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!

Music Memory Monday

Last week I received an email saying that JamsBio, the website where I used to write out music memories was going to shut down to focus solely on the magazine portion of the site, and therefore the memories people had posted would not be available for an indefinite amount of time.

Well, panic set in and I promptly saved all my memories and now plan to post a new one every Monday. They are in chronological order by year, and I hope you enjoy and possibly even- relate.

I Got My MTV

On Labor Day weekend 1981 my Mom and I had a new beginning. We moved out the house we shared with her boyfriend of two years and moved into a duplex a mile or so away.

My Mom was 19 when I was born, we grew up together and the boyfriend had infringed upon our relationship, so needless to say I was a happy girl.

Not too long after we moved in some salesmen were going door to door to get you to sign up for a cable box so that you could have this new channel called MTV. I had heard about it from all of my fourth grade friends and I knew I wanted it, and I was able to convince my Mom to sign up.

The salesman returned with a wood grain and black box that had about 13 or 14 buttons across the top. He promptly hooked it up and pushed what I believe was button 13 and there it was, the video for Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart". My introduction to the greatest thing to happen to music in my lifetime began with a lady in a black leotard running down a dark hallway. When she wasn't opening doors in the hallway she was wailing on a saxophone. That song and that video were permanently etched in my mind for all of eternity as my introduction to music television.

And here, my friends, is the gadget that gave me music videos 24 hours a day. This picture was taken at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Yes, you are officially old when items from your youth are in a museum.

Introducing...

... the new My Life of What Ifs. Please take a few minutes to tell me what you think, and stay tuned for an awesome giveaway later today!

Thanks so much Courtney at Judith Shakes Designs. It's beautiful!!!!