Giveaway Time!

This week I have a nifty giveaway for THREE lucky winners out there in the blog world!

Yoplait Yo-Plus yogurt is coming out with a new flavor - Blueberry Acai! From their website: "Yo-Plus is a creamy, fruit-flavored yogurt with live and active probiotic cultures that help regulate your digestive health year-round. Yo-Plus also is a good source of fiber, calcium and vitamins A & D."

Yo-Plus is now offering a $1.50 off down-loadable coupon for a 4-pack of yogurt available at the following link: Yoplait Yo-Plus 4-pack. Feel free to also visit Yo-Plus for tips on how to maintain a balanced life and additional information.

What is in the giveaway?

3 lucky winners will each receive:

~ Yoplait Cooler Tote Bag - great for taking with you to the store to use for bringing your refrigerated goods home
~ Yoplait Water Bottle
~ Yoplait Notepad / Nutritional Journal for noting your eating habits or health goals
~ Coupon for $1.50 off a Yoplait Yo-plus 4 pack yogurt

How to enter:

~ Leave a comment on this post letting me know your favorite personal tip for staying healthy and eating a balanced diet this year.
~ Make sure I have a valid email address so that I can contact you if you are a winner.
~ Winners will be chosen and notified via email on Friday, February 27th.

Good Luck!

Birthday Milestone

Unbelievably, my oldest daughter turned 10 years old today! I can hardly believe that it was 10 years ago today that she joined our family - after only 7.5 hours of labor at home with our midwife - the first of 3 little girls! She's growing up so fast!

We celebrated today at Meme and Papa's house - we had a nice lunch with rotisserie chicken, potato salad, spinach dip, and chips. Followed by a nice gift session - she received a pair of earrings from each sister, a nice amethyst ring from meme and papa and a leapfrog didj from mom and dad. We closed out the afternoon with strawberry cheesecake - her request for the day's dessert.

Here are a few photos of the lovely day we had:

First Five

For those of you playing along, did you figure out how I was going to put my fabric squares and strips together for my first quilt?

Last night I put together the first five rows - hoorah! I'm really happy with how it is turning out.

These 5 rows will repeat two more times - for a total of 15 individual rows. Here's how the first five look - the individual rows are pieced, but the rows haven't been put together as a solid unit yet. Looking at this photo - the bottom of the photo is the left side and the top of the photo is the right side of the quilt. It was the only way I could get the maximum number of squares to fit in the photo.



Fun, Fun!

Sneak Peek

I have all of the squares and sashing strips cut out for my first quilt. I started cutting them last night and finished cutting them this afternoon while the girls worked on a craft project. Tonight I'll finally get to start putting together my first pieces!!!

Here's a sneak peek of the colors I've selected, before any of them go together:



Now you can try to guess how I'm going to put them together!

About to Start

I'm getting ready to start making my first ever quilt. I've wanted to quilt for a long time and just knew that I would need to shelve my desire for quilting until my little girls were a bit older. Well, my oldest will turn 10 in a few days and my youngest is now 3. They are pretty good at entertaining each other during play / free time that I think I can now steal a few moments here and there to get started on a quilt. At least I hope I can! I'm so excited!

Ever since my oldest started taking sewing classes this past fall for 4-H, I've been increasing my "stash" of fabric ~ you know, just so we'll eventually have a nice little selection to choose from for projects without having to run to the fabric store every time we want, uh make that need, to sew something.

I've sketched out a quilt that I'm going to attempt for my first one. It is going to be a twin-sized quilt for my 6 year old daughter's bed. I have another one also sketched out for her that I'll eventually make as a keepsake, but I want to get my first one under my belt before starting on a keepsake one. I'll make one for my other girls too, but my oldest is taking forever to decide what colors and style she'd like, so hers isn't ready to get started yet.

As an aside, did you know that you can use Excel to make graph paper? Oh, yes you can. You just change the size of the cells to make them smaller, like graph paper and voila! you are ready to design to your heart's content!

Anyway, I have a nice selection of cranberry and pink and gold florals that are light and airy - she really likes them. Just this morning we were placing them in different arrangements to see how they could go together best.

For her keepsake one, I eventually plan to make a quilt out of lilac, green and yellow calico fabrics, with appliques on some of the squares.

I'll post about my first quilting trials and triumphs along the way and share some pictures too!