This is a sponsored post from BlogHer and McDonald’s.

I’m a sucker for family time. In fact, if too much time passes without some really intentional activities with my people, I get all discombobulated and twitchy and grumpy. To me there is nothing more fun than hanging out with the people I love the most, and when we have that solid, uninterrupted time together, I just treasure it. It’s like a great big hug that lasts for days at a time.

I could probably bore you to tears with an exhaustive list of all my favorite family activities, so I’ll spare you. I will tell you, though, that right now I am really carried away with how our summer pool and beach time brings us closer together. In the fall I’m all about road trips to college football games and getting to hang out with old friends and their kids. The winter makes me long for big holiday gatherings with our extended family, and when spring rolls around, I’ll be ready for us to get outside and kick the soccer ball and spend Saturday mornings on the soccer field.

And then there’s the day-to-day stuff that knits us together – sitting outside while we re-hash the day, eating dinner together at the kitchen table, reading before bedtime and snuggling up for no reason at all. Those are the things that I treasure the most as a family, and those are the things that we can do together no matter where we are.

A few months ago we had a few days of family time in Chicago (with McDonald’s) – which was a little outside the norm for us – and one of the neatest parts of our trip was taking a tour of a Ronald McDonald House®. While I’ve known about the great work that goes on at Ronald McDonald Houses for the last fifteen or twenty years, seeing that work in person was something really special for our family. It’s a place that provides stability and care for families when they’re in the midst of difficult circumstances, and it gives them a way to continue to share family time with each other even when they’re navigating their way through medical issues.

And here’s some exciting news from the McDonald’s folks:

As part of the “Family Time. Happy Time.” campaign McDonald’s® and Ronald McDonald House Charities® (RMHC®) have developed the “Make Family Time Happy Time” online widget application. The “Make Family Time Happy Time” widget encourages moms to join other moms in the Family Time conversation and share “happy” tips for quality family time.

Through the widget you can pledge minutes or hours of activities with your family in celebration of what matters most – spending time together. We also invite you to join the conversation and share your favorite family activities with other families through the widget. You can then share the widget with your friends and family through Twitter, Facebook, and email. In addition, as part of this campaign, McDonald’s will donate 1 penny to RMHC® for every minute of time you pledge to spend with your family up to 1,000,000 minutes. Minutes and pennies are tiny amounts that, when added up over time, can make a big impact, so start pledging your family time!

Isn’t that great? You pledge family time, and McDonald’s gives money to RMHC®. That’s a win-win.

If the widget isn’t showing up here, you can find it – and pledge your time – on McDonald’s Facebook page.

If you’d like to win a McDonald’s prize pack – which includes a $25 gift card to McDonald’s, a Just Give gift card for the charity of your choice and all sorts of other fun stuff (estimated value $100) – go pledge family time on McDonald’s “Make Family Time Happy Time” widget and let us know what you pledged in the comment section for a chance to win! And after you share your pledge, feel free to share any favorite family memories you have that are tied to McDonald’s.

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who are participating in this giveaway (they’re listed over on the BlogHer.com special offers page). And by all means feel free to check out the official rules.

This giveaway is now closed.

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

I was never really a fan of breakfast when I was growing up. I would usually eat whatever my mama fixed so as not to rock the early morning boat, but it was mostly something I tolerated, not enjoyed. And when I got to college, breakfast became something that I just flat-out ignored. I wasn’t even remotely interested in it.

I would not recommend this practice, by the way. My breakfast-less philosophy was right up there with my maybe-if-I-only-eat-popcorn-I’ll-lose-10-pounds philosophy. That is to say: worthless.

Youth is wasted on the young, my friends.

But when I was in my mid-20s, a switch flipped, and suddenly breakfast became my very favorite meal of the day. I don’t have any idea what caused this seismic shift – it certainly wasn’t because I loved to wake up early, because truth be told I would sleep until the crack of noon whenever I could – but I started to see breakfast as a meal that was chock-full of possibilities. I also started to recognize that I was way more productive – not to mention cheerful – when I took the time to fix myself a good breakfast. It’s a habit that’s stuck with me through the years.

Since I know firsthand the difference between a day that begins with a great breakfast and one that doesn’t, I’ve tried to be very intentional about making sure our little guy gets a good start to his day – every day. I really like to fix a hot breakfast, but time doesn’t always cooperate (or maybe the real problem is that I don’t always cooperate with time). My husband leaves the house much earlier than my little boy and I do (most mornings), so it’s usually just the two of us at the breakfast table. It’s one of my favorite times of the day. We both love cheese grits (not the instant kind), so that’s always a big hit, and we love to talk about how tasty our grits are while we’re eating. Perhaps we have some grits-related issues.

I’m a die-hard oatmeal person in the fall and winter, but since my child does not share my oatmeal-related enthusiasm, I usually sacrifice the oatmeal for the convenience of making something we’ll both eat (I don’t know if I mentioned it, but we’re fans of cheese grits). But we like other stuff, too: cheese toast, peanut butter toast with a banana, cinnamon-sugar toast or bacon and eggs. Last spring I got on a kick of making breakfast sandwiches with English muffins, eggs and bacon, and that’s probably going to be our go-to breakfast when we crank up our back-to-school routine in a couple of weeks. Some mornings we eat cereal, and it never ceases to fascinate me that my child likes his milk on the side. To me this practice is sort of like making chocolate chip cookies with the chocolate chips on the side, but apparently dry cereal is loaded with all sorts of tasty nuances that I have yet to experience. I’ll just take his word for it.

More than anything, it’s important to me that we share that time together in the morning – the food and the conversation fuel our day. I think it’s critical for kids to have variety in their meals and to continually try different foods. Breakfast is a great time to introduce them to new kinds of bread, cereal and fruit, don’t you think?

So what about you? What’s your favorite breakfast food? Leave a comment with your answer, and you’ll be entered to win a $100 Visa gift card (and come back next week to enter again – because these giveaways will continue for the next 11 weeks).

And be sure to visit the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page – you have 24 other chances to win $100 every single week that this program is running!

Mom’s Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids’ cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. To learn more about the program, visit www.betterbythebowl.com.

This giveaway is now closed.