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Seek Community and Parenting Advice at Bundoo & Giveaway

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This is a partnered post.

Thinking back when I found out that I was pregnant I wanted to know everything all at one time. I wanted to know what to expect so we went out and bought some books. My husband started reading parenting books and about my pregnancy and I started with the pregnancy book. It was nice to have those books, but it would have been even better to have something like Bundoo. Smart Parenting Starts Here. 

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Bundoo is a parenting site with information, tools and products all in one place. Starting with pregnancy advice and going all the way into toddlers. Bundoo is full of free A-Z articles are reviewed and written by pediatricians, OB/GYNs and child development specialists in an easy-to-understand and straightforward style that is free from any confusing medical jargon. The information on Bundoo is organized in such an amazing way that it’s so easy to find what you are looking for and I received an interesting article in my inbox this morning. The article was about e-cigs. I’ve never really thought about them that much except that I don’t want to support cigarettes on my blog at all. I clicked on it and found out that they aren’t healthy either and the vapors can still be bad for you and others around you. And I liked how when I was reading I saw something else I wanted to click on and that’s when you know you are on a good site. You see an article that’s interesting and click and you keep clicking. image

It’s also very important as a new parent to make sure you have a community of some kind. I found myself feeling alone often. Or even now, I feel like parenting is so hard. Sometimes I feel like everything I do is wrong. I mean just the other day I had to put my child on the school bus and she went to school throwing a complete tantrum. I was embarrassed and felt like how is it that my child is the only one that has to throw a fit like that. Then I start talking to other moms and friends and they said, it’s happened to them just in a different way. It wasn’t the school bus it was in the mall or just something. So you need that community in some way to survive being a parent. The Keeping it “Real” group in the Bundoo Community is a great place to talk about this kind of thing. Bundoo’s free online community provides a friendly, positive space where parents can benefit from the support of other parents and gain access to experts in childcare, child development, pediatrics and pregnancy.Bundoo Brand Ambassador Badge

The Bundoo Marketplace offers specially selected products that support and help guide parents to make smart purchasing decisions for their families. Bundoo experts offer tips for selected products. Bundoo is free except for one section. The Ask Bundoo section is $100 a month. Bundoo’s Ask Bundoo connects parents directly with pediatricians, OB/GYNs and other childcare experts to answer questions privately with current and accurate information. Ask Bundoo is a way for parents to get peace of mind by asking questions without having to pay a co-pay. 

Socially Follow Bundoo:

· Website: http://www.bundoo.com

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BundooFamily

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/bundoofamily

· Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/bundoo

· YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/bundoofamily

· Google+: http://gplus.to/bundoo

I have a one month subscription to give away to you guys!

Enter to Win:

1 month subscription to Bundoo

To Enter:

Tell me where you are at in the parenting cycle

Extra Entries:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ways to Get Involved with Your Community #WalgreensGives

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Thanks to Walgreens for sponsoring my writing. Help Walgreens help others! Visit their Facebook page here to learn about their charitable partners and decide which cause Walgreens will donate to with a quick vote.

 

If you read Momstart regularly you know I’m quite passionate about helping my community. I donate as much as I possibly can from my site. Used things are harder to find homes for but I’m usually able to find somewhere for all of my review items. If you’re not a regular reader then perhaps it’s time you started, especially if you’re interested in ways to help your community. Here are a few quick ideas on where to start.

Food Banks:

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Our local food bank has different kinds of drives all year round. In the Summer time they feed the kids who will be missing a meal because they aren’t in school. As part of Box Out Hunger, we collect as many cereal boxes as we can as a community and give them to to food bank and they give them to families that need to fee their children. At the end of September they do a back to school drive. Yes our food bank collects backpacks and many other school supplies to give to teachers to fill their closets and to students in need of school supplies. They also do birthday bags, this is where you can put together a gift, party favors, cake mix, decorations and everything you need to put together a birthday party for all ages. Another drive is the holiday toy drive. There are so many places the food bank included that collects toys for children in need during the holidays.

Parks:

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Clean up a park near you. School parks and community parks are in need. As budget cuts continue for schools, playgrounds and sports programs are the first to disappear leaving students with limited space to let their imaginations run wild and put simply, to play! To help kids have a safe and active space, Sprite created Sprite Spark Parks Project; a multi-year commitment to bringing a ‘spark’ to active spaces within communities across the country. Starbucks usually has a clean the park day every year too.

Charity Events:

Charity events are held all year long supporting so many different causes. Pick your cause and help support your charity. We supported the Eastside Domestic Violence Shelter’s charity event by donating a ton of wonderful products for them to auction off. We also gave to Treehouse, Special Delivery, Movember, and the Seattle Mom Prom just to name a few. Find out what’s going on in your community and start making a difference in someone’s life.

Don’t forget to help Walgreens help others! Visit their Facebook page here to learn about their charitable partners and decide which cause Walgreens will donate to with a quick vote. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Our Community Charity Project Matched By Nature’s Path: Box Out Hunger

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My local MOMS Club chapter held our third annual Box Out Hunger cereal box drive to benefit our community food bank in Maltby, the Maltby Food Bank. From the MOMS, the club collected 44 boxes of cereal. Nature’s Path Organics (a smaller family run, but international, company from B.C. Canada) matched us box-for-box … in fact, they actually sent 48 boxes as each shipping box contained 12 boxes. The idea for the Box Out Hunger cereal drive was formed from the knowledge that free and reduced breakfasts and lunches are no longer offered to local children during the summertime as meals are a school district program, and cereal and other foods categorized as breakfast items are expensive to purchase and not highly donated to food banks in general.

clip_image002A big THANK YOU to Nature’s Path for their generosity! In addition to finding Nature’s Path Organic on their website, you can find Nature’s Path on Facebook] and Twitter @NaturesPath. You can read more about Nature’s Path on Mom Start in our posts: Every Day is Earth Day, Hemp Plus Granola, SmartBran Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes Recipe, Manna Organics Bread, Love Crunch Cereal, and Ancient Grains Cereal.

About Summer:

Summer is the President of our Local MOMS Club chapter, she is the mother of two adorable active boys, and is always thinking of ways to help others. She is a friend, a wife, and always busy as all mommies are. She is very active on Facebook, addicted to Geocaching and very interested in organic and green living while cooking up a storm.

Summer put this thank you piece together, but I wanted to take a moment to say thank you as well. It’s an amazing opportunity for us to provide high quality organic food to our food bank. Something I’m sure they don’t see very often. Thank you Nature’s Path!!!

Organize Your Bills and Manilla $1K Giveaway

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My husband and I recently took a financial planning class and learned a lot about the importance of paying off debt and getting your bills organized. Now my husband spent hours organizing everything in an excel spreadsheet, creating formulas, tracking bank information and bill due dates and it works great for us, but it does have to be updated by hand every month. What if you don’t want to spend all that time updating an excel spreadsheet and you don’t want to pay for an on-line service to get your organized? That’s not a problem with Manilla.

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Manilla is a free on-line service you can use to organize all of your bills. And to entice you to try out their services Manilla is giving away $1000.00 to one new user and we could all use that much money for something right? I would love to use it to pay our insurance deductible for the water damage we are currently suffering from. Let alone all the other debt we have. Aye Yi Yi!

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Manilla’s online services help you organize your finances, household/bills, magazine subscriptions, and travel rewards programs. Our excel sheet isn’t even that extensive. Manilla automatically links you to your accounts so you can pay bills, book travel, renew subscriptions (which reminds me I need to renew my all-you magazine). With Manilla you can also access your accounts with nearly all national and major regional household brands within the four categories listed above.

Over time, Manilla hopes to be able to service all of your accounts making them the one stop organizational site on-line.

Wait, what about security? I know I know, the one thing my husband and I worry about most is on-line security. Is it safe? Here is the question you have to ask yourself? Do you do on-line banking with your bank? We actually do, we trust that our bank is going to keep all of our information secure. Manilla uses the same on-line security that banks use. In fact, Manilla recently acquired a contract with Citi Bank, and in order to win them over, they underwent serious high level security testing and past. So rest assured that they are doing everything they can to keep your sensitive date safe.

Now Don’t forget to Enter to Win that 1K.

Get organized and be entered to win $1,000 cash to pay your bills!

How to Enter:

1. Sign up with Manilla

2. Link one or more household, financial, subscription or rewards account within Manilla

3. Come back and leave a comment telling me you signed up and how Manilla can save you time!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Manilla. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest runs June 7-30, 2011. Winner must be signed up with Manilla with at least one account linked to win. A random winner will be selected by July 1, 2011. Official Contest Rules

Perkins Free Pancakes Monday March 21st To Raise Money for Kids

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I love serving my community and blogging makes it possible to make a big difference. I’ve donated about 20,000 in products over the past two years, and had the opportunity for a company to donate 1500.00 to a charity of my choice. So making a difference in my community means a lot to me and it means a lot to me when companies help communities.

pancakesPerkins Restaurants contacted me with something they are doing for children. Perkins works with Give Kids The World (GKTW) a non-profit organization that provides week long vacations to very sick children.

Did you know that each year in the U.S., 27,000 children are diagnosed with a life threatening illness?

Since 1986, GKTW has served more than 100,000 families from all 50 states and 70 countries. Families enjoy a week-long, cost-free vacation that includes accommodations at the Give Kids The World Village, meals, donated attraction tickets (including Disney World), and more. They even get to eat ice cream at breakfast!

Perkins Restaurants has been working with GKTW for nearly 20 years. They serve more than 200,000 meals for free located at the heart of Give Kids The World Village. Over the years, more than 4 million free meals have been served. In addition to annual fundraising efforts, ongoing activities for Give Kids The World include community-oriented events and specially marked coin boxes for spare change in the lobbies of most Perkins restaurants.

Now, on Monday March 21st, Perkins Restaurants across the US and Canada are offering you guys their legendary, buttermilk pancakes for free during Perkins Pancake Day. In return Perkins hopes you will consider making a donation to Give Kids The World.

Perkins Gift Card

Enter to Win:

50.00 Gift Card to Perkins Restaurant

To Enter:

Leave a comment here telling us what it means to you to give back to your community.

Extra Entries:

tweet or RT this post and include the link to the post

Win a 50.00 Gift Card To Perkins Restaurants #Giveaway @MomStart http://bit.ly/gjTAts

Subscribe to MomStart
Comment on any non-giveaway post
List this giveaway on any giveaway site, dig, stumble, like or share on Facebook (or use any of the share options listed below)
Blog About this Giveaway (10 extra entries, linking to the giveaway)
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This giveaway ends April 4th. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

Disclosure – The product information featured in this giveaway was provided to me by the manufacturer or representing PR agency. Opinions expressed are my own and are NOT influenced by monetary compensation.

Help Habitat For Humanity Celebrate World Habitat Day Today October 4th – 8th.

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A few weeks ago when I was in Florida visiting my mother we were talking about charities and which ones to support or now. She was telling me which one is her favorite and it happens to be World Habitat because she knows that it is going to be helping other. After Hurricane Katrina, even though she didn’t live in New Orleans she saw Habitat for Humanity help in her community living on the gulf coast. I think she even said she makes a donation once a month give or take because where she lives they actually come by and pick up the donations. I’m trying to teach my children to have the same giving heart that I have, my mother has and that even my grandmother has, but since I have a voice on-line, why stop with my children?

We can all help! That’s right even you, my readers can help, here are three suggestions:

Georgia Ann SandersAdvocate

In addition to building homes in partnership with people in need, Habitat advocates to address the causes of poverty housing. Advocacy activities always include a specific request, such as asking supporters to sign a petition, send a message to an elected official or take part in a rally.

Fundraise

World Habitat Day is a great way to raise funds for Habitat in your area. A fundraiser can help educate the public and generate publicity for nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity.


Educate

Organize a public awareness event for World Habitat Day 2010 that not only highlights the need for affordable housing in your own community, but also discusses the need for improved shelter for billions of people around the world.

Look for ways to celebrate World Habitat Day:

21 families who lived at the Steung Meanchey dumpsite in Phnom Penh, CambodiaIn the United States, Habitat for Humanity will also focus on neighborhood revitalization. In a broad effort to help communities fulfill their aspirations, Habitat will expand its housing programs to include repairing more homes, rehabbing more vacant homes, and improving the energy-efficiency of homes. Habitat will work with partners to provide holistic improvements in a community. Habitat’s World Habitat Day efforts will focus on the link between housing and health, for example, through the release of the 2011 Shelter Report, which focuses on the need for more research on the connections between healthy homes and healthy families around the world.

Around the World:

Around the world, many Habitat for Humanity local offices have organized World Habitat Day events.  Habitat for Humanity’s 27th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project is a World Habitat Day event  this year.  It will be held Oct. 4 – 8 in six cities in the United States.  Held in a different location each year, Habitat’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project is an annual, internationally-recognized week of building that brings attention to the need for simple, decent and affordable housing.  This year, the Carters will work alongside volunteers in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore and Annapolis, Md.; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.; and Birmingham, Ala. to build, rehabilitate and improve 86 homes.

 

This is not a paid post, I have a passion for charity and much of this content was provided to me by Habitat for Humanity. I hope that you can find a way to help in your own community or place in the world!

Great American Bake Sale Giveaway

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GABSOne thing that MOMS Club of Woodinville is really big on is charity projects. We do a different project almost every month. We are often gathering food for our local food bank, this month we are doing birthday bags. We buy or gather left over birthday party supplies and put them together into birthday bags, birthday bags are sets that can be used by other families to throw a party. They include cake mix, candles, plates, you know, the necessities. We do this to help our community. Here is a photo of my donation!

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I was recently contacted by C&H Sugar to host a bake sale for my community, and although I don’t have time to put together a bake sale, as you can see, I strongly support Feeding America and helping out others. 

For the third year in a row, C&H Sugar is the presenting sponsor for Share our Strength’s® Great American Bake Sale to help fight childhood hunger. Great American Bake Sale raises money to fight childhood hunger across the U.S. by encouraging individuals, families, organizations and schools to hold bake sales and donate the profits to help Share our Strength provide millions of meals and snacks to America’s children.

 

 

Hosting a bake sale or donating to your local food bank is a great way to involve your kids and teaching them the importance of helping out and giving back to those in need. C&H Sugar has a wonderful website with everything you need to host a bake sale, including location ideas, information on how to promote the sale, printable signs, pricing suggestions, and of course, recipes.

Enter to win:

25.00 American Express Gift Card (in hopes you would help your community with it)

To Enter:

Visit Great American Bake Sale page and tell me how you can get involoved.

Extra Entries:

Like the Share our Strength on Facebook

Follow the Share our Strength on twitter

Tweet:

Feeding America Bake Sale #Giveaway http://bit.ly/dCnuiH 

Follow me on twitter tell me your twitter ID
Comment on any other non-giveaway post
Advertise this giveaway on any giveaway site, your blog, or your facebook page and tell me where you advertised it (include link to giveaway). 5 Extra for each one you do
Subscribe to my blog
Use any of the share options below, digg, stumble…2 entries each

The contest will run until May 31st 11:59 pm Pacific. All rules can be found under giveaway rules. 

 

 

C&H provided the information for this post and the prize for the giveaway.

Everything Mom is giving away 6500.00 in prizes

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I just finished registering for The Spring Sweepstakes at Everything Mom.

 

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They are giving away a $1,000 T-fal kitchen appliance makeover to one reader and a Velas Resort Getaway valued at $5586 to another reader. The T-Fal Giveaway is only open to Canadian citizens but the Velas Resort is open to us US people. I entered! It takes three easy steps to enter and it took me less than 5 minutes to finish all three steps.

Join the Everything Mom Community

Subscribe to the Everything Mom Newsletter

Complete a very easy and quick survey about what you want to see on Everything Mom.

So Simple!

I’m quite excited about Everything Mom it is free to join; providing a community, support and information for just about any topic.

 

This is a sponsored post, what I wrote is my opinion and I did join the community, explore the site and enter the contest. All content is my own.