March for Babies Fundraiser Winner!

Last week went from quiet to crazy busy so I forgot to announce, the winner of the cupcakes from our March for Babies fundraiser is Stephanie K.! I will be in touch with you about your cupcakes! ;) Thank you so much to everyone who supported our team! We raised over $50 for our team through this fundraiser!

If you missed the chance, you can still donate, just follow this link here!

I would write something exciting but it is still cold and snowy here so we've been mostly staying in, watching movies, playing games doing yoga and bear crawls around the living room, wishing we could go outside. We did go sledding when it was a warm and sunny 25 degrees last week. It felt like the tropics and I couldn't get the kids to come inside! I mommy failed and didn't take any pictures! We were just enjoying the sunshine. Good thing, because now it's snowing like crazy. Again. I'm ready for some warm weather, parks and clear roads so we can leave the house! :)

March for Babies Fundraiser!

I did this fundraiser 2 years ago and it was a super sweet success so I'm so excited to say we're going to be doing it again and giving away a dozen cupcakes!!

My good friend and sorority sister makes amazing cakes and cupcakes...

 She has oh so graciously offered to make a dozen cupcakes to a lucky person who donates to our March for Babies team!

 And don't worry, she will ship them ANYWHERE over night to you so you don't have to live near her to win this delicious treat :)

So how does this work?

Simply donate $5 to our March for Babies team and I will enter you into the drawing to win a dozen of Ashley's delicious cupcakes! She's been so kind to let the winner pick the flavor of cupcakes they would like, here are some options from 2 years ago to give you some ideas ;)

  Raspberry-vanilla cupcakes with raspberry butter cream frosting
  Strawberry shortcake cupcakes with a vanilla cream filling and strawberry butter cream frosting
  Blackberry cupcakes with lemon filling and blackberry butter cream frosting 

or if your sweet tooth isn't quite up for those options she could make you a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache and cream cheese frosting or vanilla cupcakes with butter cream frosting.

Last time I joked about eating the entire dozen by myself. I'm totally not joking. And I'm pregnant now so I can get away with it ;)

 Want more chances to win? For every $10 you donate, I'll throw your name in the electronic hat 1 more time. So donate $5, get 1 chance to win. Donate $10, get 3! chances to win. Donate $20 and you'll get your name added 6 times! So the more you donate, the better your odds of winning!

Don't these make you think of Frozen cupcakes? Everyone with a daughter under the age of 8, you know you need a Frozen cupcake in your life ;)

Don't forget what you're donating to...with the help of the March of Dimes, hopefully we can put an end to prematurity and no more itty bitty babies like ours. So much of the technology used to save our childrens' lives was made possible from research funded by the March of Dimes. You really are saving lives by supporting the March of Dimes.

So the logistics one more time broken down for you.

• Fundraiser will be open until next Wednesday at noon EST. I will announce the winner Thursday morning and notify the winner by email so please include your email when you donate, if not, make sure you comment on this post so I have a way of getting in touch with you!
• Every $5 donated to our March for babies team will get 1 entry, for every $10, you will get an additional entry.
• Want 1 more entry? Share this fundraiser on your facebook, twitter, pinterest or any other social media site. Leave me a comment to let me know you shared this post and I will give you an additional entry.
• I will put everyone's entries onto a spreadsheet and let random.org do the hard job of picking the winner.
• You will receive 1 dozen cupcakes, flavor of your choosing, mailed to you for you and your family and friends (or just you...there's no judging here) to enjoy :)\

I'll make it super easy for you to enter...click on this picture!


<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.marchforbabies.org/includes/badge_2011_vert_js.asp?w=6902455&u=emilypepka&bt=2"></script>

Please help us help babies and donate to our team! I'm super exciting to pick a winner on Thursday 2/26! Good luck! Thanks for supporting our team!

Blue Ribbon Dresses MFB Fundraiser!

Thanks so much to everyone who helped with our Yankee Candle Fundraiser for our March for Babies Team! It was a great success with almost $100 raised!

But we're not done yet! The March for Babies is about 2 months away and we're still going strong! This week's fundraiser is for every little princess out there because for every donation you make to our team, you're entered to win an every day princess dress of your choosing!

A college friend of mine, Casey, married another college friend and they have 2 beautiful little girls. Sadly, her mom passed away last year from colorectal cancer and from that, she started Blue Ribbon Dresses to raise money for Fight Colorectal Cancer. March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month! Every dress made is not only a cute dress for your little one but you're also helping fund a young scientist's research grant whose focus is late stage colon cancer.

Casey is super talented and her dresses are adorable so we've joined forces to give one lucky Team Pepka Twins supporter a princess dress of their choice for the princess in their lives!

So how does it work? Simply go to our Team Page and donate! I will get a message saying you donated and put your name on a spreadsheet. Every $5 donation will get you ONE (1) entry. Every $20 will get you a bonus entry! So if you donate $20 you will get FIVE (5) instead of 4 entries.




The fundraiser will be open until Friday at 12pm PST. All donations made between now and then will be entered in the drawing. I will pick a random number on Friday and the name that is next to that number on the spreadsheet will be the winner! I'll announce the winner on the blog and send them an email. Fundraiser open to US residents and ANYONE can win (yes, even my mom...she was mad last time that she couldn't win, but I'll let family members names go on the list too this time since they're some of my biggest supporters, but there will be no preference. Names go on the spreadsheet in order of donation and the winner will be completely random)

Can't donate but still want to help? I'm offering an entry for every share on Facebook/Twitter/Blog/Social media of your choice! Simply share this post or our Team Page for donations and share the link in the comments below and tell me which princess dress you'd pick if you won! You can check out all of the princess dresses on Blue Ribbon Dresses Etsy page! Every share will get you ONE (1) entry! I will put your name on the list as I get your comments.

If a walker on our team led you to this page and you want to donate to them, you can find a list of the team members at the bottom of our team page. Simply click on their name and you can donate to them! Doesn't matter who gets it, we are all working towards the same goal to help all babies be born full term and healthy!

 

Questions? You can email me at Emily{dot}pepka{at}gmail{dot}com.

Want a Blue Ribbon Dress of your own? Check out Casey on Facebook and Etsy!

Good luck everyone and thanks for helping Team Pepka Twins as we March for Babies and Blue Ribbon Dresses!

March of Dimes Fundraiser!

It's March for Babies season! We're kicking it into full gear with our first big fundraiser of the season, a Yankee Candle sale!

If you haven't checked out the March for Babies yet, here's some info:

This will be our 3rd March for Babies and as usual, we're super excited to be participating and to share in the experience with all of our friends near and far!

For friends out of town, you can order online at the Yankee Candle Fundraiser site. Our group number is 990060802.

If you're local and want to check out a catalog, please let me know! I'd be happy to bring one your way. Teaser: The catalog is scratch and sniff so you can check out the scents before you buy them.
We will get 40% of profits from this sale which is HUGE for our team so please, pretty please, if you like Yankee Candles, please consider buying one through our fundraiser!

And as usual, you're all awesome for helping babies. Because they deserve only the best ;)

March of Dimes Fundraiser-A beautiful dress

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! I know we did

although we really missed papa bear since he was in Alabama :( and next time, I'll wear shoes while taking famil pictures, although it's really hard to chase after frick and frack in dress shoes ;)

I have a special treat and fundraiser today for everyone!

If you have a baby girl, are expecting a baby girl, have a friend or family member with a newborn baby girl or expecting one, then this should be right up your alley.

You know those beautiful boutique dresses you see in the windows of cute homemade type shops or on etsy? Then you look at the price tag and quickly run away before you consider spending a ton of money on a dress your little girl will wear once? Gosh it's hard to turn down pretty clothes for your pretty little girl :) Now is your chance to get a beautiful handmade dress and help a great cause all in one!

I met Ruth at a ladies' night not long ago and she has graciously donated her time, money and amazing talent to our March for Babies team! She made this adorable newborn size dress** and I am giving it to someone who donates to our March for babies Team this week!

So pretty! Makes me want to sew...then I remember how bad I am at it.

This will work like past fundraisers so here are the details:

• Donate $5 to our March for Babies Team to be entered to win.
• For every $10 you donate, I will add your name in one extra time. Broken down...donate $5, get 1 entry. Donate $10, get 3 entries! Donate $20 and you'll get 6 entries!
• Fundraiser will be open until Friday 4/12/13 at midnight. I'll put everyone's entries on a spreadsheet and random.org will pick the winner. I will announce the winner on Saturday and send you an email letting you know you won. Your beautiful dress will be mailed to you shortly after that.
• Want an extra entry? Share this fundraiser on your facebook, twitter, blog or other social media site then write a comment letting me know you shared it. 
• Dress is size Newborn, fits up to 11lbs.

You can click on the March for Babies toolbar on the side or click this link to donate and enter!

We really appreciate everyone's support and help while we raise money to help babies! We couldn't do it without all of your help! Every donation is helping babies! Check out my About Us section for more details on our family and why the March of Dimes is so important to us. No baby should be born fighting for their life like my sweet little ones were.

and of course, a special thanks to Ruth for donating the dress! I wish I had a newborn little girl so she could win ;) but my little itty bitty girl has become a big girl :(

Good luck everyone! Check back Saturday for the winner!

**Original pattern for the dress was designed by Rae Hoekstra of made-by-rae.com. Ruth is an authorized seller.

Baby Madness!

It's time for another fun fundraiser for the March for Babies, this one is March Madness inspired...and a way to con my brothers to all donate by doing something they will like for once ;)

What better way to enjoy March Madness and raise some money for healthy babies then with a pool!

The details:

• $10 buy in.
• 50% of the money raised will go to the March for Babies and Team Pepka Twins!
• The other 50% goes to the lucky winner! 

Because I want as many people as possible to get involved and I don't want living nearby to be a restriction I've come up with a plan that requires you to have an espn.com account and a paypal account. According to my brother, these are both things that all people old enough to participate should have. If you don't, they're both easy and free to start up. Tom and I will probably both have brackets, but we're not eligible to win ;)

First, send your $10 buy in through paypal to emily.pepka@gmail.com. I'll keep all the money on my account there. When the game locks when the tournament starts I'll let everyone know how much the winner will receive. The other half will be donated to our March for Babies team! If you transfer the money via credit card, there will be a small fee, just say that I will pay the fee. There's no fee for a bank account transfer. Just depends on what you have on your paypal. Either one will work, both are safe and secure ways to transfer money...and probably safer than in your buddy's hat in his room waiting until the end of the tournament. You can do this any time starting now. I'll send reminders to everyone who enters when the brackets become available.

Second, fill out your bracket on ESPN as part of the Team Pepka Twins group. You can check on there as the tournament goes on how you're doing.

At the end, whoever has the winning bracket I will send you your winning $$$ through paypal again.

There's no limit to how many brackets you enter. $10 per bracket.

Hopefully this is a way everyone is comfortable with. I've debated a gift basket or a gift card for the winner and everyone just donating to our March for Babies team, but when it comes down to it, I know a lot of you would prefer the cash.

This will also hopefully encourage you to share this fundraiser and get more people involved...after all, the more people who participate, the greater the winning amount will be....and the more money donated to the March of Dimes! Everyone is invited to play, they don't need to be my bff or anything, so please share with your friends and all basketball lovers that you know.

Selection Sunday is March 17 and March Madness kicks off March 19. All entries must be in by then and the pool will lock. The Championship is April 8 and the winner will receive their money the next day.

Questions, comments, concerns, things I didn't mention on here, please let me know!

Thanks everyone for participating!! and thanks for helping babies! Good Luck!

March For Babies Bake Sale

This morning our neighborhood had a big yard sale. Everyone put their goodies out in their garages and people walked around looking for good bargains. You should know, military people are very good at getting rid of things when they're done using them so I think they have the best yard sales! Most things are gently used and rather than move it from house to house, they get rid of it! We got some baby gates, a monitor, and a ton of clothes for just a couple bucks! Thanks neighbors!

We took advantage of the extra traffic on the streets to raise some money for the March of Dimes and had a little bake sale!

Thanks so much to all of our neighbors who stopped by and supported us! It was kind of a dreary day so I'm glad we still had such a successful event! Almost $150 raised for our March for Babies team! Woohoo!

If you couldn't make it to the bake sale, you can still help us out and check out our team March for Babies page. Less than a month now to reach our goal! :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday!

Hookaholic Winner!!

Thank you sooo much to everyone who donated! The fundraiser raised over $100 for the March of Dimes!

I put all the names on a spreadsheet, generated a random number, and the lucky winner is....

Meg L!!

Congrats Meg! And thanks so much to everyone who donated!  You've been such a help in our fundraising efforts! Hopefully we can do another fundraiser or 2 before the March for Babies on April 28! Again, not too late to join our team and fundraise on your own! Let me know if you're interested! I'd love to have more friends to walk with! 

A super special thank you to Stephanie and her wonderful work that made this all possible! If you didn't win, you can always buy one of her fantastic hats :) She is so talented! Check out her etsy shop!

Hookaholic March of Dimes Fundraiser!

Well it's that time again, we're giving away another adorable accessory for the little one in your life!

The wonderful Stephanie from Hookaholic Yarn Design Studio has graciously offered to make a hat of your choice and size for someone who donates to the March of Dimes this week!

The twins have her owl hats and I was going to take cute pictures of them this morning but Amelia is throwing up non-stop so I opted out of a photoshoot. Consider yourself lucky you don't have to witness this mess...or smell her. Ugh. ;)

These are the hats we got from Stephanie awhile back and we LOVE them! We get compliments on them every time the twins wear them. They're so adorable.

You know you want one ;)

So here are the details on how to enter to win one of the hats!

• Giveaway fundraiser will be open until Monday 3/5/12 at 12:00pm PST
• To enter, simply donate $5 to our March of Dimes team! You can donate with the March of Dimes sidebar. Quick, look to the right! For every $10, I will give you an extra entry, so if you donate $5 you get 1 entry, $10 you get 3! (I get emails on everyone who donates so I will put everyone's name in a spread sheet as you donate!)
• If you don't feel comfortable donating, you can still enter! Just facebook or tweet this giveaway and leave me a comment with your facebook or twitter name, as well as your email address, and I will add your name to the giveaway.
• The more you donate, the better your chances are of winning!
• I will select a winner on Monday then be in touch with you to let you know that you're awesome and you won!
• Winners can select ANY HAT from the Hookaholic Shop in the size of your choice!
  
  
  

Good luck everyone and let's get fundraising for healthy, full-term babies!

There's still time to join our team and walk with us at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on April 28! E-mail me emily.pepka@gmail.com for details :)