I’d like to wish a big Happy Mother’s Day to all my Mom Readers! I hope you got to sleep in, or had a special breakfast prepared by your kids, or went out to brunch, or got a nice long nap, or whatever makes you feel special! I got a card and the Juno DVD from Ryan, and a handmade card, bookmark and laminated handprint from Nathan. Plus I got to take a nice looong nap this afternoon! It was a pretty great day.

I also got a surprise when I checked this blog’s Dashboard this morning, an incoming link from Dance of Motherhood. Much to my surprise I found that my longtime blog pal CyberCelt had nominated both MomReviews and Table for Five to the A-List Mom Blogger’s Guild! WOW! And I get to post THIS:

Pretty sweet! It really put a big smile on my face when I saw that. So, this week on MomReviews, I have just tons of great products to review for all of you, including Momager’s Mom Calling Cards, Wishbone Bountifuls Salad Dressing, Aveeno Sun Products, Neutrogena Skin Care products, Danica Aromatics Perfumes, the book “I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy”, a cool little travel toy called Thinkets, an organic and super soft new line of Peter Rabbit stuffed toys, the VERY cool Karito Kids dolls that include a donation to charity, a review of KidsSave, an online savings program for kids, and a yummy line of cheesy snacky crackers that are just delicious called John Wm. Macy’s CheeseSticks.

This Week’s GIVEAWAYS:

• Nalgene’s “Everyday” bottles including the very cool sippy-cup like Grip-n-Gulps
• “Cahooties”,a fresh version of the paper thing we called “Cootie Catchers” or “Fortune Tellers”
• A pair of Babylegs which are like a combination of legwarmers and tights for babies (so cute!)

Wow! So many great products! I look forward to having you read my reviews and leave your comments and thoughts. You WILL leave your comments and thoughts, right? EXCELLENT.

I’ve teamed up with M80 and Campbell’s Soup to help spread the word about the nation’s largest single-day food drive, called Stamp Out Hunger!. Both the Campbell’s Soup Company and the Harlem Globetrotters are working hard to spread the word about this important event, which has collected more than 836 million pounds of food since it began in 1993. Watch this:

And here’s some important information:
• The Stamp Out Hunger! drive is a nationwide effort to provide food to local food banks and pantries, which would otherwise have depleted stocks during the summer months, to help feed the hungry on a daily basis.

• The nation’s 230,000 letter carriers will be collecting food donations in more than 10,000 local communities and delivering them to food bank members of America ’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network and other hunger relief organizations.

• Last year the letter carriers collected more than 70 million pounds of food from generous Americans, bringing their impressive total to more than 836 million pounds since 1993.

• Campbell Soup Company is supporting this important initiative by kicking off the food drive with a national donation of one million pounds of soup and other food and beverage items that will be donated to food banks across the country.

The Face of Hunger…

• According to the America ’s Second Harvest, 35 million Americans are food insecure, hungry or at risk of hunger. Approximately one in four people in a soup kitchen line is a child.

You Can Help…

• Helping Stamp Out Hunger! is as easy as checking your mailbox. Just leave a bag of non-perishable food where your letter carrier normally delivers your mail. Your letter carrier will then pick up and deliver the food to a local food bank. Examples of non-perishable items include:

• Canned soup

• Canned meats and fish

• Canned juices

• Canned vegetables and fruits

• Boxed goods (such as cereal)

• Pasta and rice

• To find out more about the annual Stamp Out Hunger! effort in your community, ask your letter carrier, contact your local post office or visit www.helpstampouthunger.com.

Please mark your calendars for this important event. I know money is tight, but items from discount grocers like Aldi are not expensive and can make such a difference. Many of us go grocery shopping every week even though there is food in our pantry-imagine if there wasn’t. I’ll be continuing to post on this topic up until the 10th, and I’ll also be giving away some pennants signed by the Harlem Globetrotters as well as calendars featuring images of the Globetrotters and other images from previous Stamp Out Hunger! events, so watch for that coming up. No one in this country should ever have to be hungry, there’s plenty of food to go around if we can just get it to the people who need it!

After 56 years of gracing the boxes of one of America’s favorite breakfast cereals, Tony the Tiger is still going strong! The newest way to feel grrrreat at breakfast is with Frosted Flakes Gold. With 10 grams of whole grain and three grams of fiber in each serving, it provides another option to give our kids the right start to their day. In addition, the cereal is baked with honey to give it that sweet taste that kids love. The flavor reminded me of another Kellogg’s cereal that I used to eat a LOT of in college, Honey Smacks.

Now, this is very cool. To encourage kids to be more active, eat right and work hard to achieve their goals, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes® created the Earn Your Stripes™ program. As part of this program, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes Gold™, in partnership with the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), Little League® International and Girls on the Run International, created the Five Golden Rules of Sportsmanship to give coaches and parents the tools they need to help kids succeed on and off the field. The Five Golden Rules advocate being a winner no matter what the scoreboard says, treating coaches, officials and opponents with respect, being a good teammate and finding good in the game.

I took a look at Earn Your Stripes™, which is on the Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes website, it is REALLY comprehensive. The Sports section has interactive training videos and tips for baseball, basketball, and soccer, and I mean interactive! On the baseball page, for example (warning, there is sound), there are interactive training modules (games), training videos that teach skills and show drills, and team game ideas to practice skills in batting, throwing, and fielding. Your sports lover is SURE to enjoy spending time on the Earn Your Stripes website!

I’d like to thank MomCentral and the Kellogg company for sending my family the box of Frosted Flakes Gold for this review. I barely got a bowlful for myself because my kids liked it so much!

I am a big fan of Kashi products, not only because they taste good but because the company believes in using only natural ingredients, in producing food made from, what a concept, REAL FOOD. You won’t find unpronounceable strings of chemicals that do nothing to nourish your body in Kashi foods.

I received two new Kashi Granola cereals and three Thin Crust Pizzas for this review, and although two of the pizzas are still in the freezer (not a fan of mushrooms, and the kids refuse to even try the one with broccoli and artichokes), I want to spread the word about how delicious and healthy the other products we tried are.

Kashi Summer Berry Granola is a delicious combination of sweet, crunchy granola and bits of freeze-dried fruit. The granola is made with Kashi’s blend of Seven Whole Grains mixed with honey, and then it’s blended with pieces of strawberries, blackberries, and in a tasty surprise, pieces of kiwi fruit. The fruit is so fresh tasting once it mixes with milk that it really tastes like you sliced fresh fruit onto a bowl of granola. One half-cup contains 210 calories, 6 grams of fat (from expeller-pressed canola oil used to make the granola), 6 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. While you may be thinking you can’t eat a cereal with 6 grams of fat, think of how many grams of fat are in a cinnamon roll, a bagel with cream cheese, a donut. Plus, Kashi Granola is going to keep you full a whole lot longer than those other breakfasts.

Kashi Cocoa Beach Granola is so good, I barely got a half-cup of it for myself. My son Ryan ate it for breakfast and snacks for two days, and when the box was empty, told me it was the best granola EVER. Crunchy seven-grain granola clusters are infused with cocoa and then mixed with flakes of coconut and almonds for a sweet, chocolatey treat. This cereal is higher in calories and fat than the Berry flavor, it has 230 calories in a half-cup, 9 grams of fat, 6 grams of fiber, and 6 grams of protein. Now, 9 grams of fat is pretty high for cereal, but again, if you replace empty calories with this, you come out ahead.

I also received three Kashi Thin Crust Pizzas, one of the Tomato Garlic Cheese, one Roasted Vegetable, and one Mushroom Trio with Spinach. Ryan and I ate the Tomato Garlic Cheese, which has Roma tomatoes, mozzarella and provolone cheeses with a tomato basil sauceand we both agreed that the toppings were delicious. He enjoyed the very thin, almost crackery crust, I was less of a fan. I see on the site that there is also a Tomato Garlic on Original crust, I’d really like to try that one. All of the pizzas feature a crust made with the Kashi Seven Whole Grains & Sesame. The Roasted Vegetable is topped with Broccoli, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, onions and garlic, mozzarella and provolone cheeses with a tomato pesto sauce. The Mushroom Trio and Spinach has Baby Portobello, Champignon and Shiitake mushrooms with spinach, mozzarella and provolone cheeses with a tomato parmesan sauce.

I highly recommend the granola cereals and the Tomato Garlic Cheese pizza, especially if you are looking for products that have natural ingredients, whole grains, and fiber. There’s no reason not to enjoy pizza and get some healthy food in you at the same time! Thank you again to Elizabeth Lee from Formula PR for sending me these tasty food products to review.

Apparently the Keebler elves couldn’t decide whether to make a new cracker snack or a new pretzel snack, so they put the two together in a clever bit of elf magic and came up with “Flipsides Pretzel Crackers”. I got a box to sample from MomCentral and Kellogg’s, and this is the true story:

1:15 PM–Package delivered containing box of crackers. I opened it and put the box on the kitchen table.

3:10 PM–#1 son came home from school, saw the box on the table, and asked if he could have some for a snack. Poured some into a bowl for himself and into a smaller bowl for his sister.

3:30 PM–#2 came home from school, saw his brother eating the crackers, asked for his own bowl.

4:00 PM–I decided I’d better try them too before I wrote this review. I went to get the box from the kitchen and looked inside. There were FOUR CRACKERS LEFT.

#1 son is still talking about how much he liked them.

It really is a cracker on one side, it tastes like the Kellogg’s Club cracker, and on the other side, a thin sheet of pretzel. If I buy these again though, I won’t buy Cheddar, I’ll buy the Original. I like to spread things on crackers, things like peanut butter and jelly, or Nutella, and that just doesn’t work with cheddar flavoring. Besides, Kellogg’s makes Cheez-Its, the most perfect cheese flavored cracker ever.

I went to Walgreen’s today and all I was going to buy was toilet paper. Riiiiight. Let’s forget for a moment that Easter is THIS SUNDAY and I have bought exactly NOTHING for my kids. But I did buy some delicious Easter treats today!

Cadbury Creme Eggs-you either love them or you hate them. I LOVE them.

I also bought a Nestle Crunch egg for Ryan and a Wonka “Golden Ticket” egg that was caramel and peanuts inside. Kaitlyn got a small chocolate bunny. Now I just need to go buy more for their Easter baskets! Darn, I have to buy more candy

Until I took this assignment, I hadn’t thought about this in a long time-when my parents were on their “Grand European Tour” honeymoon, which they took a year after getting married, one of the things they did while in Italy was eat raw oysters on the half shell. After doing so, my mother got very sick with gastroenteritis (um, vomiting and diarrhea are the main symptoms). It turns out that raw oysters can contain a bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus, which is a naturally occurring bacteria in warm waters that can be dangerous to individuals with certain chronic ailments, such as:

• Liver Disease (from hepatitis, cirrhosis, alcoholism, or cancer)

• Iron overload disease (hemochromatosis)

• Diabetes

• Cancer (including lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease)

• Stomach Disorders

• Or any illness or medical condition that weakens the body’s immune system*

Because my Mother had juvenile diabetes from the time she was seven, she was definitely at-risk. Unfortunately for her, the Centers for Disease Control didn’t identify the bacteria until 1964. Now there is a website called Be Oyster Aware that is dedicated to educating the public on both the benefits and the risks of eating raw oysters.

Many people love to eat raw oysters. They are a low calorie source of protein, an excellent source of zinc and vitamin B-12, and also provide omega-3 fatty acids. And apparently, a lot of people think they taste good, too. Three new processes are now being used to treat Gulf oysters so that they can be consumed raw but won’t be dangerous to at-risk individuals. These post-harvest processes are: 1. IQF or Individually Quick Freeze, which flash-freezes the oysters but doesn’t change the taste or texture when they are thawed and eaten, 2. HCP or Heat-Cool pasteurization, which involves submerging the oysters in hot water and then immediately into cool water, and 3. HHP or High pressurization processing.

So there you go. If you like to eat raw oysters, and you want to be absolutely safe, ask if they have been post-harvest processed to protect them from bacteria. This post and this important health safety message have been brought to you by:

I LOVE the Senseo coffee machine that my buddy Charlie at Hass MS&L sent me. The Dark Roast coffee took some getting used to, but I soon found that a bit of French Vanilla creamer and some Splenda turned it into a cup of foamy heaven. Let me backtrack: what I received was a Senseo Machine, a box of Dark Roast coffee pods, a metal canister to hold the pods, and two different inserts that hold either one coffee pod or two.

Seeing as how I am used to a “small” coffee being a 16 ounce travel mug, it also surprised me that according to Senseo, a “single” cup of coffee is only 4 ounces. That’s like three sips! But it turns out that in “real” coffee houses, that’s exactly what you get-a perfectly brewed 4 ounce cup of coffee. Two coffee pods makes 8 ounces of coffee, which is the size of a standard coffee cup, and is surprisingly satisfying.

Once you fill the reservoir with water, there’s a heat button that keeps it warm, and then you just insert a pod or pods, put your mug under the spout, and push the button. Then you get:

It really is as good as it looks! So, how would you like to get one? I think it is incredibly generous of Senseo to create the Share Senseo Promotion. Using this Share Senseo URL, complete a very short questionnaire and you could be selected to win a FREE Senseo machine, along with the same accessories I received-the box of coffee pods, the pod holder, AND, five coupons good for $20 off a machine. *This is a limited time offer and is open to US residents only. Promotion ends June 30, 2008 or while supplies last. Total retail value of Share Senseo® kit is over $70. A one–time $15 shipping and handling fee applies. Completing this questionnaire does not guarantee the participant a Senseo® Coffee Pod System. An additional email will be sent approximately 2–6 weeks after questionnaire is completed to notify the participant whether he or she is eligible to receive a Senseo® Coffee Pod System.

Don’t want to wait 2-6 weeks? If you are interested in a coupon good for $20 off the price of a Senseo machine, leave me a COMMENT on this post and let me know! I’ll email you privately for your address and pop a coupon right in the mail. I think you will like the Senseo and the coffee! There is a variety of different coffee types available, as well as Espresso, Tea, and Barista Blends. And you can make up to 40 ounces with one fill of the reservoir. Get one for yourself and buy one for a gift! Just leave a comment if you want a coupon.

MomCentral is participating in a campaign for Breakfast BREAKS, a packaged breakfast product that was developed as a way to get the millions of children who qualify for free or reduced-price breakfasts to get something to eat. The problem was, schools didn’t always have the additional refrigerator space needed to keep breakfast foods cold. Breakfast BREAKS consist of a single-serve bowl of cereal-either Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, or Lucky Charms, a “nutritious snack”, and a box of Minute Maid 100% juice.

We received two of the kits and my son ate them both.Both of our kits contained Fruit & Grain bars as opposed to the raisins shown in the image. He said he didn’t mind that the juice wasn’t cold, and he added milk to the cereal. I suppose for schools with absolutely no extra refrigeration, the cereal could be eaten dry, or milk could be purchased just for breakfast. It breaks my heart to think of kids who won’t get breakfast unless their school provides it-why do we even have that kind of poverty in this country? But that’s another post altogether.

To promote Breakfast BREAKS, creator East Side Entrees has enlisted the support of teen music stars the Jonas Brothers and former Weight Watchers Spokesperson Duchess Sarah Ferguson. From the Press Release:

(Ferguson will be donating) a portion of the proceeds from product sales will be donated to the Sarah Ferguson Foundation, which supports education, health and anti-hunger projects worldwide. Reflecting her expanding commitment to health advocacy, the Duchess recently established the Solutions from the Heart seal to recognize innovative products and resources that promote a healthy lifestyle. In January, Breakfast BREAKS was awarded the seal.

The Jonas Brothers and the Duchess will be involved in a range of activities that will reach children, mothers and foodservice directors. Each activity will communicate the importance of eating a nutritious breakfast and demonstrate why Breakfast BREAKS is a convenient and healthy breakfast solution.

In the first quarter of 2008 the Jonas Brothers will make a major announcement about a national online contest with Breakfast BREAKS. ESE Foods will highlight the product through a television commercial featuring the entire Jonas family, which will air on ABC Kids Block, Discovery Kids and E! Entertainment. Also a print and online advertising campaign featuring the Jonas Brothers will appear in Nick, Family Fun and Working Mother magazines and on the Family Fun and various Disney websites.

Drawing on her own experience as the mother of two daughters, the Duchess conceived her own “Ten Precious Minutes” campaign for ESE Foods, which encourages parents to reclaim breakfast as quality time better used for nurturing children in mind, body and soul. A mirror campaign directed at educators and school foodservice professionals includes a three-part series of print advertorials for influential trade publications written by the Duchess. She will also host an online chat for school foodservice directors about the positive trends in federally funded School Breakfast Programs, and in early March the Duchess will kick off a media campaign during National School Breakfast Week to highlight the success of School Breakfast Programs and to encourage public action on behalf of the millions of American children who qualify for free breakfast but do not currently receive it.

Because you can purchase single-serve bowls of cereal, Fruit & Grain bars, and boxes of juice at the grocery store, I’m not sure I see the benefit to buying them together in one box, although at around $2.49, it’s not expensive. If your kids like it because the box has the Jonas Brothers on it, and these are foods you would normally buy anyway, then go for it. Be aware though, that each Breakfast BREAKS kit has around 44-45 grams of sugar, which is extremely high, although not as high as a donut and a chocolate milk or something similar you might pick up in a convenience store as you are driving your kids to school (not that I’ve, um, ever done that, of course, um…).

It’s all about balance. If this is the only way your kids are going to eat anything in the morning, or if you know a daycare provider or school that is having trouble organizing a breakfast program, this could be an option for them. You can’t drive a car all day with no gas in it, and a child can’t go to school all morning on an empty stomach. Breakfast BREAKS just might help with that.

Have you tried Cheerios Snack Mix yet? If not, pick up a bag the next time you are at the grocery store. Take it home, pour it into a bowl, and watch how fast it disappears. We got a bag of the Cheddar flavor, which was just okay, next time I’d like to try the Original. Cheerios Snack Mix is a General Mills product.

The mix consists of six different things-Multigrain Cheerios, small twist pretzels, Wheat Chex (also a General Mills brand), Corn Chex, triangle-shaped cheese crackers, and bread twists. The cheddar flavoring reminded me a LOT of the powder used in Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, to be honest. I would have preferred a sharper tasting cheese, but my boys thought it was just the right flavor. We all wished there were more of the “bread twists”, which are like a small breadstick. Interestingly, the bread twists had the least amount of cheese powder on them too. Some of the Chex pieces were so covered in the powder, they were almost too salty.

Nutritionally, Cheerios Snack Mix is not a bad choice. A 2/3 cup serving has 120 calories, 3 grams of fat (0 grams of trans fat), 1 gram of fiber, and 3 grams of protein. The sodium content is high though, 310 milligrams per serving, and that’s assuming you stop after just 2/3 cup. The amount that fits in one of those plastic snack-size storage bags is perfect for tossing in a lunch box or taking along in the car for when the munchies hit. I still prefer the original Chex Mix, but Cheerios Snack Mix is a yummy alternative.