Category: Reviews, promotions and giveaways

We finally received a preview of the photo shoot with Fisher-Price in Toronto a couple weeks back. Wanna sneak peek?

These are a couple of the group shots:

Lucas is squeezing me in a hug, not snoozing!

In this one, he’s actually got one hand on each side of my head and is squashing my cheeks. This is what a toddler looks like at the very end of his attention span. My smile, not coincidentally, seems to be looking a little forced at this point, too!

Fun, eh? I have to admit, I was nervous about seeing them, but I love how they turned out. Getting eight moms and half a million kids (or did it just seem that way?) all looking in the right direction at the right time is a challenge I hope I’ll never face in my photographic career!! 😉 I’ll get a CD next week with a few more shots, and I’ll share them and more details about the program as I receive them.

Happy Friday!

Phew, is it just me or has someone hit the fast-forward button on life this week? Yowza! So much to tell you about, and no time to write a coherent blog post!

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been selected to be one of a handful of official bloggers for Fisher-Price Canada. Last weekend, Lucas and I flew down to Toronto for a day to meet the other bloggers and the marketing team. What a riot!

While I love a good road trip, I don’t get too many chances to travel by air. I was going to say this was Lucas’s first time in a plane, but the last time I flew down to Toronto for a social media conference was back in December of 2007, and I was about eight months pregnant with him. He was a lot easier to manage in utero!

I have to take a minute to say how much WestJet impressed me on this trip. I’ve never flown with them before, and I don’t know whether it was Lucas or me who was more delighted when the agent who checked us in invited Lucas over to his side of the baggage counter. He let Lucas attach the destination label to our suitcase and helped him push the button that sent our bag on its way to the plane. All the WestJet staff were amazingly pleasant, and we were even given a quick tour of the cockpit when we boarded.

I admit, I was a little leery of flying with a three-year-old, but he was an absolute angel. In fact, the business man whose face visibly fell when he approached his seat and realized he’d be spending his flight sitting next to Lucas even complimented me on his behaviour on the way into Pearson.

It was a gorgeous day to be flying out of Ottawa. We’re just banking over the the Ottawa River here, right around Shirley’s Bay, I think.

I’d picked up a bottle of water and some trail mix in the airport and Lucas snacked on them during ascent and descent to keep his ears clear, and he spent most of the flight happily playing Smurfs on Beloved’s iTouch. When we had to shut that off for takeoffs and landings (which, on the flight from Ottawa to Toronto, comprises nearly half the flight!) we had some stickers and crayons handy. I tell ya, I’m learning that the Boy Scouts were on to something with their preparation motto!

I tried to get a good picture of the driver who met us at the airport holding a card with my name on it — not likely I’ll get that experience a second time!! — but with one hand on Lucas and one hand on our suitcase, a carry-on bag and my purse slung around my neck, there were simply no hands free to snap the shutter.

I did, however, pull out my iPhone to snap baby’s first limo ride!

This is typical of how the weekend went, with the lovely peeps at Mom Central Canada, Spider Marketing and Fisher-Price making us feel like royalty with their thoughtfulness every step of the way.

We stayed at the downtown Marriott hotel that’s attached to the Eaton Centre, so Lucas and I dined in typical style in the Eaton Centre food court. (Man, and I thought the Rideau Centre food court was a cesspool of humanity! I was so anxious from the sheer crowdedness of the place that I couldn’t wait to get out of there!)

On Saturday, we spent an entire day on location in the photographer’s studio in downtown Toronto. Ordinarily, I’d’ve been in nirvana to spend eight hours in a studio, but all the excitement of the week had started to catch up with me and frankly, I wasn’t feeling well. Despite that, I had a great time meeting the folks from Mom Central, from the Fisher-Price marketing team, and the other bloggers.

We had our hair and makeup professionally done, and we had professional wardrobe consultants on site. We had three separate photo shoots: one with just me and Lucas, one with half of the other bloggers and their kids, and one giant group shot with all the bloggers and their kids. Here’s Nadia and her adorable little fellow taken from the loft above the studio.

And here’s a close-up of Nadia’s son Thomas. Isn’t he a cutie?

In between our turns in front of the camera, we chatted and played with Fisher-Price toys and chatted and snacked and chatted. Oh, and there was a lot of this going on:

I’m pretty sure — but not positive — that they’re not talking to each other! 😉 That’s Nadia and our token pregnant blogger, Ilissa.

We ended up wrapping the day a little early. While we waited for our car to arrive and whisk us back to the airport, I noticed that nobody was using the studio with the white backdrop. The big softboxes were turned off, but I still had fun capturing a little private photo shoot in the studio with Lucas.

And then we were off, back to the airport and back to Ottawa in a flash. A mere 30 hours after we’d departed, we descended the escalator at the airport to be greeted by Beloved, Tristan and Simon in the arrivals lounge.

It was a hectic but fun-filled day-and-a-half, and I can’t wait to see those photos! I should have them for you soon, and I’ll have more news about how the year-long campaign with Fisher-Price will go, too. In the interim, HUGE thanks to Mom Central Canada (especially Pam, Cora and Kathryn) and Spider Marketing and Fisher-Price for the amazing trip. We had a blast!

Check out this picture that Beloved pulled out of his archive. I’m guessing this is Christmas 1974.

I told you we’ve always loved Fisher-Price!

As you know, I am very selective about advertising, product reviews and giveaways. Any service or brand that gets featured here comes with my personal endorsement, which I won’t give lightly.

Not too long ago, I had a great offer for a year-long blogging affiliation that would have come with an all-expenses-paid trip to BlogHer 11 in San Diego, and I turned it down because I simply couldn’t see myself investing emotionally in the company in the way I’d need to blog about it authentically. It was a huge multinational and I’m sure you’d recognize the name, but it just wasn’t the right fit for me, and for the blog. Turning down that free trip to BlogHer was painful, but in retrospect it was 100% the right choice.

And today, I’m dancing on my toes with excitement to tell you about the offer that I *did* accept! Yep, this is the thing that I’ve been not-quite-able to talk about for weeks. *squee*

Starting this weekend, I’ll be one of 10 Canadian moms chosen to be the official bloggers for: Fisher-Price Canada! Is that not awesome? I can’t think of too many brands I love and trust as much as Fisher-Price. Our closets and toy bins overflow with Fisher-Price products, from the Rainforest cradle swing to the Healthy Care highchair (that endured all three boys and was still good enough to give away for more use) and the Healthy Care booster seat that we’re still using to the Little People sets of every shape and size to the GeoTrax that Lucas just inherited from Tristan — and that’s just off the top of my head! I’m sure there’s oodles more if I looked around. I can tell you free of any endorsement or affiliation, we love Fisher-Price toys and gear.

So when the opportunity came up, it was easy for me to say yes to Fisher-Price. This weekend, they’re bringing all of the bloggers together in Toronto for a meet-and-greet and a (eep!) photo shoot. Lucas and I will be flying out to Toronto on Friday afternoon, and rushing back on Saturday to make it home in time for Tristan’s birthday party on Sunday. I’d hoped the whole family could go, but they were focusing on kids under five years old for this particular photo shoot.

As you can see, I didn’t even have to look too hard into my Flickr archives to demonstrate our ongoing affection for the Fisher-Price brand!!

(Although, I have to tell you, it pains me to feature some of these old pictures from a photographic perspective. Even though I’ve always loved taking pictures, I’ve sure come a long way in the last few years!!)

And how cute is this? All three boys eating their first birthday cake in the same Healthy Care high chair! That’s Tristan in 2003, Simon in 2005 and Lucas in 2009, from left to right.

I’m so pleased to be working with Fisher-Price and Mom Central Canada for the next year on this project, and I can’t wait to tell you more about it. Our whole family is excited, including Beloved who still waxes nostalgic about his Fisher-Price Sesame Street Little People set from the 1970s. Do you have a favourite Fisher-Price toy or product?

Congratulations to Julie of Coffee With Julie for winning the Sesame Street Live giveaway. Yay! You’ll be receiving four tickets to the performance this Saturday, January 22 at 11 am.

And for the rest of you, tickets are still on sale through Capital Tickets!

Thank you to Scotiabank Place for sponsoring this fun giveaway, and to everyone who commented with their favourite Sesame Street skits and songs. I’ll have the pinball song rattling around in my head for weeks to come! 🙂

It’s no secret that we’re long-time fans of Sesame Street – when I searched the term on the blog, I got four pages of posts mentioning it. So when the fine peeps at Scotiabank Place asked if I’d be interested in promoting the new stage production, “Sesame Street Live: Elmo’s Green Thumb,” I was delighted to say yes.

From the press release:

Sunny isn’t just the weather forecast on Sesame Street – it’s also the name of Elmo’s sunflower friend! Join all your favorite friends on an amazing musical adventure as they help Elmo find a new home for Sunny when Sesame Street Live “Elmo’s Green Thumb” performs at Scotiabank Place on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 23 at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Elmo has raised his sunflower, Sunny, from a seed, but his floral friend has outgrown the flower pot. Elmo and friends find Big Bird’s garden the ideal place for Sunny to flourish and grow but they are too excited to wait. Rather than let Sunny follow nature’s course, Abby Cadabby, Sesame Street’s fairy-in-training, casts a spell to make Sunny grow. The spell does just the opposite and, instead of growing, Elmo and all of his friends shrink. While Abby searches for just the right words to reverse the spell, Elmo, Zoe, Telly and friends explore Big Bird’s garden from a smaller perspective and learn some big lessons about patience, overcoming their fears and appreciating the role that each creature plays in our ecosystem – from dancing ladybugs and beautiful butterflies to grouchy beetles that scavenge the garden floor. Will being small help Sunny grow tall? It’s a fresh, original Sesame Street Live on a whole new scale.

Like television’s Sesame Street, each Sesame Street Live production features timeless lessons for all ages. The universal appeal of each Broadway-quality musical production continues long after preschool. Adults will appreciate the high-tech stagecraft, cleverly written script, and music they’ll recognize and enjoy sharing with children, such as “Ladybug Picnic,” “Inch by Inch” and “I Love Trash.”

Is it sad that I’m ridiculously excited to see two of my favourite Sesame Street songs (Ladybug Picnic and I Love Trash) on the playbill? Could we dare hope to hear What’s the Name of That Song?

This looks like a terrific production, and I’m happy to be able to offer a free set of tickets to the show: a family four pack of tickets in the 100 level to the performance on Saturday January 22 at 11 am. Yay! If you’d like to be entered, leave a comment on this post with either your favourite Sesame Street skit or song. (Here’s a little hint to stir your memory!)

If you would like more information about the show, or if you want to purchase your own tickets, visit the Capital Tickets website.

If you would like to win, here’s the fine print:

1. The giveaway runs from January 10 to 14, 2011 .
2. The prize is a family four-pack of tickets to the January 22, 11 am Sesame Street Live show at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.
3. To enter, you must leave a comment on this post telling me your favourite Sesame Street skit or song, and leave a valid e-mail address.
4. I will provide your contact information to a representative from Scotiabank Place, who will arrange for delivery of the prize package directly with you.
5. Contest closes midnight EST on Friday January 14.
6. A winner will be selected from all entries using Random.org around noon on Monday January 17, 2011.

Disclosure: I received a promotional set of five tickets to the same show.

Thanks to Scotiabank Place and Sesame Street Live for a most excellent giveaway! Good luck!!

So remember I got that great big box of goodies filled with PC Holiday treats a couple of weeks ago? It was followed up by two more shipments of goodies, each item wrapped and dated in the most delightful advent-style grocery calendar.

I’m pretty spoiled. I think this is the third — maybe fourth? — time the good peeps at President’s Choice and Hill and Knowlton have hooked me up with treats from the Insider’s Report. And to be honest? This batch was the best so far. BEST!! Not that I would ever dare to complain about free groceries, but some of the items in previous blitzes were head-scratchers to me, either things not to our family’s taste or things we couldn’t quite figure out how to use. (Don’t worry, nothing went to waste and whatever we didn’t use found a good home elsewhere.)

But the PC Insider Report stuff for this holiday season? OMG, delicious! The jumbo cashews and the Gourmet Belgian chocolates (!!) were huge hits around here. The 100% Hawaiian Medium Roast Coffee is just as good — maybe even better! — than my go-to favourite PC Great Canadian Coffee. The whole family voted two thumbs up for the PC Red Velvet Cheesecake. The PC Chocolate Fruit Fancies disappeared so quickly I didn’t even get a chance to try them! (They must have disappeared from the website, too. Couldn’t find them anywhere!)

There were lots of neat ideas for gift-giving, including two sizes of PC Baker’s Gift Loaf Pan, which I thought was a really neat idea. It’s a set of six cardboard pans that you can use to bake up some holiday treats (like maybe the yummy and easy-to-use PC Belgian Chocolate Square Baking Mix), and then give away without having to worry about the container. They even come with cute red ribbons! I’d love to show you the link to them, but no matter how I try to search for them I can’t find them on the PC product website. (This happened last year, too. Love PC products, but their website makes me insane.)

But I think my absolute favourite of them all were these drool-worth PC Mini Peanut Butter Melts. We’re on our third bag this month!! They’re delicious baked into muffins (Beloved’s specialty) and I can just imagine them in cookies, but I like to snack on them right out of the bag. In fact, maybe you’d better not try them. They’re crack!

Oh, I should mention, there were a few other non-dessert items thrown in. In fact, the Dine-In Tonight Slow Cooked Beef Bourguignon is on the menu for tonight — I’ve been itching to try this one. Beloved and Simon particularly enjoyed the PC Dry-Seasoned Rotisserie-Style Chicken Wings, although I must admit I slathered mine in a coating of hot-wing sauce. (When we order wings in a pub, I pretty much like to suck off the sauce and pass on the chicken, but that’s just me.)

President’s Choice has a lot of great new products for the holiday season, but my very favourite of all of them wasn’t even among the products I received. Have you tried the new Blue Menu Spicy Basmati Rice with Edamame? Again, drool-worthy. I buy this every single time I go to the grocery store lately. It’s great as a side dish to my super-easy five-ingredient chicken fingers, and a portion of the bag also makes for a reasonably healthy and filling quick lunch.

In all, we received 24 awesome products in three drop shipments, and there was not a single one we didn’t enjoy. Thank you very much to my friends at H&K for another fun season of PC Holiday joy — both for the terrific products, and for the great fun the boys had anticipating and opening each day’s grocery gift. And of course, the packing peanuts.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a really fun pitch. I have to say, I get so many news releases and pitches and one-pagers these days, that I barely have time to scan them, let alone reply or take action. But every now and then, one pitch stands out. This was one of them. The subject line said, “If you like chocolate, you might like this.”

One gold star for an interesting, informative and USEFUL subject line. I can tell it’s a pitch, but it’s got potential. So I read the e-mail, and the author has taken the time to at least skim my blog. He tells me his wife reads it and loves it. Note to PR folks: compliments will get you everywhere! You know what else gets you in the door? Colloquial, personal style. And? Free chocolate. So how could I resist a pitch like this? “So we are doing a blogger outreach program for M&Ms and would like to send you samples. That means chocolate. Like, lots of it. And most people love chocolate AND free. And almost all love free chocolate.”

Of all the pitches I get, maybe ten or twenty per cent of them ask me for my mailing address, so they can mail me a free sample of something. And of those, I am willing to share my address with about five a year. This was one of those times.

About a week later, I got a fun box in the mail. I wish I’d taken a picture, but it was chaos that night. The package was excellent! The outer box was all decorated with maps of Toronto, and the inside box was a 12 inch red square box shaped like a giant red M&M. And it was filled? With M&Ms, of course.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but they’re running this amazing cross-social-media online contest called “Find Red.”

Help the gang find Red by locating each of the 3 locations in the City of Toronto where Red is hidden at FindRed.ca. Find clues at high-traffic check-in points around the City of Toronto and scan participating M&M’S® product barcodes* using your iPhone or Android to find even more clues. And look out for posters of the M&M’S® characters with QR codes in the downtown core of the City of Toronto. Find and scan one to reveal a Community clue in the “Clues” tab above for everyone to use.

Fun, eh? It’s a really clever promo. I love the whole concept, and I wish I’d had time to blog about it before. There are still three days remaining if you’ve got some time on your hands. FIND RED!

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the highlights of the day was the arrival of a REALLY BIG BOX. And yes, as Julie guessed in yesterday’s comments, this box did have something to do with our ongoing PC Holiday giveaway.

I was expecting a box of President’s Choice products. I wasn’t expecting the bonus of three million packing peanuts and an entire rainy day worth of entertainment. I also wasn’t expecting a replay of the delightful fun we had last year when the fun peeps at Hill and Knowlton gift wrapped each product individually with tags specifying which package had to be opened on which day. Guess what? They did it again!

The first thing I pulled out of the box made me laugh, because I’d been idly fingering them literally minutes before at the Independent around the corner. After deciding that I’d already invested a little too much in decorating my festively-festooned porch (a story for another post!) I decided that I couldn’t splurge any more. And there in my gift box was one of these adorable (and, trust me, affordable!) evergreen PC Holiday Wreathes.

We were a little behind schedule, so after the wreath we had two more packages to open to catch up. Lucas helped!

Yesterday’s gift was a really clever idea: a set of gift loaf pans made out of lined paper. The idea is that you can bake a little loaf of something yummy and then wrap it up in the enclosed red ribbon for gifting. Simple and brilliant. (But better if I could find them on the PC website! Didn’t I kvetch about that last year, too? Grrr.)

Today’s gift was instantly coveted by Lucas, Tristan and me.

YUM!! The cashews are gigantic and meaty and salty, oh my! I’ve hidden them in the cupboard so I can ration them out. One for you, five for me. One for you, sixteen for me. I’m smacking my lips just thinking about them!

Thanks to the clever and kind folks at Hill and Knowlton, and to President’s Choice. This is a great new holiday tradition that our whole family loves!

You know what I love about the holidays? Traditions. And what are traditions but simple repetition?

With that inelegant introduction, I give you the President’s Choice Holiday Giveaway 2010. We did this last year, too. Remember the advent calendar of individually-wrapped PC products? And the nearly 200 people who made it one of the most commented-upon posts of the year? That was fun, let’s do it again!

Thanks to our friends and Loblaws and Hill and Knowlton, I am happy to share with you the opportunity to win a gift basket filled to bursting with $100 worth of holiday goodness.

Doesn’t that look like fun? Here’s what you’ll find inside:

• MUST TRY! PC The World’s Best Jumbo Cashews
• MUST TRY! PC 100% Ground Coffee – Hawaiian
• MUST TRY! PC Dark Chocolate with Cranberry and Almonds
• MUST TRY! PC Gourmet Belgian Chocolate Collection
• NEW! PC Premium Fruit and Nut Collection
• NEW! PC Artichoke & Asiago Cheese Yogurt Dressing
• NEW! PC Thick Cut Pizza Flavour Rippled Potato Chips
• NEW! PC 100% Sparkling Fruit Juice – Kiwi Berry
• NEW! PC White Chocolate Covered Sponge Toffee
• NEW! PC Butter Tart Square
• NEW! PC Cinnamon Buns Mix
• NEW! PC Cracker Collection
• NEW! PC Chocolate Fruit Fancies
• PC Baking Square Mix – Belgian Chocolate
• A $10 PC gift card to help stock your holiday survival kit with the MUST TRY! PC Puff Pastry Hors D’Oeuvre Collection or the NEW! PC Angus Sliders Mini Angus Beef Burgers
• A copy of this year’s President’s Choice Holiday Insider’s Report to help entertain smarter, not harder this holiday season

And lookit how they packaged it all up in a reuseable PC Green Bin tote for you. Awesome, eh?

The contest is open from now through noon EST on Friday 19 November 2010. There are three ways you can earn a ballot to enter this giveaway:

1. Leave a comment below and share an idea for a favourite family meal. We all need some inspiration this time of year when it comes to meal planning, and sometimes all we need is a new idea. Your comment can be as simple as a suggested menu plan (and by menu I mean everything from “peanut butter sandwiches, apple slices and milk all around” to “baby greens with aged chevre, followed by braised chicken with scallions and a balsamic reduction”) or, if you’re really keen, share an entire recipe for a tried and true family favourite.
2. For another chance to win, write about the giveaway on your blog, linking to this post, and come back and leave me a comment with the URL to let me know about it. In fact, share your meal planning or recipe idea on your blog too and alleviate the meal-time planning burden of even MORE people! 😉
3. For another chance to win, tweet the giveaway on Twitter using hashtag #PCHoliday and linking to this blog post, and leave me a comment with a link to your status update. (You can create a direct link to your Twitter update by clicking on the time of the update and saving that link.) You can use this tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/2g6egnx

Edited to add: Sorry, I should have specified. Maximum number of entries is one per channel — one for commenting, one for blogging, one for tweeting. Multiple tweets are greatly appreciated, but will still only get you one entry into the giveaway! 😉

The fine print: this contest is open to Canadian residents only. One winner will be chosen by using the random number generator at random.org, selected from all eligible entries. The winner will be selected the afternoon or evening of November 20, 2010. You must be willing to share your mailing address with me, and I will share it with Hill and Knowlton Canada, who will ship the prize directly to the winner.

You can buy President’s Choice products at Loblaws, Independent, Extra Foods, No Frills, Superstore, Fortinos, ValuMart, Zehrs, Maxi, Provigo, SaveEasy and Dominion — here’s an online store locator!

Thanks to Loblaws and Hill and Knowlton for another fun giveaway. I’m looking forward to seeing your comments!

Edited to add: Congratulations to Leanne of Momcast, winner of the 2010 PC Holiday giveaway! Yay! I’ll send you an e-mail to get your contact deets. Thanks to everyone for your excellent comments and meal ideas. 🙂