Unlock the last video in the Bruegger's Bagels #BehindtheTaste Series ($25 GC Giveaway)

Earlier this year I talked about the Behind the Taste video series from Bruegger's Bagels. These videos take you behind-the-scenes to showcase the authentic approach the bakery takes when selecting and creating its bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon. April 1st marks the final video to be unlocked and this one discusses their Sun-dried tomato spread (YUM). If you haven't eaten at Bruegger's Bagels, you are truly missing out! We go there at least once a month and are never disappointed in the superior quality of the food and the very personal touches their staff adds to your experience. Who wouldn't want to dine in a place that?

Here is a little recap of the videos, but you don't want to miss out on coupon opportunities so be sure to go to the Behind the Taste site for the full experience.

Behind the Taste Launch

Authentic Bagels

Cream Cheese

Smoked Salmon

Sundried Tomato Spread

As you can see, Bruegger's takes great pride to find the best ingredients for their bagels, cream cheese and other menu items. Be sure to check out the Behind the Taste website and follow Bruegger's on Facebook and Twitter for product promotions and updates.

Giveaway: Two lucky Mom Files readers will each win a $25 Bruegger's gift card! Enter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I was compensated for my time to share this post and host a reader giveaway. All opinions are my own as always. 

VTech Smartwatch Sweepstakes

Does your child have dreams of becoming the next Mozart? Next President? Or a secret spy? Do they leave you in stitches or keep you constantly on your toes? I know my little one does! I find myself always thinking, "I should have recorded that moment".

Kids love to show off their playful personalities and so do their parents! That’s why VTech® wants parents and caregivers to share their “that’s my kid” moments on social media. Using the hashtag #smartwatchsweeps, parents and caregivers can share and submit images of their children showing off one-of-kind kid moments, for a chance to win a VTech Kidizoom® Smartwatch of their very own!

How to Enter:

Take a pic/video of your kids showing off their silly antics for a chance to win a VTech Kidizoom® Smartwatch! You can upload your photo to http://www.vtechkids.com/smartwatchsweeps to submit your entry or tag your photo with the hashtag #smartwatchsweeps when posting it to Twitter and/or Instagram.

At the end of every week, five entries will be selected at random to receive a Smartwatch and will be highlighted as one of VTech’s “Smartwatch Kids of the Week” on their social media channels. You can find all details and official rules to the VTech Smartwatch Sweepstakes here.

Be sure to check out my Smartwatch review here.

The information and gift card have been provided to me by VTech

Backyard Adventures with Fruit Shoot #stunthunt #ad

Thank you to Fruit Shoot for sponsoring today’s post, but my love for their juice and endorsing children’s imaginations is all my own!

Fruit Shoot is looking to families across the U.S. to share videos of your kids doing amazingly active stunts. Here's the trick: Your submission has to feature a Fruit Shoot bottle and a ball of your choice. The best of your videos will get the Hollywood treatment with special effects added to bring your kids' imagination to life! You'll instantly receive a coupon for a free bottle of Fruit Shoot just for registering! Need a cool ball to shoot your video with? Any time you buy 6 bottles of Fruit Shoot in-store, you can send away for a FREE Waboba ball, the ball that bounces on water!

The video can simply be done on your smartphone and uploaded straight to the Fruit Shoot site. Share your video with friends and family and encourage them to vote for your video. 

Check out my little guy's video below...

Some great things about Fruit Shoot-- It has a new no-spill cap, perfect for children of all ages, and contains no fructose corn syrup, making it a much better option than other flavored drinks.

This fun hydration drink is perfect for energetic, independent kids who desire fun on the go. It contains real fruit juice, natural flavors, no high-fructose corn syrup, and no added sugar.

Fruit Shoot lets moms balance the hydration their kids need with the taste that they love, making hydration fun for kids and easy for moms.

Fruit Shoot also features an innovative no-spill cap (no more juice stains in the car!) making it easy for kids to be independent while on the go. These vibrant fun colored bottles come in tasty flavors of Orange, Apple, Berry Burst and Strawberry/Raspberry. All of the flavors are available in both the regular and low sugar varieties.

William loves Fruit Shoot!

Be sure to check out the Fruit Shoot Stunt Hunt site for full details. 

Smooth Fitness 5.65 Treadmill update and folding feature demo #SmoothBlogger

Hi guys! It has been almost a month since we have had our fabulous Smooth Fitness 5.65 treadmill and we have been enjoying the many great benefits from it.  It just so happens that my husband is currently taking a health and wellness college class, so he has been able to offer tips to help maximize our workouts. One thing we did was buy a digital scale. Our eyes got rather big when we saw the numbers that came up. My husband has set a goal of losing roughly 40 pounds. He ideally needs to be under 200 pounds. So far he has cut out most of the sugar in his diet and has started eating very small meals throughout the day. After the first 2 weeks, he is down 6 pounds. I am so proud of how well he is doing and even when tempting foods are around, he either says no or he takes just one bite.

The treadmill itself is one fine piece of equipment. We have it set up downstairs near the girls' bedrooms and unless they walk out of their room, they don't hear if anyone is using it. That was a concern since my husband tends to do his workout early in the morning when everyone is still in bed. It runs very quietly and we love that we can hook up our music device or tablet to the MP3 jack so we can listen to music or watch videos. The girls have been incorporating a 2 mile run 3 times a week since they are so consumed with school-related things. I know that it will come in very handy when Briahnna starts back volleyball conditioning. I am sure she will make much better time on her laps.

I wanted to show you this quick video below that demonstrates how easy it is to fold the treadmill in the event we wanted to move it or store it. Quite honestly, I don't think we will ever need to store it, but we have thought about relocating it in the future. Check it out:

Note: It is not necessary to hold the bottom of the treadmill as it comes down, but I still do because I get scared it might slam down too hard. It doesn't do it but I am just the typical cautious mom. In the next couple weeks I will demonstrate the features located on the dashboard so you can get a better idea of how it works and how user-friendly it is.

Stay connected with Smooth Fitness on the web, Facebook and Twitter.

I am participating in a campaign as a Smooth Fitness Ambassador and will be reviewing a treadmill from Smooth Fitness in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts/opinions expressed are always my own.

PLEASE HELP: Watch a video and help a child! vitaminwater® ♥s Vitamin Angels

Hey guys! I wanted to share some very important information that was sent to me....

As a parent, you know how important it is that your little ones are properly nourished in order to thrive. It’s that reason exactly that vitaminwater® ♥s Vitamin Angels, a charity dedicated to providing essential nutrients to undernourished children around the world.  vitaminwater® is already helping Vitamin Angels reach more than 2 million children through a monetary donation, but would like your support to help  them  reach another one million children!

Earlier this summer and in an effort to help spread the word about Vitamin Angels, vitaminwater® asked the Tongal community (a social platform that delivers a fresh solution to sourcing video content) what their world would be without the letter ‘A’.  Why ‘A,’ you ask?  Vitamin Angels focuses on this vitamin because an estimated 190 million children under five suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a major underlying cause of child mortality and blindness around the world.

The response from the Tongal community was overwhelming (over 400 ideas submitted!) and resulted in the creation of three poignant videos in particular that vitaminwater® has decided to share.  For every view of one of the videos, vitaminwater® will donate $0.25, the equivalent of one year’s worth of vital Vitamin A for a child.

Here are the videos:

"Without the A" produced by Reggie Schickel from Urbana, IL (based on idea from Diana Tay from Los Angeles, CA)


"Candid Moments Without the A" produced by Marcus Thomas from Los Angeles, CA (based on an idea from Jacob Silva from Escondido, CA)

"Notes on the Letter A" produced by Jonathan Langager from Los Angeles, CA

PLEASE take a moment to view even one video to help a child in need! They are under 2 minutes in length and costs you NOTHING! Thanks so much!

Flashback Friday

It's just not Christmas without this foolery. Classic!

Why Dwayne should NOT have the camera

This video was taken on Monday morning at the site where Briahnna and her classmates from her school were boarding the buses for their end of the year trip to Washington DC and Virginia. Dwayne had the camera...

Energizer Kids Take Charge Contest and Giveaway

**Contest Closed**

Energizer launched a video campaign asking families across the country to post a video of their child explaining the mischief they can get into when the toys that keep them occupied run out of battery power – www.energizer.com/recharge. The first 250 to enter will receive a brand NEW Energizer Smart Charger. Ten video finalists will be chosen and then they will pick a charity of their choice to have a portion of $10,000 that Energizer will be donating to the charities. The more views the finalist’s video gets, the bigger the percentage of the donation the finalist’s charity will receive.

Here is how to enter:

1. Film a video – 60 seconds or less – of your child explaining what happens when their toy runs out of battery power (have fun with it!)
2. Include why the Smart Charger is a good way to keep batteries charged and toys working, or show a “Take Charge or Else” sign like the one in the video (download it here or get creative and make one yourself)
3. Upload your video to www.youtube.com and include #recharge in the title
4. Click on the ENTER HERE on www.energizer.com/recharge and enter the required information

I would have loved to enter but the two year old can only say so much. He is best at getting into mischief in any way he can!
_________________________________________
Giveaway: Energizer have provided me with one free Smart Charger (including one charger and 4 AA rechargeable batteries valued at $19.99) for us to give away to one lucky Momfiles reader. Here's how to enter:
Mandatory: Check out the Energizer website and tell us what cool fact you learned about the rechargeable batteries or tell us what items you would most use these batteries in. Comments saying "thanks" or "count me in" will be deleted.(You must complete the above method to qualify for extra entries)

--You can Twitter this giveaway (one per day) and leave me a link to your Tweet.
Example: Win an Energizer Smart Charger to #recharge "or else" @momfiles http://bit.ly/cXQmOA

-- Facebook this giveaway, and please leave a separate comment/link for each entry to count. (one per day)

--Follow me on Twitter (@momfiles) or "friend me" on Facebook (leave a comment with a link) If you already follow let me know.

--You can also place our button on your blog or follow us (please leave a blog link in your comment or specify if you are a new or current follower).

*Be sure to have a visible email address in your comment if you do not have a Blogger profile. Giveaway is open to US residents only. Deadline to enter is May 17, 2010 at 09:00 pm EST. Good luck!
Disclosure: Energizer have provided me with one free Smart Charger (including one charger and 4 AA rechargeable batteries valued at $19.99) to review and keep as a thank you for spreading the word about this fun campaign.

This video makes we want to make Jell-O

I just got to see this new video by Sade called "Babyfather" that just came out today. This is a feel good kind of video and this lady is smokin'! Check it out and let me know what you think.

Vent Day Wednesday

Welcome to this week's edition of Vent Day Wednesday! As always we bring you our vents along with a few laughs. Please be sure to leave us a comment with your vents or just to talk about how foolish that Dwayne is :-)

MEN

With a title like that I am sure you know who I am about to start talking about. What is wrong with my husband?? Seriously, this Vent Day Wednesday thing is getting out of control. Dwayne sneaks his butt in the office and gets on the computer to do what I think is to check email, blog, website... really he is watching the Vent Day videos and laughing himself to tears. Oh and he watches them over and over and laughs even harder! He has disturbed the baby from sleeping many of nights. What do I do with him!? I thought our Vent day was for just that...VENTING, not the Dwayne and Shelly variety show. Seriously, he is insane! For instance, telling everyone to email me about talking to my white blood cells. He has this Dwayne theory that you must talk to your white blood cells (WBC as She Needs says ) when you feel ill. *WTF?* He has to walk around the house like a drill Sargent motivating his WBC troops to battle. He says he does not take medication, he sends in reinforcements to help out on the front line. Coughing to him is the Army fighting a ground battle and sneezing is the Air Force battle. Now in all this foolishness he does say one thing right. Dwayne always recommends resting when the battle is taking place. However, the most obnoxious part is that he rewards his WBC's after the battle is won. He actually pats himself on the back, and drinks hot ginseng tea. He say he gives his WBC's a nice rewarding jacuzzi bath for a job well done. What can I say the guy is crazy, but there must be something to his madness. Because like he says, he rarely gets sick. Go figure.

Happy baby on video

This is what William is like every morning after he has his breakfast...