Texas Blogger Series: Insanity Rules

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Today I would like to welcome Emily from Insanity Rules to the blog! It is so fun to hear from someone not from Texas, but who still claims to be a Texan now that she is living here.  So have some fun and get to know Emily as she shares her story, and be sure to head over and visit her blog and give her some comment love from Natural-Nesters! 

Hey y'all! I'm Emily from Insanity Rules w/3 little boys. Trust me it really does! I'm really excited to be here at Natural Nesters participating in their Texas bloggers series. Yep that's right I hail from the great big state of Texas but no I wasn't born or raised here. My hubs says I got here as fast as I could though. He may or may not be right. I will never admit to anything on that point. I grew up in the pacific northwest and to say that the weather is different there would be a gross understatement. I wilt in the Texas heat but have come to really enjoy the rather mildness of the winter. So all in all I would have to say I'm a well adjusted Texas gal. I say y'all occasionally but I don't drawl. Well unless I've spent a good amount of time with the hubs cousins then yes I start to drawl. They have spent their whole lives here. 

Anyway I blog over at Insanity Rules as I mentioned above. I am a Stay at Home Mom to three little crazies.

I know don't we look so normal. Don't let the nice clothes fool you! Those little boys are full of immense energy and keep this mama on her toes. They are part of my blogging inspiration after all I think my life would be quite dull without them. So, what do I blog about besides my crazy little men? You name it and I've probably mentioned it. No, I'm just joking with you. I'm kind of like that. A little quirky and yet quite serious. I blog about my life, crafting, reading, cooking, scrap booking, photography, and so much more. It's just about how I survive the Insanity in my life. I have a total addiction to jewelry, books, photography, and crime dramas. I absolutely love to change up my fire place mantel for the seasons, or just whenever the mood strikes me.  Currently we are sporting the 4th of July.

I absolutely do not love this white fire place mantel so any excuse I can I redecorate it. Plus then I get to be all crafty so truly the ugly white is a win win situation for me.  So, I would love for y'all to stop by and see what other amazing crafty or crazy things I'm up to. I'm just a northwest girl learning to be a Texas gal and enjoying the ride. While of course creating fun things along the way and chasing the little's. So, enjoy the Insanity that is life and thanks for letting me interrupt your blog for the day girls.

Don't forget while I am gone if you would like to keep up with us, we are keeping a small blog called Mission-Trinidad! Be sure to check it out, we will be posting pics, giving updates on how we are doing, and sharing some great testimonies about how good the Lord is!  

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Texas Bloggers Series: The Grant Life

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Today I would like to introduce to you, Kelley! Kelley is the master mind behind The Grant Life.  I love so much keeping up with Kelley's blog, she is full of life, and I am so glad to be bloggy friends with her.  I met Kelley on Twitter also, where we had a conversation that was probably actually too long to be "Twitter Appropriate." :-) But I am glad we met and that Kelley has decided to share a little about herself here at Natural-Nesters today! I encourage you, head over to her blog and get to know her more, you won't regret it! 

Hello Natural Nesters friends!  My name is Kelley and I'm so excited to be here today!  I'm a stay at home mom to 2 blonde haired, blue eyed babies and I blog over at the Grant life.  I'm going to share a delicious and healthy recipe with yall today.  [Yea Im a Texan too!  Howdy!]

Im going to give you a little background on me before I share our simple recipe.  [Its ridiculously simple and quick.. I gotta add some filler content.. hah!]  Im a mom to two beautiful babies who are exactly 14 months apart.  [Thats our little family at the San Antonio Zoo!]  Since I was pregnant so soon after our daughter was born, I didnt have much time to get my pre-baby body back.  Now, 27 months after our first baby I'm attempting to shed those extra pounds.  I work out 4 or more times a week and I am slowly changing the way I eat.   Which is the harder part for me.  

Apparently Greek yogurt is good for you.. really good.  Its full of protein and has no trans/saturated fats.  Unfortunately it tastes like yogurt but feels like sour cream.  [Eww.. I know.]  The good news is you can add just about anything to it to give it a better flavor and texture.  My favorite thing to add is honey and granola.  My bloggy friend Jill has this simple recipe for frozen yogurt bites and they look so good!  I used my [healthy] Greek yogurt and my add ins and created my own version.

Mix all your ingredients [granola and honey in my case].  Spoon them into a muffin tin (or onto freezer paper like Jill did) and place them in the freezer.

The honey gives the Greek yogurt a much nicer texture and the granola.. well it just tastes good.  [Side note.. I love muffin pans!  They are so versatile.]

It took about 2 hours for my Greek yogurt bites to harden.. I know this because I kept poking at them.  I wanted one.  And as you can see by the missing bite, I got one!  I wanted to make sure they were really good before I took pictures of them.

I used a fork to pry them out of the muffin pan.  They popped out pretty easily.. I was kinda worried.

Hello delicious healthy treats!  So nice to eat you!  I had two [or three] of these little guys and saved the rest for later.  They stayed fresh in a ziplock bag in the freezer.

Thank you for letting me share my super easy snack recipe today!  If you get a chance stop by my blog and say hello!  I love making new friends!  

Don't forget while I am gone if you would like to keep up with us, we are keeping a small blog called Mission-Trinidad! Be sure to check it out, we will be posting pics, giving updates on how we are doing, and sharing some great testimonies about how good the Lord is!  

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Texas Bloggers Series: Finding My Way Through Texas

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For our first guest post of the Texas Blogger Series, I would like to introduce to you Jennifer! Jennifer was one of my first fellow Texas blogger friends that I met via twitter! I was so excited to meet other bloggers in Texas, and Jennifer is also the lovely lady who started up the Texas Bloggers Page on Facebook! Which has been an amazing place for so many of us to meet other Texas Bloggers! I hope you will enjoy Jennifer's visit at Natural-Nesters and take some time to go over and visit her blog and let her know how much you enjoyed her sharing with us! 

Hello Natural Nesters! I’m Jennifer and I am the blonde, chaotic mind behind Finding My Way in Texas. Yep, I’m Texan too… well I am now :) I was born and raised in a big city in Ontario, Canada! So saying that I’m “finding my way” is pretty much an understatement!
I’ve been here almost a year and Texas isn’t quite so scary now… unless you count my first snake encounter. *Shudder* Just thinking of that makes me cringe!
Anyhoo… I wanted to share with you some of my favorite things about summer!

I Love reading! Most evenings after Hubby leaves for work I grab a quilt and head outside for some chill time.

Isn’t it perfect? Its hard to beat a Texan sunset :) I need to remember to do this one evening when Hubby is home so we can enjoy it together!

When I’m not busy sewing, crocheting, painting and taking care of the house, I love getting behind a camera and capturing special moments. The light during the summer is hard to beat and adds an incredible glow.

One of my absolute favorite things to do in the summer is camp! And there are some incredible local spots in this part of Texas. Of course now I am a little nervous about the whole snake thing… but we’re still planning on a weekend or 2 of camping.

A couple of weeks ago I got a bicycle! For the first time in over 10 years, I’m peddling around my neighborhood and loving every second of it :)

Things I don’t like about summer… in no particular order…

~ mosquitoes
~ sunburns
~ sand in places sand should never be
~ bugs
~ sweating

I’d love for you to drop by my blog and tell me all about your loves and hates about summer!

Thanks Ladies for having me! Hope you’re enjoying your vacation :)

Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest


Don't forget while I am gone if you would like to keep up with us, we are keeping a small blog called Mission-Trinidad! Be sure to check it out, we will be posting pics, giving updates on how we are doing, and sharing some great testimonies about how good the Lord is!  

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Texas Bloggers Series

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So tomorrow I, Brittany aka Little Sis will leave the country to venture out to Trinidad & Tobago with a group from my church.  As I have mentioned before, my husband and I will be leading a group of our college students along with some people from our church worship team to do a mission trip there for 10 days!

We are super excited about the trip! We will be working with Every Home For Christ Ministries while we are there.  One of the main parts of our trip will be to host a night & day Prayer and Worship Center.  Our team has practiced numerous hours on this, there is much more to it than you would think.  Getting all the instruments and singers in sync along with knowing the format of when/how we are worshipping at the time and when people will break in to lead prayer.  We are super excited about this though.  We will also be doing street ministry in the community! Our college students are so excited about this part! That is what we normally do on our college trips, a lot of evangelism and prayer, so they are well trained, and totally stoked! It is so exciting and motivating to see how their excitement to love on people and tell them about Christ well out weighs their fear of speaking to strangers. We know that our God is bigger than our fears or rejection, and that he is faithful to show up to do work! I cannot wait to get back and update you all on what the Lord did while we were there! Look for that post sometime at the first of July!
But, while we are gone if you would like to keep up with us, we are keeping a small blog called Mission-Trinidad! Be sure to check it out, we will be posting pics, giving updates on how we are doing, and sharing some great testimonies about how good the Lord is!  

For now though, while I am gone, we will be hosting a Texas Bloggers Series!

Recently both of us, (Big & Little Sis) joined a Texas Bloggers group...which has been awesome! We have loved getting to know other Texas Bloggers! Although Cassey doesn't live in Texas now, she is still a naturally born Texan at heart! Anyways, it is so fun to get to know people who live near you, and build a community within blogging and a support system. I have definitely loved it because I felt like every blogger that I connected with lived up North.  But meeting Texas bloggers makes it a reality that I may get to meet them in person one day! Which I love! 

Anyways, so I have some of the wonderful Texas Bloggers who will be visiting this week! I encourage you all to enjoy what they share here, then go over and visit their blogs and see what they are all about! (and of course leave them some comment love saying that you are visiting from Natural-Nesters, & even become their newest follower) 

I hope you all will enjoy getting to know some new people while I am gone.  Of course Cassey, aka Big Sis will still be updating some, and the Naturally-Nifty Parties and WLW's will for sure still be going on! 

Actually, as a side note...on TUESDAY, JUNE 26th, we will be hosting our 20TH NATURALLY-NIFTY PARTY!! Which if you don't know is a Big Deal for us, and we are so excited! So to share our excitement with you, we will be giving away a beautiful summer wreath made my ME! So be sure to stay tuned and join in on the parties while I'm gone and you could have your chance to win a wonderful peacock colored wreath with your last name initial on it! Just keep an eye out for the button below, and you will know it is the BIG DAY! 

Anyways, I will miss you all! I hope you will enjoy the Texas Blogger Series and these wonderful guest bloggers! 

Also be sure to stop by Randee's Organized Chaos today to check out the Natural-Nesters featured at Toot Your Own Horn today! 

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WLW #14

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Happy Weight Loss Wednesday! 

We have so many awesome things going on around here and we are having so much fun doing it! However, today..... we continue with our Weight Loss Journey! 


So for myself, (Little Sis)...working out and changing my eating patterns has been going fairly well! Better on the workout side than the eating side :-) But still doing well.  I have been very productive in getting up at 6:30am each morning and running a short mile to mile and a half! This has been a great start to my day! 


Then at night I will go to the gym with my husband and do a workout! I mentioned in a past WLW that I was starting to do a weight workout, where I would be focussed 50% of my workout on cardio and the other 50% on weights.  This workout has been going great! I have felt great about it, and it has really been pushing and challenging me! 


The only hard part about it is that I have not seen a lot of changing in my weightloss since I started lifting more weights.  This makes sense because I am building muscle, not just losing fat, so I understand, but it is kind of discouraging to not see the scales move.  So Cassey and I have both decided that starting next week we are going to display our measurements and change those throughout this weightloss journey! That way we will be able to see when our body is changing, even if the scale doesn't show it! So look for that next week! 

Click on the photo above to see the weight lifting program that I have been following! 

Also, don't forget we now have a Fitness--Motivation Pinterest Boardwhere we pin a lot of inspiring fitness and health pins, so be sure to stop by and check it out! 

 Here's our stats for this week: 

WLW Stats for BIG SIS:(Cassey)

Starting Weight: 210

Wed. 3/21: -13lbs total 

Wed. 4/3: -16lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -22lbs total

Wed. 4/17: -25lbs total

Wed. 4/25: -29lbs total

Wed. 5/2: -32lbs total

Wed. 5/9: -34lbs total  

Wed.5/16: -34lbs total

Wed. 5/23: -37lbs total

Wed. 5/30: -36lbs total

Wed. 6/6/12: -42lbs total (168)

Wed. 6/13/12: -39lbs total

Wed. 6/20/12: -42lbs total

WLW Stats for LITTLE SIS: (Brittany)

Starting Weight: 170

Wed.3/28: -3lbs total

Wed. 4/10: -6.5lbs total

Wed. 4/17: -7.5lbs total

Wed. 4/25: -7.5lbs total

Wed. 5/2: -8.5lbs total

Wed. 5/9: -10.5lbs total 

Wed.5/16: -10.5lbs total

Wed. 5/23: -10.5lbs total

Wed. 5/30: -12lbs total 

Wed. 6/6: on vacation! 

Wed. 6/13/12:-10lbs total

Wed. 6/20/12: -10lbs total

Don't forget to stop by our Naturally-Nifty Party #19 and link up this week! 

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Naturally-Nifty Party #19

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Well today is our 19th Linky Party....do you know what that means....NEXT WEEK IS #20! And because of that, next week we will be hosting a giveaway along with our linky party! 
We have enjoyed so much partying with yall each week.  Sharing time together as we get to see all the wonderful creations and ideas that you come up with! Thank you all so much for being a part of the Naturally-Nifty Party! You are why this can happen! We encourage you, tell your friends about it and bring them over to meet some new friends and have fun with us! 
So be sure to join us again next week for the party and the giveaway! 


Now for this week's wonderful featured posts! 


For all of you that were featured, don't forget to grab this fun featured button to put on your blog and brag with!! 

And remember as part of being featured, we will be pinning these great posts to our Pinterest boards, check it out! 

Lindsay over at Artsy-Fartsy Mama gave me the best idea for Father's Day! I could not figure out for the life of me what to get my kids in daycare to do for their dads... so I took that idea. When I saw her blog I knew I HAD to do it.. it is so cute! My husband loved it so much. It was filled with lots of awesome goodies that my little man picked out for his daddy-o. Lindsay has some of the coolest stuff on her blog, I hope you will take the time out of your day and check her out.. I don't think you will regret it.... Thanks, Lindsay for linking up with us! 

I am in love with this tray that Becky at Beyond the Picket Fence created. Man, how I wish I could just pay someone to do that for me. It is so creative and such a great use of a frame and cabinet handles. I wish I thought as creatively as Becky does... she has some of the coolest crafts on her blog. This tray looks easy enough that I think I might just try it sometime soon... though it does seem more up Lil' Sis' alley. It would be a great piece to put on your coffee table! Thank yo Becky for linking this up, I love it. I am pretty sure that you should check this blog out too.. there is a lot more awesomeness to be found. 

This is a fantastic organizing idea shared by Craftionary! I love creative ideas that bring organization for things! And this was so clever! She took an expandable wooden hanger (that she painted to make even prettier) plus some baskets and made an accessory holder/hanger with a lot of her everyday used things in her bathroom.  I think we could all benefit from something like this! Head over and check it out in more detail! 

I absolutely love this post shared with us by Jennifer from Finding My Way In Texas. (sidenote: Jennifer is one of our TX Bloggers that will be featured soon during our TX Blogger Series). Anyways, I love this idea because I have tried something similar and it did not work! So I am definitely going to be trying this! In this post Jennifer shows us how to make perfect letters without using an actual stencil or vinyl letters.   To me that essentially mean without spending more money on a project, but instead just being able to print out a piece of paper with your words/saying from your computer and using it!! You definitely have to head over and read about this, this is a trick you definitely want to have under your belt! 

Now let's have some fun!! 

We want to see all of your fantastic new posts, so have fun with it!! Show us what you have been up to and be sure to mingle while you are here! Visit other blogs and be sure to LIKE them! 

PARTY DETAILS!! 

Please SUBSCRIBE to our blog on the left sidebar!

Also, take one of our Naturally-Nifty Party Buttons to put on your blog or add us to your linky parties tab on your blog!

And please stop by our Like FACEBOOK page and Follow us on TWITTER

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Advertise/Sponsor

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Hey everyone! 

Natural-Nesters is taking a new leap into the bloggy world! 

We are now offering sponsor/advertisement availability on our blog, and we are also open to doing swaps with other blogs similar to ours!! 

Want to advertise on this blog?
Have a product you'd like me to review?
Want to sponsor a giveaway?

We would love to partner with you in advertising your blog or shop, or reviewing products or hosting a giveaway here at Natural-Nesters!! Please stop by and check out our SPONSOR PAGE! 

Or if you are interested in doing a SPONSOR SWAP with us then just email us at naturalnesters@gmail.com! We would love to talk to you more about it! 

We will advertise with your button on our blog, and we will also feature you on our monthly sponsor posts throughout the month, plus you will get some shout outs on Facebook and Twitter! 

We are so excited about this new journey in blog world and we hope that you will take part in it with us! 

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