The Morning Rush

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.

Continue reading...

Weekend Mornings

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.

Continue reading...

When Good Mornings really are Good

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.

Continue reading...

My Not-So-Ordinary Family

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 suppsoe, 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.

Continue reading...

Getting Back on Track

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.

Continue reading...

From Summertime to Schooltime

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.

Continue reading...

Looking back at Summer

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.

Continue reading...

The Breakfast Squeeze

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.

Continue reading...

Our Family's Cereal Habit

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.

Continue reading...

Summer Fun

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.

Continue reading...