Weight Loss Wednesday #5

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Here we are.. 5 weeks in on our WLW blogs! It is hard to believe we have been writing about this for five weeks. It is even harder for me to realize that I have been so in tune with my body for five weeks. I feel awesome and I am so thankful to have this blog to help keep me motivated. 

I am so happy to announce that I am now 25 pounds down! I can't believe it. It really is awesome. I am trying to stay motivated and encouraged every day. I try and be mindful of what I am putting in my mouth each day as well. It seems that being more aware has definitely helped me these past weeks. 

Last night I made a comment to my husband about how the food I was making me has become my "chocolate"... what I mean is I have found a new addiction, if you will, in regards to food. My favorite food these days is popcorn. Just plain, air popped, popcorn. I also wondered out loud last night what it would be like to eat the buttery popcorn that comes in packages or even at the theaters. I am afraid I would not like it. I have become quite the fan of just air popped popcorn. 

What is your favorite healthy snack? 

Technology-Weight Loss come together!! 

Recently I have been using a new app on my iphone to help me keep up with calories that I eat. The app is called My Fitness Pal and it is FREE, which is great! It allows you to set yourself up in the beginning by putting your weight-to-date, then your goal weight, and it tells you how many calories you should have a day to lose that weight.  It is great, and it has so many different kinds of food in it's database, it is easy to find anything! It is really helpful when you are out to eat because you can see how many calories you are sacrificing at a restaurant! It is very interesting and has really made me aware of what I am eating and choosing to buy.  You can also enter in your daily fitness  and workouts and that adds to your goals.  I would definitely encourage you to try it out since it is FREE.  Let me know if you try it and how you like it! 

WLW Stats for BIG SIS:

Starting Weight: XXX (held private for now)

Wed. 3/21: -13lbs total

Wed. 4/3: -16lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -22lbs total

Wed. 4/17: -25lbs total

WLW Stats for LITTLE SIS:

Starting Weight: 170

Wed. 3/28: -3lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -6.5lbs total

Wed. 4/17: -7.5lbs total

Don't forget about our Linky Party #10! Link up anything and everything!! 

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Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #10

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Wow! 

I can't believe we have made it to our 10th Linky Party!! 

I just love hosting these parties, and I hope you all enjoy being a part of them! I am excited to share some of my favorite links with you from last week! Yall did some great work! 

By the way, as another way to honor those featured here we will be pinning these featured links to our Pinterest! 

One Thrifty Chick made these awesome egg bath fizzies as Easter gifts! These are so cute and a great gift idea! I would love to make my own bath fizzies! She awesome did a great job with presentation and put them in some cute egg cartons! Stop by and check out step-by-step instruction son how to do this! 

Alderberry Hill redid her front porch, and showed some fun ways to dress up the wicker baskets she uses on her shelves.  Stop by and see the transformation she made! A lot of the transformation in my opinion can be seen just by a simple paint color change! She has really inspired me to turn from all the brown and orange hues I have been using and try some lighter ones, like a simple white wall and white accents! It really brightens things up! I love it!  

Color Me Domestic really knows how to spruce up some plain plastic stuff! She took plastic drawers that you could get front Wal-Mart and made them look so good! She sewed together some great slip-covers to make the outside nice and homey, and even put some nice scrapbooking paper in the inside of the drawers! Stop by to check out more!! 

Ashley over at Keeping Up with the Joneses wrote a great post about her yard facelift! It was a total transformation and looks great! It really did give the yard a face lift, stop by to see what simply adding some stones/bricks can do to your yard! I am excited to be posting my own backyard facelift soon too! Husbands can be so much help for extra blog posts :-) 

We hope you enjoy all of these fun posts like we do! 

Now it's your turn to join in on the party and link up all your fun stuff! 

We want to see any and everything that you are up to! 

From Home makeovers, craft projects, DIY, recipes, tips, kids games or crafts, or anything else you are up to!!

Just Remember....

Please SUBSCRIBE to our blog on the left sidebar!

Also, I hope you have noticed our new blog layout, and we have moved our Naturally-Nifty Party Buttons to the top tab, so take one of those and put it on your blog!

And please stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too!

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We LOVE Slime!!

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We had so much fun in daycare today! We made slime. I have found this amazing home daycare blog, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, oh my! Lately when I am not sure where I am going with our curriculum, I have just been hitting her blog up and finding fun ideas for the kids to do. Last night I decided we were going to make slime... and I had all of the ingredients. I have done this with my students in school before, but I would have to say- my daycare kids had a lot more fun with our homemade slime then my 5th or 6th graders did! :) 

He was so proud.. this is the first thing he did with it when he got it! 

Directions: (per the above mentioned blog)

1. Mix two cups of water with 4 tablespoons of Borax in one bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups of white glue with 2 cups of warm water. Add food coloring if you want. 

3. SLOWLY!!!! VERY SLOWLY, add the borax mixture into the glue mixture. 

4. Mix with your hands and as you feel it harden, you will see your nice mix of slime! 

5. You will not use all of either bowl. You will be able to pull the slime from the bowl and discard the rest. 

6. This made more than enough for 6 people to play with! And play we did!! 

Brothers/Daddies with their boys! 

The kids had so much fun. I wish I could share all pictures with you, but I do not have permission from my families to put their kids on the blog... this my blogging friends is the reason you only see my son, normally, in the pictures I post. 

Handprints

They started by making handprints.. and they did this on their own, but then asked for help from us. So we obliged. They had a good 15 minutes of fun making SNAKES out of the slime. ALL of the kiddos at the table were making snake after snake, after snake! It was so fun. 

"Look at my bracelet"

They made bracelets. They loved them. Of course they do not hold too long because they start to 'melt' if you will and fall off of their arm. Luckily we had too much going on and to much to do for any of the kids to have a breakdown over their dripping bracelets. 

"Mom, eye!"

After we finished playing with our slime we put it in a zip lock baggy, sealed tight. Per the above mentioned blog, it will keep for a week or two. I guarantee we will enjoy it while it lasts. 

We had so much fun. I am so glad that we decided to do this. The kids were very into it, very well behaved, and very excited to show all of us their fun creations!! 

Thanks for reading!

Big Sis

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Weight Loss Wednesday #4

Pin It Happy Weight Loss Wednesday! I am pretty sure that the both of us have some news this week... some very exciting news in regards to our healthier way of living. I will let little sister speak of our cleanse... This week was a wonderful week for me and I hit a milestone and I am so excited. My whole mindset has changed and I feel like I did in 2008 when I lost all of my weight before. I feel in control of myself.... and am not allowing FOOD to control me anymore. I am faithfully trying to hit the gym now and it is great! 

I love Pinterest, as many of you do and I love finding the awesome motivating quotes on there about working out or healthier living... I like to read the quotes and let them motivate me. How true is it that we can be WHOEVER, WHATEVER we want to be... we just have to make that choice. That has been the biggest struggle for me as of late- making the choice to live a healthier life by choosing to eat healthier, workout, do healthier things in general. I love the way my life has been going lately. I have fallen off the wagon a time or two, but I have not lost my sense of control... I pick back up and keep going. I am feeling  awesome! 

I have been cooking many new recipes lately... and some of them really are not the healthiest for you.. but I have been trying to find new awesome recipes to serve my family. I may not eat it- or I may just eat a small portion... but I am loving the concept of trying new things. This week I would like to share with you our newest FAVORITE recipe! It was so yummy last week that I am once again making it on Thursday to share with the family. 

Asian Beef with Mandarin Oranges

I found the recipe online but made some changes to it myself. You can see what changes that I made in red!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)
2 pounds boneless beef chuck, cut into 1⁄2-inch strips
1 small onion, thinly sliced (I used 2 onions)
1⁄3 cup soy sauce (I used the low sodium)
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger (I left out because I couldn't find it)
1 small green bell pepper, sliced (I used a large one)
1 package (about 3 ounces) shiitake mushrooms, sliced 
1 head bok choy, cleaned and chopped (I used 2 heads of bok choy)
1 can (5 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained (I left out because I couldn't find)
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges, drained and syrup reserved (I used 4 snack size ones)
2 cups beef broth
6 cups steamed rice (I used brown rice)

Directions

1. Heat vegetable oil (coconut oil) over medium-high heat. Add beef, in batches if necessary, and cook, turning to brown all sides. Transfer beef to 4 1⁄2-quart CROCK-POT® slow cooker as it is browned.
2. Add onion to same skillet. Stir over medium heat until softened. Add next soy sauce, salt, ginger, green pepper, mushrooms, bok choy and water chestnuts and cook until bok choy is wilted, about 5 minutes (only took about 3 minutes for me). Spoon mixture over beef.
3. Whisk together corn starch and reserved mandarin orange syrup in medium bowl. Stir in beef broth and pour over ingredients in CROCK-POT® slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW 10 hours or on HIGH 5 to 6 hours or until beef is tender. (I cooked on high, but after 3 hours is was finished and I put on keep warm... I guess it depends on crock pot.)
4. Stir in mandarin oranges. Spoon steamed rice into shallow serving bowl and spoon beef over rice.

Guys, this was so amazing. I would definitely try it if I were you. My husband LOVED it. I even think Little Sis would enjoy this. Of course I forgot to take a picture, so the one I am sharing will be from the recipe online. 

(Recipe and Picture from Disneyfamily.com)

I want to thank our blog readers for being so awesome. Thank you for reading us and holding me accountable. You really do not realize how you are holding me accountable by allowing me to share some of my deepest struggles with you! We all know that losing weight/getting in shape is never easy. Thank you to those that believe in me and those that are following our journey! I appreciate it more than you will ever know. 

-Big Sis

WLW Stats for BIG SIS:

Starting Weight: XXX (held private for now)

Wed. 3/21: -13lbs total

Wed. 4/3: -16lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -22lbs total

-Little Sis

WLW Stats for LITTLE SIS:

Starting Weight: 170

Wed. 3/28: -3lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -6.5lbs total

About the Cleanse: 

The cleanse ended this past Sunday for us...it went really well, although it was not exactly what I imagined it would be.  I didn't notice a lot of changes in my weight throughout it, and I did not go to the bathroom excessively, which were actually my two biggest expectations when I started the cleanse.  What did happen I notice though was that I felt my body feel healthier.  I was staying away from sweets, and a lot of carbs, and began eating more fruit on a daily basis.  This is good for me, especially because of my bad eating habits that I spoke about in a former WLW.  So for someone like me I feel like it was great.  It has really started a new pattern for me to be very aware of what I am eating, practicing more self-control, and it has made eating more fruit a daily routine for me.  I am thankful I did it.  Then after being gone for 4 days I checked my weight and I actually was down!! I have lost a total of 6.5 lbs!!! That is very exciting for me! Now I just want it to continue!     -Little Sis

Don't Forget about our Awesome Linky Party!! 

Remember....

Please SUBSCRIBE to our blog on the left sidebar!

Also, I hope you have noticed our new blog layout, and we have moved our Naturally-Nifty Party Buttons to the top tab, so take one of those and put it on your blog!

And please stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too!

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Naturally-Nifty Party #9

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What a wonderful week we both had! Easter is such a beautiful holiday to us and we are sad to say it has come and gone. Look our for a future post from Little Sis about all the exciting adventures she and her husband went on during the Easter holiday.... and we hope you enjoyed the Easter post from Big Sis. 

It is that time again! Time for our totally awesome Naturally-Nifty Party.... we are so excited. We have seen so many amazing Easter ideas that have been posted that we are excited to see what Spring Ideas and Recipes that you have to share with us.... but for now, on to our favorites of the week. 

The Crafty Journal shared with us a totally awesome Origami Easter Basket. This basket does not have to be used only for Easter... it is so versatile. I loved it. I know I love it THAT much more because of the three years that I spent in Japan. Making Origami is something that kids really enjoy... and I have always loved it. The other totally awesome thing about this is-- what a CHEAP way to make a basket for goodies to share for holiday/birthdays! Thank you for sharing this with us.

Hani over at Craftionary shared with us a very unique way to give a gift to Mom's for Mother's Day. She also included an awesome printable to include with the flower for moms. I have been searching for the perfect thing to do with my daycare kids for their moms for Mother's Day and I think this is perfect. I think my mothers would really enjoy this and the kids would enjoy planting their very own flower. I also love free printables. Thank you so much Hani. 

Trish over at Uncommon made this cute Carrot Patch full of Easter treats! It is such a cute and creative idea, that makes giving out treats to the kids fun! She did a great job at making this cute & creative! Go by and follow her blog to see all the cute stuff that her and Bonnie do over there! 

Our Pinteresting Family did a great job on making these easy DIY drawers to replace a wire rack! They look great, and she said they only spend $32 total on these! Stop by and check out in detail how they did this! Maybe you could change up your own cabinets to make them more functional. 

Thanks again for all of your link ups last week and your continued support of The Sisters! :)

Remember....

Please SUBSCRIBE to our blog on the left sidebar!

Also, I hope you have noticed our new blog layout, and we have moved our Naturally-Nifty Party Buttons to the top tab, so take one of those and put it on your blog!

And please stop by our FACEBOOK page and like us there too!

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Happy Easter from California

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Happy Easter! He is Risen!

I love Easter. I especially love it now that I have a kid. This year was so much more fun then last year because he was able to be excited about things, say everything, and just be so much more involved. Our Easter celebrations really started on Friday in Daycare where we had an Easter Party that included dyeing and hunting eggs. It was too much fun. My in-laws came to visit for the week, bringing their one year old boy, so they were here for the rest of our celebrations. On Saturday the Daddies dyed eggs with their boys. My little man did so well. He loved it. EVERY.BIT.OF.IT! 

Showing off his eggs! 

On Sunday morning I woke up and made everyone Easter Pancakes. I put a peep inside each pancake and the marshmallow melted... they said it made it yummy. Of course I did not eat any of it since I am trying to get this weight off. Below you can see the final product... don't judge, it was my first time! :) I was happy with them... My boy was obviously happy too. 

I like my little Peep Pancakes

Little man loved how it looked- but did not eat it! :) 

After breakfast we pulled out the Easter Baskets. It seemed my newsfeed on Facebook was filled with the Easter Baskets on Saturday night.... and to be honest, I was SHOCKED! So many Easter Baskets had items in there that made it seem so much more like Christmas or a Birthday! I was happy with my Target $1 Bin items, and I know my boy was too! When did kids start getting full out gifts for Easter? My little man enjoyed all of his different items... and I told him that Jesus brought them for him... :) Love him. 

I purchased one of these toys that he is holding for him and

his cousin who is here. Before we got to church MY boy had

already popped both of them! 

After we did our Easter Baskets we let the kids search for the small chocolate eggs that I hid around the living room. They loved it. They had so much fun looking... and could not get enough of it. I love watching the joy that was all over my boys face... every time he found a new one. Lucky for him his cousin wasn't really too interested in all of the candy, but he was!! 

One small chocolate egg that was out of reach! 

Then we got ready for church. What a blessed day we had a church. I really enjoy church services when I leave feeling like I got something out of it. I know that God was there today and I was able to really feel his presence. When we got home we put the two little boys to sleep and started working on lunch. We went the easy route today... We grilled. On our menu was: Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Grilled Corn on the Cob, Grilled Asparagus, and Deviled Eggs! It was great! 

Our deviled Easter Eggs

Then of course we had dessert. I made vanilla cupcakes with a Reeses PB in the middle. I had made homemade icing as well- but it didn't turn out so we didn't put any on. I really didn't care! :) None of us are huge sweets fans... so It wasn't a big deal! 

My lacking icing cupcakes

After lunch we searched for Easter Eggs. It was so fun. As I ran around taking pictures, the in-laws were trying their darndest to get their little one to care about getting the eggs. The husband was having a good time with the boy-- searching for eggs together. They all had so much fun. I was so blessed as I was reminded how lucky I am to have these boys in my life. After the Egg Hunt we stayed outside and played in the sprinkler. It was an amazing day. 

My boys...

Cousins...

Easter is amazing... and beyond everything we did today, I kept remembering what Christ did for me. As my boy gets older, I want to make sure to instill in him what Easter is all about. I am blessed.

My cup runneth over. 

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Raised Garden

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I was so excited to move back to America so I could have my very own garden. Knowing that we would be buying our first home really encouraged me to do all of the things I have never been able to do living in base housing. I was stoked. When we got here we ended up planting some potatoes, onions, and garlic in the ground. They are growing lovely, but I really wanted a raised garden. So two weeks ago we went shopping for supplies. 

My little helper

The husband was quite shocked that I had actually done the research myself, had a list, and talked to the people at the Garden store that we went to. I had to get everything... we even picked out what veggies we wanted to plant! 

The husband 'teaching' me how to use his tools

Once we got home we got straight to work. Never mind the fact that it was 8pm! I was so excited. The husband was equally as excited to share his wealth of knowledge with me on his power tools! The boy was having too much fun playing with everything in the garage and helping. 

Initially I was going going to do a 6 by 2 bed. After looking at Lowe's we decided to go bigger. We ended up making an 7 by 3 bed. I was a little concerned, but it actually works great. So above you can see the boys measuring what we needed to cut off. 

Daddy is showing us how to use this awesome tool. Little man was a little concerned with the noise! :) 

Once we had everything cut apart... we then had to use the deck screws to put the bed together. Of course the husband gave me a tutorial on how to do this correctly too- but seriously, it was hard! :)

We are so blessed to have such a fantastic helper! Little man kept giving his Daddy the deck screws so he could put the bed together. 

I am so proud of my raised bed. We have already installed it and put my plants in it, but that will be another post! It can be very intimidating if you have never actually had a garden or built a raised bed, but I would highly recommend building one! These are the materials that we used:

2- NON-TREATED 2 by 8

12- Deck Screws

Tools

Of course once you put it in the ground you need a few more materials, but to actually build it- this is all! Happy building! I will post soon on how we put it in .. and keep you posted on my garden! HOPING and PRAYING I don't kill it all! :)

-Big Sis

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