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Quaker Joy of Warmth Snowsuit

Bring The Joy Of Warmth To Those In Need This Winter

I’m just going to go ahead and admit it. I take for granted that my family is fortunate enough to have the means to stay warm throughout the winter. I also often take for granted that we have enough food on our plates, among other luxuries. That’s not to say I don’t try to do my part to help those in need, but simply that I sometimes get stuck in my cocoon and maybe don’t do as much as I should to give back.

According to the Angus Reid Institute, for one in five Canadian families, proper winter clothing has been a luxury they can’t afford This means that your child that your child may have friends at school who are suffering silently, while playing it off like they are “too cool” for winter clothes or that they just don’t like playing outside in the winter.

Quaker Joy of Warmth

Last week I was approached by Quaker® to see if I’d like to partner with them on their #JoyOfWarmth initiative and after reading about it, I couldn’t have been happier to say yes! The Quaker® brand has been warming Canadian families with hot oatmeal since 1902. This year, they want to help Canadian families in-need feel the #JoyOfWarmth by providing their children with winter coats to help stay warm during our cold Canadian winter.

On top of Quaker® working with Boys and Girls Clubs in Canada to provide new winter coats to children from families inneed, during the month of November, when you share the hashtag #JoyOfWarmth and tag @QuakerCanada on your public Facebook, Twitter or Instagram profile, Quaker will provide a bowl of warm oatmeal to a child in need at Boys and Girls Club locations across the country, to a maximum of 100,000 bowls! Now that’s a lot of oatmeal!!

Quaker Joy of Warmth Oatmeal

I think we can all agree that tweeting, posting a photo or a Facebook post are all very easy things to do to create such a huge impact. I would also like to challenge those of you with the means to do so to pick up an extra snowsuit this year while you are out shopping for your kids and donate it somewhere you know that it will go to a child in-need this winter. Imagine not being able to play outside because your parents couldn’t afford warm clothes. Every single piece of warm clothing makes a huge difference in a child’s life!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Quaker® but this is a very important cause that we can all contribute to that will make a huge difference!

Quaker Chewy Super Grains

Why Didn’t You Eat Your Lunch??

We have asked our children this question on an almost daily basis for this entire school year. I have no idea what it is about the lunches we are packing that repulses the children so much but it seems the one thing we can count on in our house is a less than half eaten lunch when they get home from school.

When prompted about their decisions to neglect their lunches we have received a number of different, yet equally unsatisfying answers, that range from “They didn’t give us enough time!!” to the half-mumbled version of “I don’t know” that sounds kind of like Tarzan’s roar if he were to do it quietly and curtly. It is a frustrating daily exercise that we have tried to fix in a number of ways but still seem to be losing the battle.

Much like the rest of you, we have very active kids who compete in multiple sports and activities. I’m actually at a loss on how to explain to them that they need this food in order to fuel themselves throughout the day, as everything we have tried seems to go in one ear and out the other. Actually, if you guys have any tips, please feel free to share them in the comments because I am all ears! All this said, we have found a few items that the kids will eat no matter how little time their dictators, oops, I mean teachers give them.

The latest such items are the new Quaker Chewy® Super Grains granola bars, which were sent to us by Quaker for the kids to try out. In the last week since we have been sending them in the kids lunches, they are the only empty compartment in the lunch bags when they return home and the kids would eat them all in one sitting if I left them out in the open. The things I didn’t tell the kids are the reasons why I am happy they are eating them. The Quaker Chewy® Super Grains granola bars are made in a peanut-free facility and combine super grains like whole grain oats, brown rice, whole wheat, quinoa, sorghum, and barley to deliver 8 g of whole grains, 5 g of protein and 2 g of fibre. Remember the mention of fuel earlier? This is at least some of the fuel they will need to get through their afternoon activities.

Quaker Chewy Super Grains Kids

I will admit that the lunch time battle is far from over but I will definitely take these small victories as they come. I mean, my kids are enjoying both the Oats & Chocolate and Oats & Honey flavours of the Quaker Chewy® Super Grains granola bars. That’s a win in itself for my picky eaters and we are now one step closer to an empty lunchbox at the end of the day. Now if only we could force them to eat their fruit…

How about you? Do you have picky lunch eaters? How do you deal with it? No, seriously, please help!

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in this program but I did in fact have to hide the granola bars because my son is a granola monster who would hide in his room and eat them all in 2 minutes…

Quaker The Recital Giveaway

Win A Quaker Prize Pack Including $250 In Gift Cards!

To celebrate my participation in Quaker’s campaign for their “The Recital” video, they are letting me give away this amazing prize pack to one lucky reader! This campaign has been really eye opening for me in that it has got me thinking about how easy it is to fall into a routine with our kids. Don’t get me wrong, routines are great and all but I think we still need to step outside the box every now and then to show our kids that it is okay to take risks.

I hope you enjoy this giveaway, picture above, and also take a minute to watch and share The Recital video again. I really love the new trend of emotional marketing, especially when it involves dads! This giveaway is not open to residents of Quebec and I’ll select a winner on September 24th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Daughter Window

Oh, The Places She’ll Go

When the doctor informed my wife and I that we were going to be having a daughter, a wave of panic came over me. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I would be a good enough father, it was more the fact that I had spent so much of my life around guys that I wasn’t sure how different life would be with a little girl around. You see, it had been well over 70 years since there had been a girl born on my father’s side of the family. My grandfather had four sons, three of them had two sons each and then two of us had boys as our first children. To say the odds were against us having a daughter would be a giant understatement.

Still, there she was, a beautiful baby girl staring back at me, wrapped in a pink blanket and wearing a pink knitted hat. She has been in my life for just over five years now and I can honestly say that having a little girl has changed the way I think about almost everything. Just when I think I have her figured out she never fails to throw me a curve ball. She fell in love with princesses and ballet so I assumed she was going to be a girlie girl. Next thing I know she’s running Spartan Races, destroying rock walls and bowling kids over at her soccer games.

Kids Spartan Race

Just this past weekend we went camping at the KOA in Cardinal and they have a gigantic inflatable water slide. If I’m being completely honest, I’m a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to rides and heights in general so I was hoping my kids wouldn’t be interested in the water slide. I got off the hook with my son because he was preoccupied with the Kids Bingo event but I could tell by the daredevil look in her eyes that there would be no denying her this adventure. Due to her lack of height she needed a parent to go up the ladder with her and, after my wife vanished in a puff of smoke, I ended up drawing the short straw. Here is an example of what we were going up against, although the picture does it no justice.

KOA Cardinal Water Slide

A funny thing happened on the way up to the top of the slide. My fear of heights vanished and was instead replaced by pride at watching her fearlessly climb her way to the top. As it turns out, her fearlessness helped me conquer one of my fears, which was a lot to process afterward. As we conquered the slide together I was reminded of the new Quaker video, The Recital (shown below), from earlier in the week and have since vowed to do more crazy and goofy things with my kids going forward. Life had gotten a little too serious lately and when that happens it can be easy to lose sight of what’s important. Let your freak flag fly, people, and enjoy the smiles that follow!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Quaker.

Kids Dad Video Games

Am I Making The Most Of My Time As A Father?

Where does the time go? I’m serious, what just happened here? I blinked and my children were another year older. It leaves me reflecting on whether I’m making the most of this time with them or if I’m letting it slip by too quickly. I had been asked to write something about the new video from Quaker, The Recital, and quickly planned out what I wanted to talk about. That changed instantly after I watched the video, however. There as a line in there that really resonated with me and it’s when the dad in the video says,

“And I hope she doesn’t think I work too much or don’t pay enough attention to her because I really do value the time we spend together”

That’s exactly it, isn’t it? This line just kept ringing in my ears afterward because it is exactly how I feel about my kids. I have a full time job and also freelance on the side so that my wife can stay home to raise the kids. This means that while most parents are chastised for having their phones out around their kids, I occasionally need to have mine out in order to pay the bills. Still, I wonder if the kids remember all the fun events they got to go to or will they only remember that daddy was on his phone (fulfilling social media obligations for that event) during them?

I worry everyday that my children won’t understand this and I do my very best to explain it to them and to keep my work to the times when we are not together, but I’m certainly not perfect. I actually considered leaving blogging earlier this year because I felt like it was taking away too much of my family time. I got to a point where there seemed to be so much going on that I just shut down to avoid it all. As it turns out, I just needed to implement some structure to what I do. Yes, after 4 years of this I am still learning how to manage it. Laugh away.

Daughter Globetrotter

This is the path we have chosen and I am grateful for every opportunity I have received and for every Harlem Globetrotter who has visited my house to play basketball with my kids… I just hope that my children will look back someday and remember that above all else their daddy loved them and did everything in his power to give them the best life possible. Now, grab some tissues and watch this very cool video from Quaker. PS – I’m already planning something special for my daughter and I to do together after watching this!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Quaker to showcase their new father/daughter video and hit me harder that I had expected. Do all the things you want to do with your kids before you blink and they have families of their own.

*Photo Credit: The cover photo was taken by David Redding Photography.