It's not too late to pledge!

I have many friends who are big fans of The Biggest Loser.  They love that show.

And if you have read my blog lately you know that I am on a quest to lose weight and get healthy by making better food choices and by moving more. 

In May, I heard about the Pound for Pound Challenge where the Kroger Co. Family of Stores, General Mills, NBC's hit TV Show “The Biggest Loser” and other key sponsors are partnering to donate up to $1,080,000 to Feeding America® this year.

It made complete sense to me to make the pledge.  I was already on the quest and for every pound I pledged to lose through June 30, 2010 the Pound For Pound Challenge will donate 14¢ to Feeding America® — enough to deliver one pound of groceries to a local food bank.  Which, in our area is Gleaners.  And in my case was 20 pounds.  Now I am not going to tell you if I made it or not- I have until Wednesday to see...

But I do know that through this challenge I have discovered some new products, courtesy of Kroger and General Mills.  As the official supplier of the Biggest Loser Ranch and partner of the Pound for Pound Challenge, the Kroger Family of Stores wants to help you achieve your goals. If you’re a fan of the Biggest Loser, you may have seen several great General Mills products featured on the show. These products, including Yoplait Greek yogurt, Total, and Multigrain Cheerios, are available at your local Kroger Family of Stores and can help you stick to your weight management plan.

Kroger and MyBlogSpark sent me a $30 gift card to try out these products featured on the show.  I found that I am a big fan of LaraBars.  They are very filling, and are made from REAL products.  In fact each one has three to four ingredients, and I know what each of them is!  I was also able to try a few Muir Glen products, as well as a few products from General Mills and Yoplait.  It's been a great opportunity to help my community, help myself, and try out a few new things in the process.  Now, I just have to see how I did, check me out later this week :)

In the meantime, it's not too late!!!  You too, can go and make a pound for pound pledge.  Just visit the Pound for Pound Challenge and make a pledge to help your community and you!

Disclosure:  I was provided a gift card and information by the Kroger Family of Stores and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.  My opinion of these products is mine and mine alone.  I was not influenced by anyone at any time.

"Don't we have any good cereal?"

If you could only hear the whining sound that comes from the mouths of my daughters when they're unhappy.  If you have children of your own I'm sure you don't want to hear my kids, because you've probably had enough of the whine and cheese that comes from your own offspring.

One of the things my girls often complain about it that there is no "good" cereal in our house.  Plain old Cheerios or Chex just doesn't make for good tastin' morning vittles in the eyes of my two little princesses.

Ok, I should probably admit I prefer breakfast cereal with a little built in sugar too, and if chocolate is the sugar source then all the better.  So I was pretty happy when General Mills announced their committment to further reduce sugar in cereals advertised to kids under 12 to single digit grams of sugar.  And as they continue to reduce sugar in cereals they are also increasing key nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D, and providing more whole grains.  So I can buy Cinnamon Toast Crunch and feel a tad less guilty by knowing that the sugar content could be... worse.

Honestly, I know that my kids fair better when they have breakfast.  They have more energy just walking to the bus stop, so if Trix and Lucky Charms do the trick, then I am happy, and if those cereals have less sugar then that is a bonus.

General Mills has a whole webpage dedicated to the benefits of cereal, so you don't need me to go into any more detail.  Just know that there is nothing wrong with a bowl of Cocoa Puffs to get you through your morning, or my case a bedtime snack.  And God Bless the person who turned Reese's peanut butter cups into puff form and called it cereal.

General Mills provided me with free product through MyBlogSpark.com.  My opinions of their products and the benefits of breakfast are mine and mine alone.

We have a winner!!!!!

The lucky winner of all you see here is...


First let me say that I had 25 comments on this post. That may not be a lot to some, but to me it was HUGE!!!! I hope all of you will continue to visit and tell your friends. There will be more opportunities like this one.

So, as you can see below I went to random.org and asked for a number between 1 and 25.



And random.org picked 23!!!!!!



Unfortunately my comments are not numbered. I will work on that for next time, however, it's not that hard to count to 23 so I did and below is the winning comment!!!!!

So Heidi, please email me your address etc. at swanngirlz at comcast dot net and I will notify Cheerios and MyBlogSpark so they can mail out your awesome prize pack!!!!!

Thanks so much everyone, this was a ton of fun!

Win This!

You can win a box of Cheerios, all five books featured in the Spoonful of Cheerios campaign, AND a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card.

You can win all that just by answering one of these questions...

• What is your story time ritual with your children?
• What is your favorite children’s book?
• If you could be a character from a children’s book, who would it be?

... in the comments section here. You can comment/enter once a day until Sunday, November 1 at 11:59 p.m. So get crackin'!!!!!

My First Giveaway!! Cheerios offers a spoonful of stories

I have always loved to read. Yes, there were times when it became a chore because you were required to read things that were less then interesting (high school, college?) and that dampened my love a bit, but as I got older I learned to love reading again.

Now, I am trying to instill a love of reading in my girls. I want them to feel the power of a good story, and love a book so much you can't put it down. Ryann likes to read but she doesn't love it. I don't know if it's an attention span issue or what, but reading is not the first thing that comes to her mind when looking for things to do.

Jayden looks at books and then says "I can't read yet!" Well, that's partially true, she's in kindergarten and is learning words quickly but still wants to be a "non-reader". She does make up her own stories to go with the pictures which gives me hope that once she can read completely on her own she will be sucked in to the story and read with reckless abandon.

Cheerios also knows the value of reading and over the past eight years, they have given away more than 40 million children’s books by distributing them free inside cereal boxes and have donated $3.2 million to First Book, their non-profit partner, which provides books to children from low-income families.

The program is part of Cheerios’ ongoing commitment to helping parents provide their children with a healthy, nutritional and educational foundation. Beginning this month, Cheerios is again bringing books to the breakfast table, by providing six million children’s books free inside Cheerios boxes. The books are for children ages 3 to 8 years old, and include a brand new book in the popular “Trucktown” series, available only inside Cheerios boxes. And for the first time, all five books have been specially printed in both English and Spanish.

Through MyBlogSpark™, Cheerios provided me with a free box of cheerios and a copy of each of the five books available, as well as the prize pack below to give away to one of my readers.
The prize pack includes a box of Cheerios, all five books featured in boxes of Cheerios- Junkyard Fort, Sleepyhead, Ballyhoo Bay, Tea for Ruby, and What's Under the Bed?- and a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

My girl loved all of the books, and Ryann thinks it's very cool that they are printed in Spanish too.

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post and answer one of the following questions.

What is your story time ritual with your children?
What is your favorite children’s book?
If you could be a character from a children’s book, who would it be?

You can enter until Sunday, November 1st at 11:59 p.m. and I will post the winner, selected at random, on Monday, November 2nd.

So, comment away and I wish you all luck! Thanks to Cheerios and MyBlogSpark™ for providing this awesome giveaway!

****edited to add**** feel free to comment (enter) once a day!