Chef Keith Hanks

Chef Keith is the Executive Chef of House of Blues Dallas. Almost two years ago, Keith, his wife Faith, and their four children moved to North Texas from New Jersey, where Keith was born and raised. He started cooking in kitchens 20 years ago, and has since had the opportunity to work in some of New York’s and America’s best restaurants. Chef Keith’s career and experiences in the food industry have been exciting to say the least, but he says the most important things in his life are God, Family and Country.

Chef Keith writes about cooking, menu planning, and just about anything else food-related. If you have a question for Chef Keith, you can email him at chefkeithhanks@gmail.com

Jenna | Food with Kid Appeal

Jenna Pepper is a mother, food enthusiast and educator for parents wanting information on how to get their kids to eat healthier food. In addition to blogging, she owns a recruiting services business that allows her to work part-time from home. She finds time to parent, meet the recruiting needs of her technology clients and cook up nutritious, kid-friendly meals her family loves.

She teaches Kid’s Nutrition classes in Houston, TX and offers recipes and a treasure trove of tips for parents at her blog Food with Kid Appeal. The Kid Appeal Forum is a place parents stuck in a rut with their kids’ eating habits can get a fresh perspective and an action plan for changing the way their families eat.

Jenna believes food is fun and healthy eating habits in childhood leads to adults in right-sized bodies, with big brains and plenty of energy to accomplish their life’s mission.

Amy | The Finer Things In Life

After eight years of teaching middle school in the suburbs, Amy gave up her job to embrace her full-time vocation as a wife and mother. She and her husband are blessed with three children, ages 5, 3, and 1. While her husband continues his teaching and coaching career in a tiny Kansas town, Amy manages the homefront, and the children, and sometimes his ball teams!

Amy’s blog, The Finer Things in Life, celebrates and encourages others in all of the things that money cannot buy: faith, motherhood, simplicity, tiny towns, and good home cookin’.

Lisa | Crazy Adventures in Parenting

Originally from New York, born and raised, Lisa’s met and married the man of her dreams, who swept her off her feet and right into the military life, where he transplanted her from the north to living in the south - first North Carolina, now Louisiana (since July ‘08) for the next 3 years. Such is the military life, craziness and all.

Lisa lives naturally, using natural cleaners, eating organic 95% of the time (with the exception of ranch dressing, mayo and some other cruxes they can’t seem to get rid of.. yet) and love being outdoors, to include gardening and playing sports. If it weren’t for the spiders and bugs, she’d probably live outdoors. Well, maybe.

She loves to bake, create, make the house smell like a bakery, making things from scratch, crafts, knitting, sewing, and crocheting. She’s old-fashioned but technology is fascinating to her.

A writer by nature all her life, she’s become addicted to blogging and begun writing and editing for a living. The internet enhances their lives so much, and combining her love of writing with the internet seems like a match made in heaven. That is, when she’s not fighting with one of her kids for it, or changing diapers, or cooking… you get the idea.

She can be found blogging seeking refuge regularly at Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

Niki | The Minimalist Mommy

Unorthodox may be a perfect word to describe Niki’s life. Along with her husband and two children, they share housing with her parents on a large horse farm. Family is their focus and by living as such, they are able to raise their children in the company of their grandparents while placing all of the emphasis on simplified living.

Niki’s days are spent cooking from scratch and finding unique ways to save money, but most of all making the most of their family time. Being a former certified credit counselor, she saw firsthand what stuff and endless wants can do to people. Everyday she strives to free herself of material things and bring all aspects of their life back to basics.

Heather | Just Doing My Best

Heather is a stay-at-home mom to two incredible children and wife to an electronic and technical guru. She calls Kentucky home and loves to travel whenever schedules and circumstances allow.

When she isn’t managing the daily duties of a home with active children and a hard-working husband, she is volunteering at her church and food pantry, blogging and writing, and scoping out bargains. She loves to cook, especially spicy and Mexican dishes, and often concocts her own.

Heather owns and runs the blog Just Doing My Best, which focuses on helping and inspiring moms to do their best in their own homes. She believes there are no perfect moms and all we have is our best. Just Doing My Best places a strong emphasis on frugality, but just as that is not the only focus of our roles at home, neither is it the sole focus of the website. Heather focuses on providing tidbits to make the job easier while providing new ideas to keep it interesting.

Niki | Free to be Frugal

Niki DiSilvio is a stay-at-home mother of one in South Jersey. In addition to running Free2BeFrugal and chasing after her kid and two puppies, she keeps busy by serving in her local MOMS Club and her church’s children’s ministry. She currently teaches Sunday School to second graders. Teaching others is a love of Niki’s and is something she hopes to return to full-time once she’s done raising little ones.

Sonshine | Glimpse of Sonshine

Sonshine grew up and has stayed in the Midwest. She is the oldest of 8 kids. Sonshine went on to college and got a degree in Elementary Education with a minor in Special Education. She met her husband while in college. He was in the Navy and she was in college — they met back when message boards were DOS-based bulletin boards, so they met via the internet. They have been happily married now for 13 years. They have five children — four boys and one girl.

Since they started having children, she has been a stay-at-home mom who decided to use her degree to home school the children. Her children have never gone to school. She does not use any particular curriculum, so her style could be described as eclectic. Her entire curriculum she has made up from what she’s found on the internet, getting books at the library and the few older edition curriculum books that she has been blessed with from other home schooling families. They are also relaxed in their schooling in that they do not follow a public school schedule.

Sonshine started blogging over at Glimpse of Sonshine a little over a year ago so that she had an “off-site” place for all the lists of educational websites and to show others that they can home school for nearly free! As time went on though, she found herself sharing more than just home schooling material, but also a lot of her favorite recipes and even helpful, frugal, homemaking tips. Sonshine wants her blog to be a place where someone can come and glean new ideas, recipes, tips or even encouragement!

Tricia Goyer | TriciaGoyer.com

Tricia Goyer is the author of eighteen books including From Dust and Ashes, My Life UnScripted, and the children’s book, 10 Minutes to Showtime. She won Historical Novel of the Year in 2005 and 2006 from ACFW, and was honored with the Writer of the Year award from Mt. Hermon Writer’s Conference in 2003. Tricia’s book, Life Interrupted, was a finalist for the Gold Medallion in 2005.

In addition to her novels, Tricia writes non-fiction books and magazine articles for publications like Today’s Christian Woman and Focus on the Family. Tricia is a regular speaker at conventions and conferences, and has been a workshop presenter at the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International Conventions. She and her family make their home in the mountains of Montana.

Carri | The Peterson Clan

Carri Peterson is the wife of Eric, an EMS helicopter pilot in rural Kentucky. She blogs at The Peterson Clan about the craziness of raising and educating their nine children, along with their attempts to raise cows, chickens, and a garden.

Carri enjoys sharing the lessons she has learned while mothering many children. As the mom of 9, her perspective is sure to be both encouraging and inspiring.

Susan | Susie’s Homemade

Susan Ewing is a happily married thriving stay-at-home mom of two wonderful girls (5 and 18) and a caretaker of her 67 year old live-in mother. You may know her from her blog Susie’s Homemade where she explores the creative side of homemaking with her adventures in baking, cooking, entertaining and gardening. She is also the owner and operator of Susie’s Homemade Chocolate Shop on Etsy.com.

Amy | Mom’s Toolbox

Amy, sister-in-law to Toni, one of the original 3 Moms, has 3 children, ages 2, 5 and 7, and comes to us from Momstoolbox.com where you can read her daily devotional discoveries, as well as partake in any number of her other journeys, whether they be around the house, around town or around the world.

Amy, her husband and the kids have traveled together to destinations in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe (Without the kids, she can add South America and New Zealand/ Australia to the tally.) Her youngest took her first flight to Europe at 3 months… the first two waited until 15 months.

Before becoming a mom, Amy managed the public relations for The Children’s Museum of Houston for seven years, securing local, regional and national coverage in print, broadcast and online media. She retired during her first pregnancy to “prepare” for the adventure of motherhood by getting caught up on her scrapbooking and taking a few trips before settling down (or so she thought…. She has traveled more with kids than without!).

Get ready to pack your bags and check in with us before your next journey. Amy is sure to have some good tips to share!

Jia | Color Me Untypical

Jia has been married to her high school sweetheart for five years. They were married in Salt Lake City, Utah, but now reside in their hometown of Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Raised by her grandmother, Jia learned the importance of work and love in the home. Early on in their marriage, she and her husband made the decision that she would stay home as a housewife. Since that day, Jia has dedicated her days to caring for her home and husband while preparing for future children. By devoting herself to her marriage, God and helping others do the same, she is truly happy to be at home.

In her spare time, she works from home as a freelance writer. She is a healthy living editor of an online women’s organization and has been featured in virtual magazines such as Latter-Day Woman. She also runs two popular blogs, Color Me Untypical, which records her daily life as a homemaker and wife with hilarity and encouragement thrown in, and Modern Molly Mormon, a community website for LDS women around the world.

Shannan | Chubbie Chica

Chubbie Chica was created out of Shannan’s own frustration with weight gain and then weight loss.  She had not had a weight issue until the birth of her children. She was very frustrated when she would go to “centers” and they would try and find an issue to fix.  But the only issue that she has is that she loves food.

No, she didn’t have a horrible childhood. No, she is not insecure. No, she doesn’t have low self esteem. No, she doesn’t have a failing marriage…are you getting the point?  She just loves food!

Shannan is a very secure and active parent and very involved in her community. She successfully lost 68 lbs. after the birth of her daughter following the WW lifestyle. So…what is the problem now you might ask?

Well, the birth of her “surprise child” at 40 has packed all the weight right back on, so now she is starting all over. Not with much success, she’d like to add. That is when Chubbie Chica was born (out of her frustrations) and she found the blogging world.

Feel free to join her at www.chubbiechica.com for Menu Mondays, Recipe Of The Day, Frugal Fridays and Bites and Bits. She is committed to healthy cooking, not only for herself but for my family.

Shannan, a.k.a. Chubbie Chica, is from the South, which doesn’t help Chubbie Chica at all! She is a huge fan of down home, Southern cooking, and that is how she was raised. She is a wife and proud mother of five children, three adopted special needs. She considers herself as a SAHM (although she does operate a small business, she has employees so she is at home now) while DH works for Pepsi Cola Bottling Co. (darn those Pepsi’s).

She is currently the president of an athletic booster club (competitive cheerleader), a member of the Home And School Association, and holds a position on the Human Rights Commission for the city. For all her family trials and tribulations, you can join her at her family blog, www.thefelixfive.com. She shares her large-family parenting adventures and money-saving tips.  Of course, having a large family does take some financial creativeness.

Erin | $5 Dinners

Erin chronicles her mission to make meals for her family for under five dollars on her website 5DollarDinners.com. She strives to make healthy, wholesome and nutritious meals using mostly raw and natural foods. Along with a post detailing each night’s meal with cost breakdown, she also offers money saving tips, monthly menu plans, and other suggestions for getting the most out your food purchases. Erin lives in Ohio with her husband and two young boys.

Sherry | Lamp unto My Feet

Sherry is a military spouse of 16 years and has 2 children. She ran a catering business at their last base and is now homeschooling. When she isn’t homeschooling, Sherry helps with her church’s blog, teaches cooking, church activities, bakes, reads, and peruses recipes in cookbooks and online. You can catch her at Lamp unto My Feet blogging about her daily happenings.

Amanda | Mom of Faith

Amanda is the owner and publisher of Momoffaith.com. She is a Christian mother of two beautiful girls, smart mouth, closet geek, part-time comedienne, Hard working/loving, WAHM, blogger; working hard to turn her blogging into a part time income while still having time to do the other things she loves. She is the wife to an amazing IT professional, and blessed, precious, child of God. Amanda enjoys reading, volunteering, writing, teaching, and community building. She believes that WE are the only ones who can make a difference in our communities and we MUST stop waiting for someone else to come along and fix it for us.
To see more of Amanda be sure to visit Mom of Faith, where she combines faith, family, frugality, and a deep need to change the world all on one blog. Mom of Faith features review and giveaways for products and services she feels will add something to our lives; time, fun, organization, whatever. She is staying relevant and opening women (and men’s) eyes to the world and it’s issues.

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