Family Time. Happy Time. Giveaway.

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

I just wrote a whole post about how we spend quality time together as a family, going into detail about our activities, then my husband came home with some shocking news. His coworker had just lost her 11 year old daughter. The little girl had a fever that lasted more than 24 hours and continued to get worse. The mother procrastinated on taking her to the ER. However, after almost 2 days, her daughter had gotten so sick, she took her to the ER as a last resort. A few hours later, the daughter had passed. An autopsy has to be preformed, but encephalitis is suspected.

My husband and I have both been very fortunate to have good health. Many times, when we see other sick kids, even when we were at the Ronald McDonald House®, we think, that’ll never happen to us.

The death of this extraordinarily healthy little girl made me realize death may be a mosquito bite away. It’s terrifying, we get several bites everyday. It’s nearly impossible to avoid those pesky mosquitoes here in Florida. Especially since foreclosures have left abandoned pools as breeding grounds for the critters. Budget cuts have nearly eliminated mosquito control. And the worse thing is that poor horse owners can’t afford to vaccinate their horses, which could lead to an outbreak of Encephalitis or West Nile.

When the death of a child touches close to home, the importance of quality family time is reinforced. Every moment counts with our children. We could lose them in a blink of an eye. It could be a mosquito bite, a snake, a car could hit them, lightening could strike, a creepy drifter might snatch them, you just never know.

Ok, enough giving you nightmares, let’s focus on the positive. Let’s try to make every moment count, and spend some quality family time together. I’ll touch a little on the previous post I had written.

Our attempts to make moments count are first and foremost having dinners together every night. After dinner, we usually make some popcorn together, or some other snack. Tonight, for instance, we’re making s’mores.

During the day, I take him to the pool alot. We like to go to a local water park on the weekends together, and he does pretty well, till he wants to go on the big slide and cries uncontrollably, “Baby’s a big baby, I go on big slide!” Yes, he refers to himself as “Baby,” and I can’t seem to break him from it, oh well. I guess I liked that dinosaur show too much back in the day. You know the one where the baby dinosaur, named “Baby” keeps hitting the Daddy on the head with the frying pan and saying “Not the mama!”

We also go to the kiddie park and doggie park during the day. We’ll color, read, talk, cuddle and watch T.V., and cook. Most of the time it’s hard to keep his attention at these activities. However, he has no problem demanding every bit of my attention in the bathroom or shower. Toddlers. We take what we can get. We are fortunate enough to live minutes from the Disney and Sea World. We go when we can, those parks are so amazing. We also like to go to state parks to enjoy the nature, and to the beach to relax.

In the essence of appreciating every quality family moment, McDonald’s has developed a great way for us to easily donate to the Ronald McDonald House Charities® that won’t cost you a cent, and only requires your time. 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!

As part of the company’s ongoing commitment to bring families together, McDonald’s launched a new national fundraiser in support of Ronald McDonald House Charities® (RMHC®). For each Happy Meal® and Mighty Kids Meal® sold in the U.S., a portion of the sales will be donated to RMHC – McDonald’s “Charity of Choice” for more than 35 years. As part of the campaign, you can get involved by pledging time with your family through the “Make Family Time Happy Time” online application. For each minute pledged, McDonald’s will donate one penny to the Charity, with the goal of reaching 1 million minutes and a $10,000 donation to RMHC. You can learn more here.

And now time for the giveaway. This giveaway package includes a McDOnald’s smile tote bag, a set of current Happy Meal Toys, a $25 McDonald’s Arch Card, a McDonald’s Characters Vintage T-Shirt, a Pen Buddy Notebook, EOS Organic Lip Balm Multi-Pack, a 16 oz Stainless McDonald’s Tumbler, and a Just Give Gift Card for any charity of reader’s choice. Please visit McDonald’s Facebook or the widget below to pledge time with your family and leave a comment below to let us know what you’re doing to help families in need at RMHC. And, if you have a favorite family memory tied to McDonald’s, I’d love to hear about it!” or … “Have a favorite family memory tied to McDonald’s? Tell us about it!”

With this giveaway, you can have a total of 2 entries, one comment and one where you tweet about this giveaway, or blog about it. Please leave a comment below for each entry, and don’t forget to pledge time in the widget anytime.