Maybe my question should be, Is conditional formatting the right way to go?

I've just scratched the surface of Conditional Formatting within Excel. It seems pretty straight forward and all, but I can't figure out why it won't color a row when the value in the cell changes.

We have a column that specifies the quarter of the year our job was shipped on. No problem, I was able to get Excel to change this column to Q1, Q2... based on our invoice date. Now is where it gets confusing for me

So, my yearly quarters are in column A, and will be filled in with the date we invoice our customer. I would like all of row 26 to change to green when the quarter is Q1. I would like all of row 26 to change to yellow when the quarter is Q2. So on and so fourth.

Now, I am by no means an Excel Pro, but this does seem like it's pretty easy to obtain. When I highlight the row I would like changed, select Conditional Formatting>New Rule. I select the "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". In the formula bar, I place =A26=Q1, then I select the formatting I would like, OK out of the dialog box and back to my sheet. I also do the same thing for creating a rule for Q2. If Q1 shows up in Column A, the row should go green, which it does, I'm happy. But as soon as I place a date that's in Q2 of the year, no formatting changes take place, and everything is still green as in the rule for Q1. When the value of the first column changes, no formatting takes place and everything stays as it was with the original value. Also, after the rule changes the background color of the row, once I place data in the cell, the color goes back to white.

Do I have any steps out of order? Or am I going about this all wrong?