Cereal and Star Wars

This summer General Mills sent me a variety of cereals to sample.  Some of the cereals we received where types I normally wouldn't purchase, like Lucky Charms and Trix.  Other samples, like Cheerios and Chex are household favorites.  Ever since I received these samples I have been thinking about and noticing cereals more often and I have come to the conclusion my family eats a lot of cereal.

We don't just eat cereal for breakfast.  I throw it in the kids lunch, there is often a baggie full of cereal in my bag for snacks, sometimes there is even a box of it floating around the car.  Plus I love cooking with it, it has become one of my favorite breading items.  You can really change up a boring piece of chicken just by varying you cereal choice.

I know our cereal uses aren't unusual but I never realized just how much cereal we use and for some reason I am fascinated by this.  I think General Mills somehow secretly sensed this fascination and decided to mess with me even more by sending me yet another amazing package.  This time they sent full sized boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms.  That alone would have been great - they are all great snacking and cooking cereal - but it got better when the three boxes are put together you get this.

Again this was great I was happy with the cereal my kids had a great time with the boxes, but they also included a $25 gift card to Walmart, which will be used not for something practical, but to buy the full Star Wars collection.  Our discs are very scratched up and no longer watchable.  My Star Wars obessessed children find this very frustrating and will be very happy on Christmas morning when they find the new collection under the tree.  Now if Santa will just bring us a Blue-ray player to go with it we will all be happy.

General Mills and MyBlogSpark have generously offered to send one of my readers this same prize pack.  You will receive:

• One box of each of the following cereals to form their own Star Wars panoramic poster:
• Honey Nut Cheerios
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• Lucky Charms
• $25 Walmart gift card

Leave a comment letting me know your favorite way to enjoy cereal or your favorite Star Wars character.  On October 27th I will pick a winner.

Breakfast and First Giveaway

I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I have never found it to be a very exciting meal.  As a kid we had a very limited selection of cereals - Raisin Bran, Cheerios, Corn Flakes, or Rice Krispies. On vacations we would get an assortment of mini boxes and my brother and I would fight over the "fun" cereals, but beyond vacation our cereal selection was very limited and in my opinion, boring.  This limited selection and the fact that I don't like milk in cereal - I just can't deal with mushy cereal - quickly turned me against cereal and breakfast all together.  Once I could make my own breakfast choice I decided that breakfast should consist of coffee - lots of coffee - and maybe a little cookie or brownie.

When I became responsible for providing a nutritious start to the day for my three little ones, I knew I needed to provide them something other than coffee - coffee and toddlers don't mix. When my son was little we would have scrambled eggs, oatmeal, or waffles and yogurt, but cereal wasn't usually on the menu.  Like many other toddlers my kids carried around little container of O's to snack on throughout the day, but they didn't usually have them for breakfast.  Once my son started preschool and we had to get out the door earlier in the morning we started to change our breakfast selection and cereal began making an appearance on our morning menu.  Much to my surprise I returned to my roots, buying only Raisin Bran, Cheerios, Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies.  Everyone was happy, for a while, but quickly the kids became attracted to the boxes with bright colors and fun characters.  The Mom in me resisted for a while, thinking those cereals weren't healthy but the kid in me kept telling me to give in and let them have the fun stuff.  We have now come to a compromise, I buy my "root" cereals and they get to choose a fun cereal.  At breakfast time they get to choose one of each kind and either mix them together or have them separately.  I have come around to the fun cereals a little bit, despite the sugars in some types there are also some nutritional benefits.  I try to steer the kids away from the super sugary cereals at breakfast time and instead have them as a snack later in the day.  This is working for us for now, but I am sure it will quickly change and I will be looking for more breakfast options and coming up with more compromises.
So how do you start the day?  Do you and your kids have the same breakfast?  Do you make a healthy meal for your kids and then sneak a little cookie for yourself?

This is my first giveaway, so please excuse me if it is a little rough, but General Mills and myblogspark is providing one lucky winner 10 sample size cereals and a milk pitcher.  If you would like to win leave a comment by June 17th, you can let me know how you like to start your day or you can simply say hi.  Good luck and thanks for playing along!