your account.

One Last Time -- Win a $50 Visa Gift card!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $50 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, leave a comment on this post and tell me how you plan to save on your family's summer fun activities.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I joined the 6th $50 Visa giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! http://ow.ly/1VOq5

2) Write this on the Tropicana Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

Hey Juicy Rewards fans -- see how Bonggamom is using her Juicy Rewards points to have some summer family fun, and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard! It's the last Juicy Rewards giveaway, so enter now! http://ow.ly/1VOq5, ends 6/30.

3) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

See how @bonggafinds uses Juicy Rewards points to have fun this summer, enter 2 win a $50 Visa giftcard fr @blogherdeals! http://ow.ly/1VOq5

Maximum of 4 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on June 30, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on July 1 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for complete giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- you'll have 7 more chances to win!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Delicious Ways to get more Tropicana Juice (and more Juicy Rewards Points) into your life!

2010-06-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

You could win a $50 Visa giftcard, keep reading to find out how to enter!

My family and I have been enjoying Tropicana's Juicy Rewards for over a month now, and I've shared some of the fun things we've been doing with our points. You might be wondering how we get all those points. Tropicana has been giving each of the Juicy Insiders 12 Juicy Rewards points per month for the duration of this review program, and I'm very grateful to them for ensuring we always have enough point to redeem rewards.

But honestly, it's so easy to redeem points that I've never even gotten close to running out. I get enough points from the amount of Tropicana orange juice that I buy for my family to get discounts for practically anything I want -- I even get enough left over to donate to their Save the Rainforest Program, or enter one of their special sweepstakes! Just one 89-oz. container of Tropicana juice is worth 5 points, and one 59-oz. carton of Trop50 juice is worth 6 points. We easily accumulate 5 points a week!

Admittedly, we adore orange juice and we drink a lot of it, but that's not the only thing you can do with orange juice. From orangle smoothies to orange popsicles to orange cake to orange glazed chicken, there are so many ways to incorporate the tangy sweetness of orange juice into the foods we eat!

One of my favorite orange juice recipes doesn't even taste like oranges at all. It's a recipe for coffee cake given to me by my friend Jill. The orange juice makes it wonderfully moist and indulgent, but Jill says that it's actually quite a low-fat cake. Now, Jill is a lady who has lost over 100 lbs. through diet and exercise alone, and she watches everything she eats like a hawk, so when she told me this cake was worth spending calories on, I believed her. And so will you, after you try it:

Jill's Light and Luscious Coffee Cake

Combine the following dry ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil (Jill uses canola oil and so do I)
1 cup milk (Jill uses nonfat, I use 2% milk because it's what we have on hand)
1/3 cup Tropicana orange juice, no pulp (I'm pretty generous with measuring this out!)
2 teaspoons grated orange rind

Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into a 9 x 13 pan that has been greased and floured.

Prepare the topping:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick of softened butter
1 cup chopped nuts (Jill used toasted pecans, I used regular pecans)

Squeeze the butter and blend with the other two ingredients by hand. (If you want to use a mixer, add the nuts afterward.) When thoroughly combined, sprinkle the topping evenly over the cake batter.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. (Test the center to make sure it's done.)

This is truly what a coffeecake should taste like -- cinnamonny and sweet (but not too sickly-sweet), with a crunchy topping and, thanks to the orange juice, an amazingly moist center. You can eat it all by itself, and it goes perfectly with a cup of coffee. If you want to get really indulgent, slice some bananas over it, squirt on some whipped cream, and pour some caramel sauce on top.

Yeah, I don't think Jill would approve. But if you've got some Tropicana orange juice in your fridge, this is a great way to use it so you can buy another carton (and get more Juicy Rewards points). Better yet, send that Tropicana OJ over to our house!

Register with and Tropicana Juicy Rewards and get one additional Juicy Rewards Point for free!
To get you started, BlogHer and Tropicana have teamed up to offer new Juicy Rewards members a bonus Juicy Rewards point! How great is that: you get one step closer to redeeming a Juicy Reward, at no cost to you.

To get your bonus point:
1. Go to http://www.tropicana.com/
2. Set-up your Tropicana Juicy Rewards account (just take a minute!)
3. Visit the "Enter Codes" page within the site and get started with BLOGG-HER11 *

*Note* This one-time use code is valid for new accounts ONLY. Must be entered within 6 hours of creating your account.

Win a $50 Visa Gift card!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $50 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite dish or drink made with orange juice.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I joined the 5th $50 Visa giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! http://ow.ly/1SLF7

2) Write this on the Tropicana Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

Hey Juicy Rewards fans -- see what Bonggamom is cooking up with Tropicana orange juice and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard! Anyone can enter at http://ow.ly/1SLF7, ends 6/14.

3) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

See what @bonggafinds is cooking up w/ Tropicana OJ & enter to Win a $50 Visa giftcard fr @blogherdeals! http://ow.ly/1SLF7 #giveaway

Maximum of 4 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on June 14, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on June 15 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for complete giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- you'll have 7 more chances to win!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

The Moment that Got Away

2010-05-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored content from BlogHer and Flip Video.

You could win a $200 gift card! Keep reading to find out how to enter.....

When you have kids, your video camera works overtime. Kids grow so quickly and change so often, we want to capture each and every precious moment. So we try to keep a video camera close by. But even when we plan our video coverage like it's a military campaign, those once-in-a-lifetime moments can still elude us.

Sometimes it's because we screwed up and ended up with unwatchable videos. We have videos that are too blurred, or too dark. We have videos that are so jumpy that watching them gives you motion sickness. We have videos shot in "portrait mode" (I took this one with our regular point-and-shoot camera, and turned the camera on its side, forgetting that I was shooting a video, not a photo). So we've got a cute video of Jammy, learning how to jump, but not quite understanding how to keep both feet in the air at the same time -- but you need to turn your head ninety degrees to watch it.

We even have videos of Moments that don't capture the Moment at all. In this one, we must have pressed the "Record" button without knowing it. Then, when things started happening and we zoomed in to capture The Moment, we pressed the "Record" button thinking we were turning it on.... not turning it off. Hence this lovely video of a basketball parquet floor.

But the most frustrating video Moments are the ones I never got to capture. For example, 3Po and Jammy learned to ride two-wheelers at the tender young age of three. They were the subject of many stares and impressed looks -- but I have no video footage of that era. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not the first time they ever balanced on two wheels (although, to be fair to myself, they learned after about five minutes of me running beside them, so there wasn't really time to run a grab a video camera) or even any shots of them once they got really good at it. And it's too late -- all the video footage of six year olds on a bike cannot compare to a video of two tiny three-year olds zipping around on two-wheelers.

Fortunately this is the era of lightweight, high quality video cameras like the Flip . I have two Flip cameras myself, so I've got one at home and one for the road. And if my kids decide to hop on a friend's unicycle or try a kick-flip on their scooter, I'll be ready.

Win a $200 Gift Card
The Flip SlideHD video camera is perfect for recording those once-in-a-lifetime moments: it has 4 hours record time and a widescreen playback so you can shoot video and show it with pride, on the spot. To celebrate the introduction of this new camera, Flip Video has teamed up with BlogHer to give away a $200 gift card! That's right, you could win $200 so that you can buy your own Flip Video camera, and ensure you capture the moment next time.

Required Entry
Leave a comment on this post and share a moment in your life when you wish you had a video camera. This entry must be completed before extra entries qualify.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following. Please leave a separate comment for each extra entry with a way to verify the entry (i.e. tweet link, blog post link, Blogger id).

1) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Blogger(1 entry).

2) Blog about this giveaway (1 entry).

3) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Twitter and tweet this (1 entry):

Tell @bonggafinds about a moment U wish you had captured on video-- you could win $200 fr @blogherdeals @flipvideobrand! http://ow.ly/1LlIQ

The Rules
This giveaway ends at midnight PST on June 14, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on June 15 and post the winner's name after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for official giveaway rules. And don't forget to visit the Flip Video exclusive offer page on BlogHer.com -- you'll have a total of 5 chances to win $200. Good luck!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my time in preparing and writing this post. In addition, a $200 giftcard is being provided by the BlogHer Review Program and Flip Video as a giveaway prize. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

More Family Fun with Tropicana

2010-05-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

You could win a $50 Visa giftcard, keep reading to find out how to enter!

The Basics
Juicy Rewards is a great program from Tropicana that helps you save on the stuff your family loves to do, just by buying stuff your family already loves -- orange juice. Each specially marked carton of Tropicana Pure Premium or Trop50 has a special code that you enter online to get Juicy Reward Points. You can redeem Juicy Reward Points for discounts on fun activities and gear (for more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site). As a BlogHer Juicy Insider, I get to try out some of the activities that you can redeem discounts for, and tell you all about it.

The Bongga
It's our second month as Juicy Insiders, and we've been having more fun than ever! So what else have we been doing with all those points? Check it out all the Juicy Fun we've been having:

Indulging our Inner Carnivores
I was so happy to see that the Juicy Rewards program now includes discounts on dining! One of the things we love to do as a family is eat out at restaurants. A couple of weeks ago I was craving roast beef, so I took the kids to Arby's and used 2 Juicy Rewards points to get a Buy-One-Get-One-Free deal on a Beef 'n Cheddar Sandwich and a Chicken Sandwich:

They were delicious, and yes, a little bit naughty, but fortunately Arby's had a huge, clean and empty play area so my kids burned up all the calories they consumed by running up, down and through the mazes of tunnels and slides. They had a blast, and I got a relaxing hour to myself to read the paper and surf the web (I'm still working on burning those extra calories, but that's another story!).

The Juicy Rewards dining discounts aren't just for fast food restaurants, either. They've signed up Indian restaurants, Mexican taquerias, Italian restaurants, Thai restaurants, French bakery cafes are more! Alfie and I are on a campaign to get the kids to expand their culinary horizons, so we're so excited that all these new dining discounts have been added so we can save some money when we go out to eat.

Celebrating Earth Day, Every Day
April was Earth Month, so I was happy to celebrate by donating some of my Juicy Rewards points to Tropicana's Rescue the Rainforest program. Every Juicy Rewards point you donate will save 33 1/3 square feet of rainforest! I've donated 25 points so far, and I expect to donate many more between now and November 15th (when the Juicy Rewards Program ends).

Prancing down the Red Carpet
My kids are really sensitive when it comes to watching movies, so we haven't taken them to movies too often. But they're older now. They're no longer so afraid of sitting in the dark in front of that huge, intense movie screen, and there are more movies that they can handle without quaking in fear or dissolving into tears, so this year we've started going out to the movies as a family. But isn't it awful how just a simple family activity like going to the movies can get so expensive?

So when Juicy Rewards featured a Buy-One-Get-One-Free Fandango movie ticket deal as their Deal of the Day a couple of weeks ago, I knew this was a Must Do. How often do you get discounts on movie tickets?! We redeemed the coupon to watch the DisneyNature film "Oceans", and it was Amazing with a capital A. It's the kind of film you simply must see on the big screen because even a 42-inch home tv doesn't do the scenery justice. Thanks, Juicy Rewards, for helping us save on a night at the movies!

The Blah
That BOGO Fandango movie ticket deal was so popular that the Juicy Rewards servers must have gotten overwhelmed with the traffic. The site hung multiple times that day, and I was one of the unlucky people who experienced all kinds of glitches when I logged on and tried to redeem my Juicy Rewards points for discounts (site hanging, multiple error messages, points getting deducted multiple times, etc..). It took me almost an hour to redeem that deal! Even worse, I (along with many other Facebook fans) wrote on their wall to inquire/complain, but no-one from Tropicana responded!

It was a frustrating experience -- but there's a happy ending to this story. I called their customer service line and got an instant response. Their representative restored the Juicy Rewards points that were erroneously subtracted, immediately and without giving me any trouble. I was impressed with how well they handled it. I also got multiple emails apologizing for the lack of response, and it looks like Tropicana is now really proactive when it comes to responding to comments and suggestions that get posted on their Facebook page. It's really good to see that they do respond to customer feedback and learn from their experiences.

The Bottom Line
Tropicana's Juicy Rewards program is getting better and better. They're adding new discounts all the time and they're stepping up their IT and customer support to handle the increased traffic from their thousands of new Juicy Rewards fans! I can't wait to see what new discounts they come up with!

Register with and Tropicana Juicy Rewards and get one additional Juicy Rewards Point for free!
To get you started, BlogHer and Tropicana have teamed up to offer new Juicy Rewards members a bonus Juicy Rewards point! How great is that: you get one step closer to redeeming a Juicy Reward, at no cost to you.

To get your bonus point:
1. Go to http://www.tropicana.com/
2. Set-up your Tropicana Juicy Rewards account (just take a minute!)
3. Visit the "Enter Codes" page within the site and get started with BLOGG-HER11 *

*Note* This one-time use code is valid for new accounts ONLY. Must be entered within 6 hours of creating your account.

Win a $50 Visa Gift card!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $50 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, leave a comment on this post and share your favorite family restaurant.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I joined the 4th $50 Visa giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! http://ow.ly/1NdJr

2) Write this on the Tropicana Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

Hey Juicy Rewards fans, there's another Juicy Rewards post and another $50 Visa giftcard giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! Anyone can enter at http://ow.ly/1NdJr, ends 5/31.

3) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

See what @bonggafinds is doing w/ her Juicy Rewards Points & enter to Win a $50 Visa giftcard fr @blogherdeals! http://ow.ly/1NdJr #giveaway

Maximum of 4 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on May 31, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on June 1 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for complete giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- you'll have 7 more chances to win!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Having Big-time Family Fun on a Small-time Budget

2010-05-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

You could win a $50 Visa giftcard, keep reading to find out how to enter!

My kids are only 6 and 9 years old, and already the flight from our nest has begun. It seems like every week I'm fielding invitations from their friends to spend some time at their house for playdates, or sleepovers, shopping trips and excursions to museums and beaches. I'm happy that they're well-liked and well-behaved enough to get all these invitations, and many times I'm happy to send them off with $20 in their pockets and a promise to reciprocate -- but there are times when I have to tell their friends, "Sorry but we're planning to have a family outing that day". I can't stop my children from growing up, experiencing new things and giving them their independence, but I can and do make sure they have a happy, solid family to return to.

I firmly believe that The Family That Plays Together, Stays Together, so I like to schedule family outings two or three times a month. I'm always on the lookout for fun, memorable experiences we can enjoy together, as a family. We are lucky to live in an area that has such a wide variety of things to do, all within a short drive of each other, many of which are extremely kid-friendly -- but they can also be expensive. Going to amusement parks or state fairs or shows can cost over hundreds for the whole family! We just don't have that kind of budget, so I try to look for free or low-cost events. Here are five things I always do to stretch our family entertainment budget:

1) Look for free events
There are free family events in practically every city in the US -- the key is knowing where and how to find them. Always check out your local library or civic center; just a few examples of fun, free family activities your city might offer are children's parades, 4th of July parades, or puppet shows. Civic organizations also sponsor international cultural days (like the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, Brazilian Samba or Cinco de Mayo celebrations) and other events. Check out your local paper or entertainment magazine, or go online to find out what's happening in your area. Trust me -- I've been writing about local kid-friendly attractions and events for two years, and there hasn't been a weekend where I haven't found at least one fun, free, family-friendly event.

2) Check out your local parents club
I joined our local mother's club to meet new parents, find playgroups our kids could join -- and to enjoy their awesome parties! For just a $40 annual fee, members get all kinds of amazing perks: Our mothers club holds amazing Halloween parties, Valentine's parties, Easter parties and winter holiday parties with goody bags, kids entertainers, pizza and crafts, all for free! We always look forward to our Twins Club's annual Ice Cream Party -- we gather at a local park for pizza, soda and make-your-own ice cream sundaes, complete with candy toppings, waffle cups and cones and four kinds of ice cream! They also hold special classes at science museums and outings at jumpy house places or zoos for smaller groups, again for free -- you just need to make sure you sign up before space runs out. There's probably a local parents club near you that offers similar, low-cost or free activities the whole family can enjoy.

Every October we visit a pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay. Because we go with our twins club, we save 50% off admission and unlimited rides bracelet. And because it's a package deal, the kids even get a cookie and a small pumpkin to take home.

3) Buy museum family memberships.
If you have a favorite museum or zoo that you find yourself returning to time and again, consider purchasing a family membership. In many cases, you can recoup the cost of your membership in as little as one or two visits. Many of these memberships also offer discounts on other museums, food purchased in their cafeterias and on souvenirs at their gift shops (actually, another way to save is to warn your kids beforehand that you won't be splashing out for souvenirs!). To stretch out the number of visits we can enjoy, I usually buy membership in July -- that way, it runs until July of the following year, and we get two summers worth of visits to the museum!

A couple of years ago we splurged on a family membership to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We recovered the cost in just two visits, and we visited the aquarium so many times that we didn't even feel the urge to go back for quite a while. I think it's time to splurge on that family membership again.....

4) Take advantage of Free Admission Days.
Many museums hold free or $1 admission days once a month. Yes, they tend to be more crowded than on other days, but you can work around that by arriving at the museum exactly when it opens. We've discovered quite a few family favorites that way -- the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose and Coyote Point Museum, for instance. The kids adore these places!

5) Look for coupons and discounts.
Why pay full price for admission to a museum or event if you can get a couple of bucks off just by clipping a coupon? When you multiply that by five, it adds up! You can check out the coupon section of your local newspaper or entertainment magazine, ask your local parents group or auto club if they offer any discounts -- or better yet, join Tropicana's Juicy Rewards program. The program offers discounts at over 20,000 establishments nationwide. You can save on food, drink, equipment, lodging, admissions and family entertainment just by buying Tropicana products, collecting the Juicy Rewards points on the cartons and redeeming them for discounts. Check out my first Juicy Rewards post for details on how the program works, and check out my second Juicy Rewards post to see some of the fun ways you can save with the Juicy Rewards program. It's a great way to stretch out your family entertainment budget!

Register with and Tropicana Juicy Rewards and get one additional Juicy Rewards Point for free!
To get you started, BlogHer and Tropicana have teamed up to offer new Juicy Rewards members a bonus Juicy Rewards point! How great is that: you get one step closer to redeeming a Juicy Reward, at no cost to you.

To get your bonus point:
1. Go to http://www.tropicana.com/
2. Set-up your Tropicana Juicy Rewards account (just take a minute!)
3. Visit the "Enter Codes" page within the site and get started with BLOGG-HER11 *

*Note* This one-time use code is valid for new accounts ONLY. Must be entered within 6 hours of creating your account.

Win It!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $50 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, visit the Tropicana Juicy Rewards page, then come back here and share a tip on how to have big family fun on a small budget.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I joined the $50 Visa giveaway on Bonggamom Finds!

2) Write this on the Tropicana OJ Facebook Fan Page (leave a comment on this post with your FB id):

I went to Bonggamom's latest Juicy Rewards post and entered to win a $50 Visa giftcard! Anyone can enter at http://ow.ly/1Gl2Z, ends 5/16.

3) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

Share your money-saving tip on family fun w/ @bonggafinds & enter to Win a $50 Visa giftcard fr @blogherdeals ! http://ow.ly/1Gl2Z #giveaway

Maximum of 4 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on May 16, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on May17 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for complete giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- you'll have 7 more chances to win!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Family Fun with Tropicana

2010-04-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

Are you a family that

1) Loves orange juice?
2) Loves to do fun things together?
3) Loves to save money?

I was recently invited to become a BlogHer Juicy Insider for Tropicana's Juicy Rewards program, which allows families to enjoy all three items on that list -- and boy, have we been having fun! I hope you'll join me and my family as we explore all that Juicy Rewards have to offer.

The Basics
Juicy Rewards is a great new program from Tropicana that helps you save on the stuff your family loves to do, just by buying stuff your family already loves -- orange juice. Each specially marked carton of Tropicana Pure Premium or Trop50 has a special code that you enter online to get Juicy Reward Points. You can redeem Juicy Reward Points for discounts on fun activities and gear (for more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site). As a BlogHer Juicy Insider, I get to try out some of the activities that you can redeem discounts for, and tell you all about it.

The Bongga
Tropicana and BlogHer generously deposited 12 Juicy Rewards Points in my Juicy Rewards account to get me started, but racking up those points is as easy as drinking a glass of juice -- in just over a month, I was able to enter 38 points just by buying Tropicana juice and typing in the codes printed on the cartons!

So what have we been doing with all those points? Check it out all the Juicy Fun we've been having:

Singing, I mean Golfing in the Rain
One afternoon, when The Pea was off gallivanting with friends, the boys were feeling sad since they don't get invited to a bazillion parties like The Pea does. So I decided to take them out for an afternoon of fun at the Malibu Grand Prix mini-golf course. I used 3 Juicy Rewards Points to redeem a coupon for a buy-one-get-one free golf session, so the whole afternoon cost less than a trip to our local coffee place for muffins and hot chocolate!

3Po and Jammy had an absolute blast.

The fact that it was drizzling the whole time did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm. In fact, the rain scared away all the crowds so we had the whole course to ourselves, and they could take as many shots as they wanted. They kept on whacking those golf balls like they were playing in Alice in Wonderland's wacky hedgehog-and-flamingo croquet game:

Okay, maybe they'll never be Tiger Woods.... but with the kind of news Tiger's making these days, that probably isn't such a bad thing.

Playing Crocodile Hunter
A couple of weeks ago, we spent the day at San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39. We used 6 points to get a buy-one-get-one-free deal on admission tickets, which meant that we could afford to splurge on a nice restaurant for lunch instead of searching for the cheapest burger joint on Pier 39.

The Aquarium of the Bay is an amazing place! The coolest part of the exhibit was walking through two glass tunnels submerged under a huge tank that had all kinds of marine animals swimming beside, below and above you. Talk about an immersive experience! I've never seen anything like it, and the kids are still talking about how cool it was to feel like they were underwater.

In another exhibit, we learned all about octopuses (octopi? I can never get it right) and how they can do amazing things like use their tentacles to open a screw-top can to eat the crab that's inside. They must really love crab -- we saw a video of an octopus squeezing itself into a hamster run to get to the crab on the other end. Then again, if it were a slice of chocolate caramel cheesecake at the end of the hamster run, even I might try it.

In another exhibit, the kids got to touch sea stars of all colors and sizes:

Yeah, yeah, you say, ho hum, you can touch starfish at any old aquarium; science teachers even bring them into classrooms these days. Okay, but does your science teacher bring bat rays and leopard sharks are swimming and allow you to touch them?? And I've never been to an aquarium that allows you to get close enough to a bat ray that he can stick up his nose or whatever up in the air towards you, like it's some kind of dolphin.

All the time I kept thinking, isn't that the creature that stabbed Steve Irwin in the heart? If The Crocodile Hunter.

Preparing for Camping Season
For the past 2 years 3Po and Jammy have been shivering in their thin nylon CareBear toddler sleeping bags that I bought for them when they were 18 months old, so I figured it was time to get them some new sleeping bags. I bought my Coleman sleeping bag over a decade ago, so I didn't have to think twice about which brand to buy -- especially since I was able to redeem 9 Juicy Rewards points to get a 30% discount off a $60 purchase at Coleman.com.

When the sleeping bags arrived, the kids insisted on having a "camp-out" night in the downstairs playroom. Thanks to Juicy Rewards, we're already having some family fun even though camping season hasn't even started yet.

Bribing Lady Luck
The Juicy Rewards program has some great prizes up for grabs every month; the prize for April is an Adidas miCoach package, and you can enter once per day. They're also offering a trip to LA and a round of golf with Bruce Jenner; that contest costs 1 Juicy Rewards point to enter, and you can enter up to 3 times per day until April 16, 2010. So when I'm logged on to my Juicy Rewards account, it only costs me a second (and 3 Juicy Rewards points) to throw my name into the hat and dream about winning. Who knows, I might get lucky!

Saving the Rainforest
One of the things I like best about the Juicy Rewards program is that your points don't ever have to go to waste. Even if you can't find a single discount you want to use (and with over 20,000 of them I find that hard to imagine), you can donate the points you accumulate to Tropicana's Rescue the Rainforest program. Every Juicy Rewards point you donate will save 33 1/3 square feet of rainforest! I've donated 10 points so far, and I expect to donate many more between now and November 15th (when the Juicy Rewards Program ends).

Getting Great Deals
Did you know that the Juicy Rewards program has a Deal of the Day? They're special deals that are good only for a limited time, so you need to check your Tropicana Juicy Rewards home page often and see what's cooking. Last week it was a Buy-One-Get-One-Free coupon for Trop50 juice! I didn't hesitate to redeem that baby, and it saved me some money on our orange juice -- and also gave us 12 more Juicy Rewards points instead of just 6 :) Yay, more points for me! The latest Deal of the Day will be launching tomorrow, April 16. Watch out for that one because it's going to be a blockbuster of a deal!! I can't say exactly what the deal is, but you'll surely want to roll out the red carpet for it (hint! hint!).

The Blah
When you redeem Juicy Rewards Points for a discount to a museum or amusement place or some other attraction, you need to print the coupon out -- you can't have the coupon emailed to you, and you can't view your Juicy Rewards discount coupon before you print it out. Come to think of it, it would be great if we could just load up a virtual coupon on our mobile phones and show it at the booth and not even print it out!

The Bottom Line
I'm liking this rewards program a lot! Tropicana is one of about two or three orange juice brands that I like, but ever since I found out about the program, it's the only brand I've been buying. The Juicy Rewards Program easily inspires loyalty because it's so easy to rack up the points, the discounts are significant, and you can use them at some really great family entertainment places -- they're places I'd take my family if I had to pay full price, so getting a discount is just a big, juicy bonus!

Register with and Tropicana Juicy Rewards and get one additional Juicy Rewards Point for free!
To get you started, BlogHer and Tropicana have teamed up to offer new Juicy Rewards members a bonus Juicy Rewards point! How great is that: you get one step closer to redeeming a Juicy Reward, at no cost to you.

To get your bonus point:
1. Go to http://www.tropicana.com/
2. Set-up your Tropicana Juicy Rewards account (just take a minute!)
3. Visit the "Enter Codes" page within the site and get started with BLOGG-HER11 *

*Note* This one-time use code is valid for new accounts ONLY. Must be entered within 6 hours of creating your account.

Win a $50 Gift Card!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $50 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, visit the Tropicana Juicy Rewards page, then come back here and tell me about your family's favorite local attraction.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Networked Blogs (leave a comment on this post with your FB id).

2) Tweet this (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

See what @bonggafinds is doing with her Juicy Rewards points & win a $50 Visa gift card from @blogherdeals http://tinyurl.com/y5gaotq #giveaway

The Rules
Maximum of 3 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on May 2, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on May 3 and post the winner's name in the comments section after the winner confirms acceptance. Click here for official giveaway rules.

For more information, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- you'll have 7 more chances to win!

* UPDATE MAY 3, 2010 -- This giveaway is now closed -- watch out for the announcement of the winner's name soon! If you still want a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card, my latest Tropicana Juicy Insider post also has a giveaway for a $50 Visa gift card. Click here to read my latest post and enter to win a $50 Visa gift card!

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Pop-Tarts Oatmeal: a Winning Recipe

2010-04-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries.

Read more to find out how you could win a $100 Visa gift card!

Last week I rhapsodized about the pleasures of Pop-Tarts served cold, and even tried out a Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites recipe with the new Frosted Strawberry Milkshake flavor. Now, I realize there are some die-hard warmed-up Pop-Tarts fans (my husband included) who might be feeling left out, so in the interest of reconciliation (hey, we all love Pop-Tarts, don't we?) I'm sharing my very own Pop-Tarts recipe -- and it's a hot dish.

Bonggamom's Pop-Tarts Oatmeal
1/2 cup Irish steel-cut oatmeal
2 cups water
1 Kelloggs Frosted Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tart

Boil 2 cups water. When the water is boiling briskly, stir in the oatmeal. When the porridge is smooth and beginning to thicken, turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Crumble up the Pop-Tart and stir it into the oatmeal in the last 3 minutes of cooking. Serve immediately.

If you're more of a time-saving, shortcut-loving kind of gal (and who isn't on weekdays?), you can use this recipe instead:

1/2 cup quick-cooking rolled oats (I prefer the Irish kind)
1 cup water
1 Kelloggs Frosted Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tart

Mix the oats and water together in a microwave-safe bowl, and microwave on High for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until thickened. Crumble up the Pop-Tart and stir it into the oatmeal, then microwave on High for 10 seconds more. Stir and serve immediately.

Serves two hungry kids or one greedy grownup.

The resulting dish is ooey, gooey, pink and pretty, warm and fuzzy. You can add milk and maple syrup to suit your own taste, but honestly, I think the Frosted Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts already adds just the right hint of milkiness and sweetness and crunch.

As for how it tastes, I think the photos say it all:
In fact, I'd be right along with them, trying to get my share of that oatmeal, but I had to take the photo. Don't worry, I got the last laugh: I made a whole new bowl of Pop-Tarts oatmeal all for myself.

Win It!
Remember that $100 Visa gift card that I put up for grabs on my previous Pop-Tart post? Want more chances to win? No problem -- all you have to do is leave another comment on this post and tell me what your kids love to eat for breakfast.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Blogger(leave a comment with your Blogger profile name).

2) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet):

Want extra entries to the $100 Visa giftcard giveaway from @bonggafinds @blogherdeals and Pop-Tarts? Click here! http://tinyurl.com/y9t8rdw

Maximum of 3 entries per person on this post. If you've already entered this giveaway from my previous post, that's a total of 6 entries per person. Enter on both posts to maximize your chances of winning!

This giveaway ends at midnight PST on April 16, 2010; I will draw a winner at random (from the combined eligible entries on this post and my previous Pop-Tarts post) on April 17 and post the winner's name as soon as the winner confirms acceptance. For additional giveaway rules, click here.

Don't forget to check out the other Pop-Tarts BlogHer reviewers' posts on the BlogHer.com special offers page -- each one of them is giving away a $100 Visa gift card so you have 7 other chances to win. Good luck!

Disclaimer: This is a compensated review, courtesy of BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries. I also received product samples courtesy of BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Pop-Tarts Review and Giveaway

2010-04-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries.

Read more to find out how you could win a $100 Visa gift card!

I adore Pop-Tarts. They're one of my favorite afternoon treats, but unlike many people, who love Pop-Tarts warmed up in a toaster, I think they taste best at room temperature or cold. So when Pop-Tarts and BlogHer sent me some of their new Frosted Strawberry Milkshake-flavored Pop-Tarts to review, I felt absurdly vindicated to see this on the box:

Ha! I feel like telling Alfie (who insists on toasting his on the toaster oven on low, for precisely one minute), Seeeeeee, told ya. You can even make frozen treats with them, as I found out when I was invited to try out a fun Pop-Tarts recipe for Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites.

The only other ingredients you need for the recipe, other than Pop-Tarts, are sprinkles and ice cream. In fact, it's such a simple recipe that I let The Pea do it all on her own. She needed a bit of help cutting the Pop-Tarts into quarters, because the edges can crumble off and you lose that nice, clean side (not that it makes any difference in taste). And if you're making these, I'd advise you to let the ice cream soften just a bit so the Pop-Tarts top and bottom won't break in half when you smoosh the ice cream between them.

The result is pretty -- and pretty delicious. Once you've tried Pop-Tarts cold, you may never go back to heated Pop Tarts again!

The Pea certainly had fun making this treat. She even customized hers by adding pink frosting to the top (which is a bit toooooo sweet for me, but hey, she's a kid). Her birthday is coming up, and we're going to make these Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites to serve to her guests. I might even let the girls make it themselves as a craft activity -- I'll provide different flavors of ice cream and different kinds of sprinkles so they can personalize their creations, then have fun eating them!

Win It!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will receive a $100 Visa gift card, courtesy of BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries! To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite go-to breakfast is for you and/or your kids.

Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Become a fan of Bonggamom Finds on Facebook AND write on my wall to tell me you've joined the Pop-Tarts giveaway! (leave a comment on this post with your FB id).

2) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment on this post with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Enter to win a $100 Visa giftcard from @blogherdeals and Pop-Tarts, over on @bonggafinds post! http://tinyurl.com/yk73n6b #giveaway

Maximum of 3 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on April 16, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on April 17 and post the winner's name as soon as the winner confirms acceptance.

For additional giveaway rules, click here. Don't forget to check out the other Pop-Tarts BlogHer reviewers' posts on the BlogHer.com special offers page -- each one of them is giving away a $100 Visa gift card so you have 9 other chances to win. And don't forget to stop by next week to see more yummy things you can make with Pop-Tarts, and to gain extra entries for the $100 Visa gift card draw! Good luck!

* UPDATE April 9, 2010: Entries to the $100 Visa gift card giveaway are closed on this post, but you can still enter! Just click on this link to go to my second Pop-Tarts post, and keep reading to see how you can enter! Entries on that post will be accepted until April 16, 2010.

Disclaimer: This is a compensated review, courtesy of BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries. I also received product samples courtesy of BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Introducing Tropicana's Juicy Rewards program

2010-04-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

I'm a BlogHer Juicy Insider!

2010-04-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tropicana.

Alfie swears I'm the only person he knows that refuses to buy anything or go anywhere unless I have a coupon for it. Well, what of it? Doesn't it make sense to avoid paying full price for something if there's a discount available. Anyway, I know I'm not the only discount-lover out there!

That's why I'm all juiced up (yes, pun intended!) to announce that I'm participating in BlogHer's Juicy Insider Program! We're helping spread the word about Juicy Rewards, a great new program from Tropicana that helps you save on the stuff your family loves to do, just by buying stuff your family already loves -- orange juice. For the next couple of months I'll be trying out some of the activities that Juicy Reward members can enjoy, and telling you all about it! Watch this page for more posts about how the Juicy Rewards Program works, what fun things my family is enjoying with the Juicy Rewards points we've accumulated, yummy orange juice recipes and more.

For more information about the program, check out the Juicy Rewards official site. And don't forget to visit the rest of the BlogHer Juicy Insiders' posts (links are on the BlogHer.com special offers page )-- twice a month, each BlogHer Juicy Insider will be choosing 1 winner for a $50 Visa gift card. That's 16 chances to win per month! Click here for complete giveaway rules.

Post 6: See what kind of summer fun we're having with our Juicy Rewards Points (and enter to win a $50 Visa gift card from BlogHer).

Post 5: Try my friend Jill's amazingly Light and Luscious Coffee Cake, made with Tropicana OJ! ~~(and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard from BlogHer).~~ This giveaway is now closed, go to Post #6 for the sixth Visa giftcard giveaway)

Post 4: See how we've been having even more fun with our Juicy Rewards Points ~~(and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard from BlogHer).~~ This giveaway is now closed, go to Post #5 for the fifth Visa giftcard giveaway)

Post 3: Read about ways my family and I save on all kinds of family fun ~~(and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard from BlogHer)~~ this giveaway is now closed, go to Post #4 for the fourth Visa giftcard giveaway

Post 2: See how we've been using our Juicy Rewards Points ~~(and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard from BlogHer)~~ this giveaway is now closed, go to Post #4 for the fourth Visa giftcard giveaway

Post 1: Learn all about the Tropicana Juicy Rewards Program ~~(and enter to win a $50 Visa giftcard from BlogHer)~~ this giveaway is now closed, go to Post #4 for the fourth Visa giftcard giveaway

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the BlogHer Juicy Insiders program. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Tom's of Maine Silly Strawberry Toothpaste review and giveaway - win a $100 Visa giftcard!

2009-12-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Tom's of Maine.

When I was a kid, getting ready for bed was boring. We used whatever the grownups used to wash our hair, scrub our bodies and brush our teeth. No fun flavors or yummy scents, no cartoon characters on the bottles. No wonder I hated going to bed. Things are so much better in today's world of personal care products for kids! I know, I know, it's the usual You've-got-it-easy-in-my-day-I-had-to-walk-five-miles-to-milk-the-cow story, but as a parent I'm nothing but happy at the way kid-friendly products turn bathing and brushing teeth into a fun, pleasant activity. It goes without saying that the ingredients in a kids' product should be gentle, not harmful. BlogHer Reviews recently sent us a tube of Tom's of Maine Silly Strawberry toothpaste for kids, which I was more than happy to try because I know Tom's of Maine has a reputation for safe, natural and effective. But is Tom's kid-friendly?

The Basics
Tom's of Maine Natural Anticavity Fluoride Toothpaste for kids is flavored with real fruit flavor oils, not artificial sweeteners. It uses naturally-sourced fluoride to help prevent cavities, and uses calcium and silica to clean. The toothpaste comes in two flavors, Silly Strawberry and Outrageous Orange-Mango. Here's what Tom's has to say about this product:

Only one natural oral care company carries the ADA Seal of Acceptance for a children’s toothpaste, Tom’s of Maine Anticavity Children’s Silly Strawberry with Fluoride. And because we care as much as you do, we’ve never tested it on animals or added artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. It’s flavored with natural oils for a great strawberry taste they’ll love. (Check out the Tom's official site)

The Bongga
The verdict is in: Tom's is definitely kid-friendly. Even the name, Silly Strawberry, and the friendly little parrot on the toothpaste tube got my kids smiling. I asked 3Po if he felt like doing a silly dance while brushing his teeth with the Silly Stawberry toothpaste, and since my kids have been shoved in front of cameras since birth, 3Po was more than happy to comply. So without further ado, here's a video of 3Po brushing himself silly:

The Pea got into the act as well:

Best of all, this toothpaste is as natural as my kids' smiles! I love the fact that there are no artifical ingredients. No saccharin, or sparkles, just calcium and silica and fluoride. And at about $3 per 4-oz tube, it's reasonably priced!

The Blah
The Pea gave this toothpaste a very balanced review; she liked the flavor but thought it was too mild:

I myself have no problem with the flavor; I quite like the subtle strawberry taste, and I think it smells divine. My problem with the toothpaste is the vintage-y metal tube it comes in. I just find it hard to squeeze and unsightly. Why bother with this kind of 70's era packaging anyway? Can it be recycled?

Update 12/18/09: Tom's of Maine has contacted me with an answer to my question above: yes, they do use environmentally sustainable packaging! Two thumbs up to Tom's for their eco-awareness and quick customer response :)

The Bottom Line
Tomt's of Maine Silly Strawberry toothpaste gets your kids' teeth clean and healthy without artificial ingredients. And it still manages to look, smell and taste like a kids' toothpaste, which means kids are happy to brush with it.

Win It!
One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa giftcard, courtesy of BlogHer reviews and Tom's of Maine.

Required entry:
Leave a comment on this post and tell me what you do to get your kids to brush their teeth.

Extra entries:
You can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each entra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Become a fan of Bonggamom Finds on Facebook (leave a comment with your FB id).

2) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Blogger(leave a comment with your Blogger profile name).

3) Blog about this giveaway, making sure you have a link to the giveaway in your blog post (leave a comment with a link to your blog post).

4) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Win a $100 Visa giftcard from @bonggafinds and Tom's of Maine http://tinyurl.com/yc3gqm2

Maximum of 5 entries per person. This giveaway begins at 9:00AM on December 15, 2009, and ends at midnight PST on January 15, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on January 16 and post the winner's name as soon as the winner confirms acceptance. Winner has 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

For official BlogHer giveaway rules, click here. And don't forget to check out more reviews of Tom's Silly Strawberry toothpaste; each reviewer is giving away a $100 giftcard so you'll have a total of 8 chances to win. Good luck!

Disclaimer: this is a compensated review. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Brighten Your Life! Cheer Detergent Review and Giveaway

2009-10-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Cheer.
Keep reading to find out how to win a bottle of Cheer detergent!

It's well after Labor Day now, and I'm being a good little girl and following the No White After Labor Day rule. Actually, I follow that rule pretty much every day of the year, at least when it comes to my kids. I hate getting them white shirts because I just know that after a while those whites are going to get all dull and dingy. I recently participated in BlogHer's Cheer detergent review, and I was pleasantly surprised at how Cheer's new formulation made our whites look really clean and bright.

The Basics
We received a bottle of Cheer brightClean 2x Ultra, in Fresh Clean scent to try out. Here's what the makers of Cheer have to say:
Cheer^® is on a mission to get rid of the dingies. Our new and improved brightCLEAN™ formula should do the trick. Now, it's formulated to give you brighter whites and colors in just 1 wash.

Cheer also comes in several other varieties. For a complete list, and more information, visit the Official Cheer Detergent site.

The Bongga
The smell is nice and pleasant, not overpowering at all. And I have to say, even my kids' white shirts came out looking nice and bright. It's almost like I dumped some bleach in with the detergent! Unfortunately my camera isn't good enough to show you the difference between the Before and After, so I'm posting a photo of my boys surrounded by some sheets and towels laundered in Cheer brightCLEAN. And if that doesn't brighten your day, nothing will!

The Blah
I'm glad to see that Cheer makes a Free and Gentle variety, with zero dyes or perfumes, as well as versions specially formulated for high efficiency (HE) washing machines -- but I'd love to see a more eco-friendly version with more naturally-derived ingredients. And just to set your expectations -- bear in mind that it's detergent, not bleach. It didn't succeed in removing any of the stains that my other detergents failed at. So while it does seem to make whites whiter, don't expect it to turn black (or brown, or whatever stubborn stain color you've got) into white.

The Bottom Line
Cheer does a great job cleaning clothes and demolishing dinginess!

Win it!
Cheer is all set to brighten your day in more ways than one. First of all, you can brighten your day instantly when you check out Cheer's fun instant win game. Just spin the virtual wheel to win prizes, and enter to win an LG Front Loader washer and dryer!

In addition, Cheer is going to brighten one lucky Bonggamom Finds reader's day by giving away a bottle of Cheer detergent! To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me How do you brighten the lives of others?

For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following (please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Grab my button -- it's on the left hand sidebar, or click here to get it -- and post it on your blog! (leave a comment here with a link to your site).

2) Blog about this giveaway and link to this giveaway on your blog post (leave a comment with a link to your blog post).

3) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Win a bottle of Cheer detergent from @bonggafinds http://tinyurl.com/ycyjjry

The Rules:
* The contest will begin at 10/05/2009 and will end 11/05/2009, 5:00PM PST.
* No duplicate comments. Maximum of 4 entries per person.
* This giveaway is open to US-residents, aged 18 and over.
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail (so make sure you leave a working email address).
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
* See the official rules here: Official Rules

Don't forget to check out more reviews of Cheer Detergent by BlogHer reviewers. Check out the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers' Cheer Detergent reviews -- you have 8 chances to win! Good luck!

I received a product sample and monetary compensation for this post. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Taking the Wonder Bread Challenge: Review and Giveaway

2009-10-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Wonder®.

Alfie was raised on soft, white English sandwich bread, and Wonder® bread is one of the few brands that passes his rigid (no, actually soft) standards, so we're already big Wonder® bread fans (our favorite is Wonder® Whole Grain White Bread). But when we were invited to review their bread, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that even Wonder® Classic White Bread has lots of vitamins and minerals, and as much calcium in 2 slices as a glass of milk!

The Basics
We were sent a loaf of Wonder® Classic White calcium-enriched fortified bread to try out. Oh, you know Wonder® bread. That soft, squishy bread. That bread that goes perfectly above and underneath ham, turkey, peanut butter, jelly, butter, cheese, and everything else that makes a sandwich a sandwich.

Here's what Wonder® bread has to say:
Wonder® bread was one of the first white breads to be fortified with eight essential vitamins and minerals. Wonder® Classic White Bread and Wonder® Classic White Sandwich Bread...

- Have as much calcium as an eight ounce glass of milk in just two slices.
- Of course, there’s no trans fat in either bread.
- And, they have the same great taste and soft texture you’d expect from Wonder®.

Along with the bread, we were also sent a can of spinach and a can of beans. We were invited to participate in a taste test -- which of these three calcium-rich foods would my kids prefer? Finally, we were sent a cute little Flip camera to film the results. What fun! Once again, here are the contenders:

Item A: Spinach. But not just any old spinach. I didn't want to steer the kids towards the bread by serving up a can of cold, shriveled spinach, so I sauteed it in olive oil, along with onions and mushrooms.

Item B: A slice of Wonder® bread, spread with butter.

Item C: Beans. Again, I tried to make the beans as appealing as possible by lacing them with butter and brown sugar and a bit of bacon. My kids adore baked beans, so I suspected this one might give the bread a run for its money.

The Bongga
Here are the results of our Wonder® bread challenge. I swear to you, these results weren't doctored in any way; the kids didn't know which product I was reviewing, and they didn't know I would be filming them until they sat down to eat. And may my 90-year-old grandmother lose her next mah-jongg game if I'm lying.

All three kids picked the Wonder® bread! Jammy was the most undecided -- I told you my baked beans were fabulous -- but in the end he picked the Wonder® bread as well. Not that I'm shocked or anything. The bread is soft and yummy, and I'm thrilled it has so much calcium in it, so they're not missing out on that nutrient by shunning the beans and spinach. Eat your bread! It's so much easier -- and more productive -- than saying Eat your beans! or Eat your spinach!.

As for Alfie, with each bite of bread, he slipped further into his childhood memories, and as I filmed him clutching the bag of bread, I swear I could hear his deliberately-cultivated BBC accent degenerate into the Wiltshire accent of his boyhood.

The Blah
The only problem with this bread is that it's white bread, so it doesn't have much fiber. Which is why the usual loaf of bread in our household is Wonder® Whole Grain White Bread. It's as soft and yummy as the regular Wonder® white bread (at least we think so), but it has 4 grams of fiber per serving -- plus a bunch of vitamins and minerals, including all that calcium-enriched goodness! No compromises necessary!

The Bottom Line
Wonder® bread is a nutritious source of vitamins and minerals, including calcium -- as much as -- so you don't need an excuse to indulge in a classic PBJ or hot, buttered toast!

Win it! One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will be selected to win a $100 Visa gift card and a year's supply of WonderBread!! That's 52 coupons for one free loaf of Wonder® Classic White or Wonder® Classic White Sandwich bread and $100 to buy the sandwich fixings, or whatever else you want!

To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me What you like to put into your kids' (or your) Wonder® sandwiches to make them even more nutritious? Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.

For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following (please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Grab my button -- it's on the left hand sidebar, or click here to get it -- and post it on your blog! (leave a comment here with a link to your site).

2) Blog about this giveaway and link to this giveaway on your blog post (leave a comment with a link to your blog post).

3) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Win a year's supply of WonderBread and a $100 Visa giftcard from @bonggafinds http://tinyurl.com/ya3h34a

The Rules:
* The contest will begin at 10/05/2009 and will end 11/04/2009.
* No duplicate comments. Maximum of 4 entries per person.
* This giveaway is open to US-residents, aged 18 and over.
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Don't forget to check out other Wonder® taste-test results - you've got 6 chances to win $100. Good luck!

I received a product sample and monetary compensation for this post. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Ragu Pasta Sauce -- It's RaGooood! (Review and Giveaway)

2009-09-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Ragu.
Keep reading to find out how to win a $100 Visa Card!

My family loves tomatoes, and there's nothing like a simple, fresh red sauce on pasta al dente. But I don't always have the time or energy to make it all from scratch. So one pantry staple I cannot live without is jarred pasta sauce. I recently participated in a BlogHer review of Ragu pasta sauces, and I have to say it's great to know that I don't have to sacrifice convenience to feed my family well. According to their website, half a cup of Ragu's red sauces contain a full serving of vegetables. And unlike many jarred foods, these sauces have no additives or preservatives. All those delicious, healthy tomatoes already peeled, seeded, sauteed and simmered for you -- what's not to love?

The Basics
We were sent several varieties of Ragu pasta sauce -- Ragu Old World Style Sweet Tomato Basil, Ragu Old World Style Margherita, Ragu Alfredo, and Ragu Pizza Sauce-- and invited to try some of the recipes on Ragu.com.

The Bongga
The combination of nutrition, taste, cost and convenience makes Ragu sauces hard to beat. When I'm out of time/inspiration/money, I just pour them on hot pasta, and they taste great all by themselves. They also make a great base sauce for more labor-intensive recipes! And speaking of recipes, I definitely recommend the ones we tried from Ragu.com. Here are three recipes that we really enjoyed:

Upside Down Deep Dish Pizza
When I opened the oven and the kids saw this dish, they howled in disappointment. This is NOT pizza, it's a yucky casserole! But I'm not called Mom for nothing -- our rule is that everyone has to try everything once. I know what they like, and I was right. I am not gracious in victory: I thoroughly enjoy telling my kids, "I told you so". Even if I hadn't forced them to admit how yummy it was, I could tell they loved it by the way they were wolfing it down. When I confessed that there was spinach mixed in with the beef, they merely shrugged and kept on eating. The spinach really does go well with the ground beef and Ragu sauce (I did add a bit more cheese than the recipe called for, but the taste of beef and spinach still came out loud and clear). And the next day, we all fought over the leftovers. This is definitely a keeper!

Pasta Margherita
This must be one of the highest ROI -- return on investment -- recipes ever. In plain English, I get a delicious pasta dish that my kids will devour for practically zero effort! This is pretty much our We-just-got-home-from-soccer-practice-and-Good-Grief-is-that-the-time-I-need-to-make-dinner! staple. It is beyond easy to prepare . No penne pasta in the cupboard? No problem. We substituted cheese tortellini. Kids hate pepperoni? Use sausages instead! The one must-have, in my opinion, is the basil. Forget the "optional" note in the recipe -- this is what really makes the dish. You only need a few leaves to enhance the basil that's already in the Ragu Margherita sauce. And if you use fresh basil leaves, fresh mozarella and high-quality pepperoni, I swear the result is as good as any you get from your local pasta joint.

Double Topped Mushroom Pizza
This is another high-ROI recipe, especially since you don't make the pizza dough yourself (Although you could if you really wanted to. As for me, I consider yeast a live animal and don't particularly want to work with it, so I was happy to use a prebaked crust). This is another time-crunch standby in our household. Olives are Jammy's favorite vegetable, and we all love mushrooms, so this recipe is right up our alley . But I've never used green onions to top a homemade pizza before, and I have to say they were a surprisingly delicious touch! And I'm proud to say that none of my kids felt it necessary to pick out ANY of the toppings before they shoved the pizza into their mouths.

You can find all three recipes online at Ragu.com. And be sure to visit Ragu.com for even more kid-friendly recipes, healthy tips and more.

The Blah
This is one of those rare reviews where I have nothing to write in the Blah section. Unless.... hmmmm..... it sucks that I ate way more than I should have?

The Bottom Line
Ragu pasta sauce -- delicious, nutritious, budget-friendly and oh-so-easy! Like I need any more reasons to make it a pantry staple in our household?

Win it! One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will be selected to win a $100 Visa gift card! To enter, head on over to the Ragu recipe page and select the recipe that you'd most love to try. Leave me a comment below and tell me which recipe you chose. Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.

For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following (please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Grab my button -- it's on the left hand sidebar, or click here to get it -- and post it on your blog! (leave a comment here with a link to your site).

2) Blog about this giveaway and link to this giveaway on your blog post (leave a comment with a link to your blog post).

3) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Win a $100 Visa giftcard from @bonggafinds and Ragu http://tinyurl.com/yc7xp3x

The Rules:
* The contest will begin at 10/1/2009 and will end 11/11/2009.
* No duplicate comments. Maximum of 4 entries per person.
* This giveaway is open to US-residents, aged 18 and over.
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers' Ragu meals - you have 10 chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. Good luck!

I received a product sample and monetary compensation for this post. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

The Road Trip from Hell

2009-08-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and the Shell Family of Cards.

One of our most memorable road trips happened in the dead of winter, during our annual trip to Lake Tahoe. The closest town to Hwy. 80, Truckee, is only about 215 miles from Palo Alto, which means we can get to our favorite Soda Springs Resort in about 3.5 hours (and just over 3 hours if we're lucky with traffic, and ignore all bathroom and snack stop requests). The day before our trip we checked the weather forecasts, only to be greeted with snowstorm warnings. We had already rescheduled this trip twice because of bad weather, and I was absolutely crushed. I refused to believe Tahoe could have three straight weekends with hellish weather, and I pulled a mini tantrum. We won't have any winter weekends left! I'll have rebook the hotel again! We're going! All those skiers and snowboarders go every weekend, don't they? It'll be fine, it's just a warning...... Against his better judgment, Alfie agreed to go ahead with it.

All was good until we began the last leg of the journey, winding up the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. Snow started falling almost as soon as we hit 3,000 feet, and it kept on snowing all night. We slowed to a turtle's pace, and it wasn't just because everyone had put on their snow chains. No, it was because we couldn't see a thing. The wipers were almost useless; thick blankets of snow covered the windshield seconds after the wipers wiped the previous batch away. The road was thick with fresh, crunchy snow. There was no way we could travel at more than 10 or 15 miles per hour.

That trip ended up taking over 6 hours, at least 3 of which were spent driving in traffic or ridiculously heavy snow . But surprise, surprise: I wasn't stressed out. I didn't spend those 3 hourse cursing the weather or the other drivers or my stupid decision. We were too busy enjoying ourselves, listening to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code on the cd player. It was dark and quiet, and the kids were all sleeping peacefully in the back seat, so we could actually listen to the story without being interrupted by their pleas for crackers and entertainment and banishment of siblings to the far ends of the earth. I had read the book a couple of weeks before, but listening to the story read out loud really brought it to life. We would often pause the track to reminisce about places we've been to and beautiful buildings we've seen in France and England, prompted by Dan Brown's descriptions. Or we'd pause again to launch into an argument prompted by his take on Opus Dei, corruption in the Catholic Church, suppressed alternative religions, or some other topic we agree to disagree on. We had all the time in the world, and even with all those pauses, we finished the entire novel.

It was wonderful! Outside, the snowfall was fresh and powdery-white, not slushy and dirty like the stuff you usually see on the side of the road. Inside, it was just Alfie and me, with no television, no internet, no phone or any other distractions that usually push Alfie and myself into separate rooms to do our own separate thing once the kids fall asleep. Fortunately, we were safe and warm and running on a full tank of gas; otherwise, I would have been way too stressed to enjoy that last part of the trip. (In retrospect, I would probably tuck a prepaid gas card like the Shell Refillable Card or Shell Gift Card in the glove compartment, just in case we forget to fill up and need the cash in our wallets for food and drinks. I did a quick check on Google Maps, and it looks like there are about 45 or so Shell gas stations just off our highway route from Palo Alto to Tahoe!). As it was, a trip that could have become a hellish nightmare turned into a pleasant evening reconnecting with Alfie.

Alfie still teases me about the time I insisted on driving up to Tahoe in the middle of a snowstorm. And when I'm being particularly stubborn or irrational about something, he likes to ask me whether this is going to be "another Tahoe snowstorm tantrum thing". I smile and say, ha, ha, but if a snowstorm is what it takes for me to get a date night with my husband, then bring on the white stuff and let's get in the car!

More about Shell cards. The Shell family of cards is great for Summer road trips. For a limited time only, Shell is offering a return of 30 cents per gallon on the first 100 gallons purchased with a Shell Card within a 90-day period. The promotional savings is available at all Shell-branded stations nationwide for those who sign up and are approved for a new Shell Card from June 29, 2009 to September 30, 2009.

I'd love to hear about your own travels! Leave a comment here with a link to your favorite travel post, and I'll go and comment on it. I'll bet you could use a Shell card for your road trip, whether it be one like mine, one like some of the other BlogHer reviewers' road trips (read all about their road stories here!), or a road trip that's totally your own. Check out the Shell family of cards to see which one is right for your road trip.

I was compensated for this BlogHer Review by the Shell Gas Card, but the views and opinions expressed here are my own.

Back to School with Lance Crackers

2009-08-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Lance Snacks.

It's almost time for school to start once again, and this year I've got three kids in elementary school now! I'm going to have to figure out a way to pack 3 mid-morning snacks and 4 lunches (yes, I pack lunch for my husband as well!) and get 3 kids ready for school in the morning. And I'm going to have to rely on healthy, easy-to-prepare snack foods more than ever -- which is why I was happy to join BlogHer's Lance Snacks review, and try out some of their new healthier snack products.

The Basics
We tried several Lance Varities: Their new Whole Grain Sandwich Crackers line, with three varieties -- Real Peanut Butter on Whole Grain, Real Cheddar Cheese on Whole Grain, and Real Sharp Cheddar Cheese on Whole Grain, all with 3 grams of fiber per serving, and their new 100 Calorie line, also with three varieties -- Toast Chee (peanut butter on cheese crackers), Toasty (peanut butter on butter crackers) and NipChee (cheddar cheese on cheese crackers), all in serving sizes of 100 calories each. As with all Lance Snacks, these new varieties use real peanut butter and real cheese, and contain zero trans fat and zero high-fructose corn syrup.

The Bongga
The Lance Whole Grain Sandwich Crackers rock! I already buy sandwich snack crackers to tuck into the kids' lunch boxes now and then, but they're always made with white flour, so I wondered how they would like the taste of the Lance Whole Grain Sandwich Crackers. I needn't have worried; they didn't even notice the difference! The nutty taste of the whole grain crackers pairs perfectly with the Real Sharp Cheddar Cheese spread; in fact, it was my kids' hands-down favorite.

When the sandwich crackers first arrived, I let my kids each have a pack of 6 sandwich crackers for their mid-morning snack, which they quickly wolfed down. Since whole grains are more filling, those 6 crackers would be more than adequate for a kids' snack, but it was getting close to noontime, and they were still hungry, so opened up a couple more packs, brought out a bowl of sweet, organic cherry tomatoes, poured them each a glass of milk, and we turned it into an early lunch. Yum! I got to thinking of some other ways I'd serve these sandwich crackers:

* Real Peanut Butter on Whole Grain with apple slices on the side and honey for dipping (dipping apples, crackers or both, that is)
* Real Peanut Button on Whole Grain with Nutella spread on top
* Chicken salad spread on Real Sharp Cheddar Cheese on Whole Grain, topped with a grape and a walnut.
* Tomato soup with Real Sharp Cheddar Cheese on Whole Grain on the side (or dunked into the soup!)

The best thing about the ideas above (well, the second-best thing, actually; the best thing about them is how yummy they are) is that they're all totally portable, so I can easily pack these into my kids' school lunchboxes once school starts. It's a delicious, easy way for them to increase their consumption of whole grains!

The Blah
Having been raised on genuine sharp English cheddar and the stinkiest cheeses available, I'm not surprised that my kids didn't care much for the Real Cheddar Cheese on Whole Grain or the 100 Calorie Nip Chee sandwich crackers (they found both varieties tasteless), but I can see how many kids might like the mild cheesy taste. And because my kids are always on the go, the 100 Calorie snack packs didn't really fill them up; they ended up eating two packets anyway. For 190 calories, I think 1 pack of the Whole Grain variety, with 3 grams of fiber, is more filling and nutritious than 2 of the 100 Calorie packs.

The Bottom Line
We're big fans of Lance's new Whole Grain line of sandwich crackers! They've got the nutrition of whole grain, taste great and fill you up, which makes them a great option to pack into my kids' lunchboxes. And the 100 Calorie packs are a great way for calorie counters to control their portion size -- but not their appetites.

Here's what Lance Crackers has to say about their new snack lines:
Snack to School with Lance…

The end of summer is a busy time for moms getting kids excited and ready to go back to school. There’s shopping for clothes, shoes and school supplies plus the challenge of finding sensible snack and lunch options that moms can feel good about packing…and the entire family will actually eat!

With no preservatives, no trans fat and no high fructose corn syrup, Lance Sandwich Crackers can be part of your back to school plan. Every Lance sandwich cracker is baked fresh with real peanut butter or real cheese filling.

New this school year are three whole grain varieties and three 100 calorie options. Based on growing consumer interest in whole grain products, Lance replaced its wheat crackers with the launch of whole grain in the following varieties:
• Real peanut butter on whole grain crackers
• Real sharp cheddar cheese on whole grain crackers
• Real cheddar cheese on whole grain crackers

For consumers looking for a portion-controlled snacking alternative that still fills them up, Lance unveiled 100 calorie sizes of its three most popular varieties.
• ToastChee® Peanut Butter
100% Lance-made creamy peanut butter layered on mini-baked cheese crackers
• Toasty™ Peanut Butter
100% Lance-made creamy peanut butter layered on mini-baked, butter-flavored crackers
• NipChee™ Cheddar Cheese
Real cheddar cheese layered on mini-baked, cheese-flavored crackers

Best of all is the fact that kids like the way it tastes! With more than 16 varieties, Lance Sandwich Crackers can help keep snack time fresh and satisfy even the loudest of growling tummies.

Learn more about the new 100-calorie snacks and whole grain snacks at Lance's official site. And don't forget to check out what the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers have to say about Lance snacks!

I was compensated for this BlogHer Review by Lance Snacks. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.

WishBone Dressing review and giveaway

2009-05-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Wish-Bone.
Delicious as a Dressing. Remarkable as a Marinade. Now you can get a chance to Upgrade your salads with Wish-Bone Dressings... free! For a chance to win a Wish-Bone Dressing prize pack and a $100 grocery gift card, keep reading.

Growing up, I ate way too much meat and rice, and not nearly enough vegetables. I remember the first time I tried lettuce and tomatoes. I was eleven years old and I nearly gagged! When Alfie and I started a family, I was determined to introduce vegetables to my kids at an early age.
It hasn't been easy, but I'm happy to say that my kids have grown to like quite a decent range of vegetables, both raw and cooked. This year we're working on salads. They'll eat anything covered in caesar, blue cheese or ranch dressing, but I'm an ambitious type-A mom, and I'd love for them to try other kinds.

So I was beyond thrilled when BlogHer asked me to review Wish-Bone salad dressings for their latest campaign and sent us a whole kaboodle of dressings to try. The kids had already been introduced to Wish-Bone Italian dressing a couple of months ago when I made Italian Picnic Chicken and Finger Lickin' Chicken from Gina von Esmarch's cookbook, Taste This! (Gina actually specifies Wish-Bone dressing in her recipes). And I marinated some chicken in Wish-Bone Italian dressing for our first 2 barbecues of 2009 -- so the kids already know that Wish-Bone makes a great marinade. The Wish-Bone Chunky Blue Cheese dressing was a big hit, and I don't think I don't think they would have tried the falafel I served the other night without that bowl of Wish-Bone Ranch dressing to dip the falafel in. The corresponding light versions were great, too; not as creamy but still flavorful.

Getting them to try the vinegar-based salad dressings -- in actual salads, not as marinades -- would be trickier. For the kids' first vinaigrette dressing, I decided to try Wish-Bone's Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette -- I figured they'd be more likely to try it because it has pictures of raspberries on the bottle. I searched Wish-Bone's recipe database for dishes that use this particular flavor, and settled on two salads that I personally love -- Pear and Blue Cheese Salad and Baby Spinach with Warm Raspberry-Bacon Vinaigrette . I set them in front of The Pea, 3Po and Jammy, and let the dressing work its magic.

What a success! We made a couple of modifications to the recipe (romaine lettuce instead of mesclun, and walnuts instead of almonds) but the result was still delicious. Alfie said the dressing tasted light and refreshing. He's right; it's not oily at all. The Pea loved the sweet berry taste. 3Po and Jammy were much too busy wolfing down the salad to say anything.

The spinach salad was also a great hit. The kids were a bit dubious about the idea of a warm salad, but once they saw the bacon they dug right in. You know they like it when they realize there are red onions in the salad -- and they keep eating it. Here is a video of my kids scarfing down their plates of spinach salad. As you can see, my boys can barely pronounce "Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette", but they sure can eat it.

But the biggest (and best) surprise of the Wish-Bone recipe collection was the revelation that salad dressing can be used in dessert. I found a recipe for a Berry Parfait that is absolutely scrumptious. The dressing brings out the tartness and sweetness of the berries and gives them a lovely shine. The kids couldn't believe that the same dressing we used in the spinach salad was also in their dessert, and I can't believe how much better it tastes with the dressing.

The Berry Parfait recipe is definitely a keeper -- and so is Wish-Bone's Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette. My kids love it, and what's more, they're now eager to try all the other Wish-Bone dressings! Thanks, Wish-Bone, for getting my kids to enjoy salad!

Would you like to Get More out of your Dressing too? One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will be selected to receive a Wish-Bone prize pack worth $46.10 -- plus a $100 grocery gift card! Here's how to enter:

Go to Wish-Bone's website and take a look at all their yummy salad dressings. Then come back here and leave a comment telling me which Wish-Bone dressing -- other than Ranch, Blue Cheese, or Caesar -- you think I ought to serve next to my kids, and what kind of dish I should put it in . Should I stick with the Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette? Will they go bonkers over Honey Mustard Buzz sprayed on chicken nuggets? Is there such a thing as strawberry pie made with Bountifuls Berry Delight? You tell me..... (Remember, this must be completed to enter, before any extra entries will count)

You can also receive additional entries (maximum of 3 extra entries) by doing any of the following:

1) Follow Bonggamom on Blogger and leave a comment with your Blogger profile name.
2) Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment here with a link to your blog post.
3) Follow me on twitter AND spread the word with this tweet:

Win a $100 grocery giftcard and Wish-Bone prize pack from @bonggafinds and @BlogHer http://tinyurl.com/phqb7z please RT!

and leave a comment here with a link to your tweet (Make sure it's a link to the actual tweet, not a link to your twitter homepage -- I do check).

The rules:
* The contest will begin on May 18, 2009, 9:00 a.m. PST and will end June 30th, 2009, 5:00 p.m. PST.
* Please leave a valid e-mail address so we can contact you.
* No duplicate comments.
* This giveaway is open to US residents over the age of 18.
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
* Read the Official Rules for the full details.

Don't forget to check out the other BlogHer Reviewers' Wish-Bone recipes successes. Each one of them is giving away a $100 Grocery Gift Card and Wish-Bone prize pack, so visit the BlogHer Special Offers Page, and get a total of 12 chances to win! Good luck -- I hope the winner has as much fun upgrading their salads with Wish-Bone Dressings as much as we have!

Here Comes the Sun

2009-04-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

This is a compensated review courtesy of BlogHer and Capri-Sun Sunrise

Capri-Sun Sunrise is Making Every Day Better for moms and kids -- and they're going to make one lucky reader's day even better with a $250 VISA gift card! Read on to find out how to enter.

Is it morning already? Mornings are not my strong suit. My kids are up with the sun, but I stay in bed until I absolutely have to get up. I jump out of bed between 7:15 and 7:20, get dressed, get The Pea up and dressed, get breakfast, pack everyone's lunch, and walk The Pea to school. We have to be out the door by 8:00AM, so it's all a rush rush rush! My morning routine is like a finely-tuned precision instrument: throw a cog in it (like discovering we've run out of juice or realizing that The Pea didn't do her homework the night before), and everything falls apart.

So I gladly agreed to try and review Capri-Sun's great new option for streamlining my kids' breakfast: Sunrise, a new breakfast juice drink . We buy Capri-Sun's 100% Juice and Roaring Waters drinks all the time, so my kids didn't need to be asked twice to serve as volunteer taste-testers. They quickly slurped down one of each of the 3 flavors -- Orange Wake Up, Tropical Morning, and Berry Tangerine Morning -- gave me the thumbs up, and proceeded to benchpress their own weight in barbells made out of Knex. Okay, I'm kidding, but with all-natural ingredients, added calcium and 100% daily Vitamin C in each serving, Sunrise will send them off to a good start and a great day. I'm not kidding about the thumbs-up part, though. My kids loved all 3 flavors (my personal favorite is the Orange Wake Up). And since Sunrise comes in prepacked fun pouches, The Pea can get her own drink in the mornings instead of wasting precious time waiting for me to finish unloading the dishwasher before I can pour her some juice. When my morning routine gets messed up, less fuss means less stress!

Speaking of that pouch, yes, the eco-friendliness of disposable drink pouches is an issue, but I have no problem with enjoying the convenience of pre-packed individual servings during the most hectic mornings. They're also perfect for field trips or outdoor summer daycamps or other occasions when my kids leave their lunchboxes behind and we can't ever get them back. Losing and replacing a $17 reusable aluminum bottle four or five times a year isn't going to do the earth or my pocketbook any good! Besides, now that Capri-Sun has partnered with Terracycle.net, you can actually recycle all your Capri-Sun pouches, and earn some cash for your kids' school in the process. How great is that for minimizing your family's eco-footprint and teaching your kids some valuable lessons at the same time?

Yes, Capri-Sun Sunrise is Making Every Day Better for moms and kids, and guess what? The good folks at BlogHer and Capri-Sun Sunrise are going to make someone's day even better, because they have given me a $250 Visa giftcard to give away to one lucky Bonggamom Finds reader! Here's how to enter:

Leave me a comment below and share YOUR morning routine tips -- I need all the advice I can get on how to speed up (or calm down) the mornings in our household! Don't forget to leave a valid email address so I can contact you. This must be completed to enter the giveaway, and done before any additional entries become valid.

I made this yummy breakfast drink using some yogurt, 3 pouches of Orange Wake Up, bananas and strawberries. It's a weekend-only treat! If you can figure out a way I can find the time to have this for breakfast on schooldays, leave your comment here. You'll earn my undying love and a chance to earn a $250 Visa giftcard.

You can also receive additional entries (maximum of 3 extra entries) by doing any of the following:

1) Follow Bonggamom on Blogger and leave a comment with your Blogger profile name.
2) Blog about this giveaway and leaving a comment here with a link to your blog post.
3) Follow me on twitter AND spread the word with this tweet:

$250 Visa gift card giveaway from @bonggafinds @BlogHer and CapriSun http://tw5.us/Uq please RT!

and leave a comment here with a link to your tweet (make sure it's a link to the actual tweet, not a link to your twitter homepage!).

Some rules:
* The contest will begin on April 29th and will end July 8th.
* No duplicate comments.
* This giveaway is open to US residents, over the age of 18.
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail after July 8, 2009.
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
* Read the Official Rules for the full details.

By the way, you can increase your chances of winning by visiting BlogHer's contest roundup page -- there are seven other BlogHer reviewers who are also giving away a $250 Visa giftcard! Good luck!

Mabel's Label's Invisible Sticky Labels -- Review and Giveaway

2009-03-31T20:33:00.000-07:00

GOTCHA!!! HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!!! :)

I hope you weren't truly hoping you'd win some invisible labels! But don't worry, all is not lost. In the spirit of silliness, Mabel's Labels is offering 15% off all products on April Fool's Day. Just click here to go to Mabel's Labels and get the discount code. Thanks to Mabel's Labels for letting me in on the joke!

If you want to play along, please click here to go back to the original post and leave a comment -- make like you really want to win the Invisible Labels. Each comment in that post (dated March 31 and April 1 only) -- including an extra comment for tweeting this "giveaway" -- will count as one extra entry in a future Mabel's Labels giveaway that I'll host on Bonggamom Finds. I promise, that's no joke!

Thanks to you all for being such a great sport!

Melamine and Magic

2008-09-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

I recently received a sample of the new Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to try out. Since I'm already a devoted Magic Eraser follower, I didn't really have to try the sample to know how well it works. The thing does its job so well, it's scary. Just dampen the sponge with water and scrub for a bit, and whatever stain you want erased is gone.

How does it work? Micro bristles? Porous melamine material? Whatever. Like a religious fanatic, I don't really need an explanation. I just know it gets into places that seem impossible to reach and cleans things that seem impossible to clean. Does it release some toxic material that melts everything in its path? According to the US Dept.. of Health, it isn't considered toxic unless ingested. So unless you're planning to use the Magic Eraser to whiten your teeth or scrub your warts off or fill your stomach up on days you forget to eat breakfast, I would say it's safe.

It really should be called I-don't-know-how-the-hell-it-works-it-must-be-Magic Eraser (maybe that's the real name and they just shortened it to Magic Eraser). To illustrate my point, I decided to tackle a bit of stairway railing that 3Po covered with permanent marker 3 years ago.

He had scribbled on 4 or 5 balusters when he was two, and I used the Magic Eraser to scrub clean all the balusters except this one. I don't know why I left it; maybe I ran out of Magic Erasers (they disintegrate with use into a lumpy sort of mess), maybe I got sick of scrubbing, maybe I got distracted. In any case, I've left it sitting for 2 years and it's time to clean it up.

No surprise, those melamine thingies sure did their job. Two years ago I was a bit worried that I'd scrub all the varnish off the wood and have ugly, bleachy spots all over the balusters, but they look fine.

In fact, the only surprise for me was the clean-smelling new Citrus Scent and the fact that it's recommended and marketed for regular kitchen and bathroom cleaning. Major D-uh! moment there.... I know that people use the Magic Eraser for a bajillion things -- my favorites are removing scribbles from walls and floors and stairs, cleaning Crocs shoes, removing grime from the wheels on our van, and whitening our kitchen sink -- but Inever really thought about using it for regular cleaning. So I cleaned the bathroom last night, after we arrived home all dusty and grimy from our camping weekend, and of course, the bathroom came out sparkling. Just like magic.

This is a compensated review under BlogHer's Review program.