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I was lucky enough to win two awesome coloring books from Super Cool Scientists (@supercoolscients) on Instagram! I won the Super Cool Scientists #2 – A Story and Coloring Book Celebrating Today’s Women in Science and Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls Coloring Book. I am excited about this for many reasons, but I’m sharing four reasons below!

1. It is so much fun to win things!

I love winning contests! It is so exciting and fun to be announced as the winner. My love of contests comes from my parents. When I was growing up, my parents entered every contest they possibly could: at the grocery store, at the bank, at schools, online. And they won a lot! My parents have won small prizes from bikes and jackets to huge prizes like trips to Hawaii and Nashville.

My mom inspired me to always enter contests because you never know when you might win! I don’t win most of the contests I enter, but sometimes I do win and it is exciting.

That is why I have started doing some giveaways on my Engineering Emily Instagram account (@engineering_emily) too – I want to spread the joy of winning contests with my readers (P.S. a new giveaway is coming next week)! 🙂

I hope this inspires you to get out there and enter all the contests because you never know when you will win!

2. Now I have something I can be excited to color with my kids!

My son’s favorite activity is coloring. He often asks me to color with him, and now I have something I can be excited to color! Both my kids love coloring. My daughter is only two, so her attention span for coloring is limited. She colors for a few minutes, runs around and plays somewhere else, comes back and colors some more, goes and plays , colors, plays…

My four year old son, meanwhile, can sit and color for hours. He has become very skilled, and artistic with his coloring. He is excellent at coloring inside the lines (although I wouldn’t care if he colored outside the lines either), and he uses creative and inspired colors in his coloring. Sometimes he colors in coloring books, and sometimes he draws his own pictures to color.

Often, my son will ask me to color with him. I enjoy spending time with him, but coloring in dinosaurs or Paw Patrol characters wasn’t very fun to me. So, when I won this contest I was overjoyed to have a coloring book just for me that I enjoy coloring in along side my son. Now that I am excited to color again, it has been a great way for me to connect with my son and one of his passions.

I know, I know, I could have given this prize to my kids. It is fully appropriate for them because they aren’t specifically adult coloring books. But I wanted to keep this rare prize just for me! I am enjoying this creative outlet. I have let my son help me color in a few pages, but I have mostly colored in it alone…however, my daughter found my coloring book and she colored in a few pages herself. I have to say she did a great job for a 2 year old! How can I be upset about this:

3. My kids and I get to learn about inspirational women in STEM!

Sometimes my kids will ask me what I am coloring, so I get to tell them all about the Super Cool Scientist or awesome Rebel Girls on the page I’m coloring! It has been enjoyable for me to read about these inspiring women, and I like sharing their stories with my kids too.

I hope it inspires both of them to reach for their dreams and pursue a career in STEM. There is nothing to stop them from achieving their dreams, especially because so many brave, intelligent, and inspiring women and men have paved the way.

Currently my son is saying he wants to be a paleontologist and my daughter wants to be an astronaut. Both these careers will require them to have a strong foundation in STEM, so I’m glad they are starting to enjoy learning about all things STEM from a young age.

4. Coloring has become a stress and anxiety relieving activity for me.

I have heard about the adult coloring book trend for a few years now, but never really got into it myself. I am so glad this has given me a reason to hop on board this trend.

And now I completely understand it! Coloring is so relaxing. I stop thinking about my to-do lists, and all my worries, day-dreams, and chores. I just color. I think about colors, I concentrate on filling in the empty spaces. I enjoy watching the colorful image emerge.

It is now one of my go-to relaxation activities anytime that I am feeling the need to unwind a bit. I am grateful that winning this contest helped me rediscover this peaceful activity.

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I highly recommend checking out the Super Cool Scientists website. They are sharing inspiring stories of women in science in a unique format and I think it is so wonderful!

Also, check out the Rebel Girls (@rebelgirlsbook) Instagram account for more info on their book series and podcast. I’ve heard great things about the books (although we have not read them yet), and the podcast is on my listening list. This is so great for any rebel girls (and boys) you know!

If you’re interested in getting any of these coloring books for yourself or your kids (I won’t tell if you want it just for you), you can find them on Amazon. Here is the link for Super Cool Scientists #2: A Story and Coloring Book Celebrating Today’s Women in Science. Here is the link for the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls Book (the coloring book is currently unavailable on Amazon).

Have you done any coloring as an adult? I promise these books will spark your creative juices if you’re ready to try coloring again! 🙂