Category: Family

SuperKind: Help Spread RAOK Around the World

How many of you have been personally touched by a RAOK? Maybe someone paid for your coffee on a day you were running late, held a door open for you instead of rushing off and slamming it in your face or maybe a neighbour cleaned up your leaves as a surprise. Every little act of kindness goes a long way to help make our world a better place! SuperKind wants to help you, help your child learn these valuable lessons.

SuperKind: Teaching RAOK

So what exactly is SuperKind?

SuperKind is a personalized product aimed at spreading RAOK around the world while building a team of RAOK superheroes! Each SuperKind kit contains sixteen custom kindness cards, sixteen custom stickers and a certificate to stick the stickers to.

SuperKind: Spreading RAOK

The cards are double-sided and about the size of a business card (2″x3.5″). On one side of the card is a picture of your child performing a RAOK. The idea is for your child to perform the act of kindness and then pass the card on encouraging the next person to perform an act of kindness in the next seventy-two hours.

SuperKind: Spreading RAOK

SuperKind wants all children to be able to participate in this campaign, so right now you can receive a free digital version of this campaign just by sharing the Kickstarter page. A win-win for all children (and their parents too!).

SuperKind: Spreading RAOK

You can also enter to win a $500 Cash giveaway on the SuperKind website right now! Make sure to head over there now to enter and find out more about this awesome project from SuperKind.

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How We Pamper Our Fur Baby at PetSmart

How We Pamper Our Toopy with Petsmart

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias

It has been said that man’s best friend is his dog. For us, this statement could not be any more true.

How We Pamper Our Toopy

We first brought home, Toopy a bichon shih tzu, when our eldest was two years old. We had moved into our first townhouse and we were finding it hard to fall pregnant again. We wanted a friend not only for our son but us too! I still remember the first night we brought Toopy home – she was so tiny and would literally hang onto our ankles as she was too scared to be on her own. I spent the first three nights laying downstairs with her sleeping on my head to help soothe her and stop her crying.

How We Pamper Our Toopy with Petsmart

Almost eight years later and I can’t imagine a day without our Toopy  (who has been affectionately nicknamed Miss Toopelina). Toopy has quite the personality (some days I am surprised she wasn’t born a cat as she loves to sit on the top part of the couches and don’t even mention walks, she hates them!).

She has also become the best of friends with both of our boys. She is so much more than a pet, she acts as though they are her own children with how protective she is. When our youngest was a baby, she would sit under his chair making sure no one was getting too close to him or upsetting him, so cute right?!.

How We Pamper Our Toopy at Petsmart

This may come as no surprise to other pet owners,  but we love to spoil our Toopy. The best place to do this? PetSmart. It is honestly like dog paradise.

How We Pamper Our Toopy at PetSmart

Toopy knows exactly where we are the minute we drive in the PetSmart parking lot and she can start sniffing around. From the parking lot to the front door, Toopy’s senses are alive as she smells other animals, sees them coming in and all the neat toys at the front.

PetSmart has everything we have ever needed for Toopy, from toys to beds to food to grooming. It is our all in one store for shopping and the bonus is that Toopy can come in and help ‘pick’ her toys. On our last visit, Toopy even made a friend with a rescue dog that was the same breed as her! I was able to talk with the owner about their similar skin conditions. Both of our dogs had developed skin irritations later in life which has involved rounds of steroids injections, fungal as well as antibiotics and ointments. It was pretty awesome to be able to talk to another pet parent about our concerns and to know that we were not alone.

How We Pamper Our Fur Baby at PetSmart

Toopy left PetSmart with a brand new bed (because of her skin condition her bed needs to be changed almost monthly) and two new toys. The boys convinced me that these were the two best toys for her because in the store she came running when they squeaked!

How We Pamper Our Toopy at PetSmart

And clearly, Toopy couldn’t wait to get them in her new bed – she didn’t even wait for me to take the tags of her bed before she claimed it as her own!

How We Pamper Our Toopy at PetSmart

We love to spoil and pamper our Toopy because honestly she deserves it. She is always the most nurturing member in our home, senses our moods and always tries to make us feel better. None of us could even begin to imagine life without her.

Where do you take your fur baby to spoil them and purchase items for their everyday needs?

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Declutter Your Home and Earn Money with VarageSale

Have you made purchases that you almost immediately regret? Like the twentieth sleeper for your child that they will never wear? Maybe that deep fryer that seemed like a good purchase at the time but you never actually deep fry anything (I still don’t know why we bought it!)?

I know as a family we have done this too many times. These purchases always seem like a must have in the moment but then they sit in a closet, garage or basement for months and years. Garage sales and classified ads make me nervous (nor do I have the time to commit myself to this), and I am too uncomfortable to post or sell in the Mom groups on Facebook.

Declutter and Earn Money with VarageSale

VarageSale is an online community where you can safely buy or sell items and connect with locals in your community. VarageSale was founded in 2012 and currently has communities in 42 states in the US, Canada and world-wide. They are continuing to expand in Canada and have just recently included a community in Hamilton. VarageSale is completely free to use (win-win!) as well as having a mobile app for iOS, Android and Kindle. This is perfect for so many of us who do the majority of our work on our smart phones – I live and work on my phone so for me, an app like this saves time and increases efficiency. How to Declutter Your Home with VarageSale VarageSale offers:

  • local community groups, with a new group in Hamilton
  • easy labelling that lets users know if an item is for sale, pending or sold
  • recommend sellers and follow their feeds to see what they are currently selling
  • easy search options with multiple categories to explore
  • a safe environment to sell items within your own community

How to Declutter Your Home and Earn Money with VarageSale

Setting up an account is simple and free, you can set up your account on VarageSale. Once you have a live account, you can start uploading photos and items to sell, search other users and browse through your notifications.

This is the perfect way for busy families to safely sell unused items in their community while earning extra money that can go back into their family budget or for extra curricular activities (for us – soccer!). Which I know so many of us would appreciate the extra boost in their bank account.

Still on the fence? Watch this quick video:

How do you declutter your home? Have you set up a VarageSale account?

Make sure you follow VarageSale online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Disclosure: I received compensation for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Bring Back Family Movie Night with Netflix #StreamTeam

netflix

Now that school has started it seems like we have jumped right back into the crazy schedules – soccer practices, swimming, parent council, school meetings, homework and so much more. It is enough to drive any person bonkers trying to keep up with it all. In all of this, it is so important to remember family time. We never want this to be overlooked and always make time once a week for quality family time. Our favourite way to spend this time? Family movie night!

So how do you rock family movie night? Here is how:

Let your child get in on the fun by choosing the show to watch on Netflix. Our boys love to be the official movie pickers (is that even a term?) for our family movie night. The children have their own special sections to log in to on Netflix so that we can find movies geared towards them. Some top family favourites are: Night at the Museum, Shark Tale and Meet the Robinsons.

Bring Back Family Movie Night with Netflix

Popcorn time! Get the popcorn out and ready to go – it is the perfect partner to a family movie night. If you want to go full-out you can create a popcorn bar full of goodies for your child to top off their popcorn with.

Bring Back Family Movie Night with Netflix

Let your child be a movie critic. What child doesn’t like to be a little bit of a critic and tell you exactly what they think (and when I mean exactly, no holding back there!). Let your child use these skills and elaborate on the movie, maybe talk about an invention, what they think happened after the movie finished or maybe even an important historical figure in the movie. These are important skills for children to learn.

Bring Back Family Movie Night with Netflix

Most importantly have fun with your child. Enjoy those precious moments and let their personalities shine.

How do you like to spend family time?

Disclosure: I am a Netflix #StreamTeam member and receive perks with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.

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One Week To Go: The Great Camp Adventure Walk #WalkForSickKids

Great Camp Adventure Walk

The past few weeks have flown by for me after I announced that I will be taking part in The Canaccord Genuity Great Camp Adventure Walk. This was important to me in so many ways. Sick Kids is an incredible hospital that does so much for the children and families that are treated there. They open their doors, hearts and give their all to their patients. I was privileged as a high school student to participate in a research study at Sick Kids. It was this study that sparked my love of medicine and the hope it gives families.

Great Camp Adventure Walk

What is The Great Camp Adventure Walk?

The Great Camp Adventure Walk is a challenge by choice event held in Toronto on September 26th. Participants can challenge themselves to a 5km, 10km, 15km or even a 20km walk. It is an event that is open to all: young children, families and even pets! The day is full of fun, camp like activities and more.

Participants can register on the Walk for Sick Kids website. If you would like to donate to my team, you can do so at our team page, Live, Dream, Hope. Our goal is to raise $1,000 and we are a quarter of the way there.

All donations raised go to The Possibilities Fund at Sick Kids Foundation. The goal this year is to raise over $2 million!

You can also enter to win a $100 donation to a team of your choosing and a $100 VISA gift card for yourself. A definite win-win!

The Great Camp Adventure Walk for SickKids Promotion Contest

Disclosure: I am part of the Canaccord Genuity Great Camp Adventure Walk for SickKids campaign with Influence Central and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.”

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