Monthly Archives: April 2015

Okay, some of you might think this is too heathenistic and that is okay.  I am sometimes the not so plain out of the plain (smile).  My daughter has been wanting her hair dip dyed for a long time now and I finally said, “okay.”

I remember talking to another mother whom I would have never thought would have allowed her daughter to do the same thing and she said, “Amy, you have to pick your battles, there are so many things that are worse off than dip dyed hair.”  I had to agree.  So off we went, we headed to the store and got some Splat hair color.  I had her stand on an old towel, in case I dropped any of the color or bleach on the floor.  She put a towel around her upper body to help not get anything stained. 

We started out with a clean washed hair and it was dry.  We then mixed up the bleach mixture and applied it to the lower parts of the hair.  Some recommended putting the hair in small sections of pony tails, that probably would have made it easier.  I just pinched the sections of the hair as I applied the bleach.  She originally just wanted the very tips, but we went up a couple of inches more, glad we did. 

Her hair is very dark and so we had to do the full amount of time that the box recommended for bleaching the hair.  I kept applying more amount of bleach after checking it for the recommended time.  I almost used the entire bottle. 

We then washed off the bleach and had her dry her head completely.  It worked!

Now it was time for the color, we applied the color to the bleached part and then up a little bit on the brown parts of her hair.  This made for a nice contrast in color for the dip dye.  I probably could have saved about half the mixture of the dye for reapplying a few weeks later when this rinsed out.

Here is the finished product, she was very happy with it.

It has been a few weeks and the color has changed from magenta to more of a pink color.  But it worked for the $8 we paid for the dye.

Worse case scenario we figured we would just trim her hair if it seriously damaged it.  I know bleaching isn’t the greatest for hair but we can always trim it out later on.

She is doing a pantomime dance for a talent competition in our church in the next coming weeks.  She wanted to match her hair to her dance skirt.  Fun for teens.  She is on fire, loving Jesus, knows where she stand with the Lord, holds herself accountable to God, and has vowed to wait till she is married to give her husband her first kiss, her heart, and everything else she has saved.  Dip dye to me is NOT that big of a deal.  (smile)

Here are a few pics of some friends that came to visit us a few weeks ago.  It is good to have friends to hang out with, ones that uplift you and not try and bring you down.  I am thankful for the friendships that my children have grown.

Here we are all of us piled into the 15, I mean 16 passenger van (smile).

We enjoyed a picnic at Fletcher Park the first night they were here.  They are from Michigan and left when it was snowing. I was thankful that we had such beautiful warm weather when they were here.

We got to enjoy a BBQ via Collin.  It was delicious.  Chicken and hot dogs. 

We then went for a walk around the park and discovered part of the river?!? or creek?! I don’t know the correct term yet, but I know the children were loving it. 

They loved it so much that they decided to get in and get wet.  The locals were like looking at us thinking we were crazy! It isn’t warm yet! Oh but it is WARM for a bunch of Michiganders (smile).

The next day we went to Caesers Head and Table Rock.  It was almost 80 in South Carolina that day, beautiful.  Here are Collin and Austin.

Here is almost all of us, minus a couple of teenagers.  Not sure where they were during the picture taking time. 

We enjoyed a nice hike, I took a slide in some mud.  Oh yes such fun, the experienced “hiker” that I am lol. 

We kept our meals simple, I prepared foods the week before to make our week more about fellowship instead of making food.  Here the children got to eat outside most everyday.

Then it was time to say good bye.  We will miss our friends, but will hold onto the memories for next time.

Here is Austin, Collin, Lauren, Hannah, and Molly.  A group of teens that love the Lord, nothing better than that.  I know I was a heathen and it excites me to see them desire so much more out of life than I did.  God is good! No, God is great!

Don’t sweat the small stuff, look for the greater goal and focus on that.  Be blessed.

A few weeks ago, I made a dinner for our church business meeting.  I had to scour the internet to look for the amounts of food that I would need.  Some of it was difficult in finding. After I made the meal, I knew I wanted to post the amounts of food that I made, in hopes of helping someone else out for the future.  That is what we are here for—to help one another.

This was the menu that was planned:

• fried chicken
• calico beans
• macaroni and cheese
• cheesy potatoes
• green beans, bacon, and french fried onions
• tossed salad
• rolls
• pineapple upside down cake
• oreo cookie/pudding dessert

For the chicken, we ordered it from a local deli.  You should plan on about 2 pieces per person.  We ordered 90 pieces and had about 6 pieces left over. enough for everyone.

Calico beans

• 2 large 10# cans of baked beans–**see note
• 4 regular size cans of butter beans
• 4 regular size cans of kidney beans
• 3 # hamburger, cooked beforehand
• large bag of bacon bits from Sams Club–I used about half
• ketchup
• mustard
• vinegar
• brown sugar
• salt
• molasses

I wish I would have the exact measurements for the sauce, but I cook with taste.  I started with about 3/4 bottle of ketchup, 2 T vinegar, 3 big squirts of mustard, 1 cup of brown sugar, and the rest was by taste.  Mix that up separately and taste it. You want it tangy because the bean mixture is going to be tomato and will help make it less zingy.

***Now for this amount, I had about 1/2 of the beans left.  Next time, I would recommend 1 less can of baked beans.

Green beans

• 2 large #10 cans of green beans***see note
• the rest of the bacon bits from the beans
• 1 large bag of french fried onions sprinkled over top.

**we had only eaten about 1 can of green beans, I would use only 1 can next time.

Macaroni and cheese

Cook 3 boxes of shell macaroni, cook almost until done.  In saucepan, melt 2 sticks butter and thicken with flour.  Add milk and whisk. I sprinkled in some chicken bouillon for some extra flavor.  I then added about half of a large bag of shredded cheese from Sams Club.  I added about half of a can of cheddar cheese   for more creaminess. That is the large #10 pound can of cheese you get for Nacho making, you can get it at Sams Club.  If you are going to cook this in the oven, make sure that it has plenty of liquid.  The noodles absorb and it will by dry if you don’t make it right.  If you need to add more milk, do that.  Taste the liquid and make sure that it tastes cheesy enough.  I would just cook this on low in the oven around 300 degrees just to heat it slowly.  That way you will avoid burning it or making it too dry.

**these amounts were about correct, only a little bit left over, about 1/2 of a box of pasta.

Cheesy potatoes

I used 4 bags of southern style diced potatoes.  To that I mixed up the following mixture:

• 2 containers of sour cream
• 2 cans of cream of mushroom
• 2 cans of cream of chicken
• 1/3 of that large #10 can of cheddar cheese
• 1/4 of the bag of shredded cheddar cheese–from the macaroni
• 1 onion diced up finely

Mix all of that and cook on 300 degrees until heated through.

****Next time, I would probably do 3 bags of potatoes, as there was enough leftovers.

Rolls

I went to Sams Club and bought their pull apart rolls.  I bought 2 boxes of them.  The only flaw that I noticed was that you had to “pull” them apart.  some of them in the middle were mushy.  I would probably recommend buying the rolls that you can get in bags over by the Deli.  Firmer and already separate.

Butter–only used 1 stick of butter

Salad

I bought 7 big bags of salad from Sams Club, 1 pkg of cherry tomatoes, 1 bag of cucumbers, and the rest of the cheesy from that large shredded bag.

Plenty of salad—too much, guess people are not into salads (smile)  I would recommend using only 3-4 bags.  I added all the tomatoes, cut up about 3/4 of the bag of cucumbers–from Sams Club, and then topped it with cheese and 3 bags of croutons from Aldis.  I could of used only 2.

Dressing, we used almost 1 full bottle of ranch, about 1/2 of french, and 1/3 of Italian.

For dessert I made 3 full size pineapple upside down cakes.  I could of gotten away with just making 2.

I covered a piece of cardboard with tin foil to use as a platter for carrying the cakes.

Another person made 2 pans of oreo cookie/pudding dessert.  Almost all of that was gone.

For 50 people, I would recommend 4 pans of 9×13 desserts.  Choose one chocolate kind and one vanilla kind.

This worked out well, our family ate the leftovers so nothing went to waste, but I put in the amounts I would recommend for someone who doesn’t have a large family to feed afterwards.

Pray this is a blessing and helpful advice, to help not to waste food for ministry gatherings.

I never thought much about the realities that large families face when trying to raise their “large brood.” When my husband and I chose to have a large family, we just did it. We didn’t give it much thought, we just knew that we enjoyed them. Somehow, somewhere, with the Lord’s help we manage and life if fun.

But I have become reminded more that our “normal” is NOT the normal of most families. I just take things for granted and think it is just the way it is, but in reality, most people never get to experience the things that we do.

The first thing that is noticeable different is the NOISE level. It can be really loud in our household. Things have gotten much quieter over the years, but I remember years that there was always a baby crying or a toddler throwing a fit or just children being loud through play.

I think that maybe we watch and read too many unreal books and movies with large families and we look at what is put out and it seems that all the children are peaceable and quiet. No one throws fits, everyone is happy, the children are quiet and life is good. But NO!!! Life is not like that. The reality is, that children cry, a 2 year old is going to throw a fit, and I guarantee you that if you have any boys, they will be loudness.

When I had my first 4 children, it was much easier to work one on one and have that “perfectly controlled” obedient child. But when the Lord gave us 6 babies almost one after another, life got crazy. I mean crazy!!! It was loud. Babies cried, toddlers cried, the preschoolers were almost always arguing over a toy, it was rough.
My husband and I would drive out to go run some errands and it was pretty much assumed that someone would start a meltdown in their car seats, for no reason mind you, but it was inevitable. We even had one that would start crying and then put her hands in her mouth and vomit while we were driving!!! Oh my goodness, we tried to keep that one happy while out.*smile

Family trips to make memories, almost always ended in sadness. Someone would meltdown over this, that, or who knows why. I proceeded to take the family photos at the apple orchard, take pictures at the park, and photos while sledding. I have pictures of at least one crying in every photo. What are you going to do? Nothing, I was making a memory.

When you have a household full of little ones, expect it to be loud. Forget about any quiet time, unless it is nap time and normally that is your rest time as well. Play times with lots of little ones is GOING to be loud. That is just reality, lots of little ones equals lots of noise.

Meal times are loud. I gave up for the longest time, because it was just LOUD! I mean LOUD!! You couldn’t even get in a sensible quiet conversation with anyone because it was just that loud. Little children seem to have zero concept of being quieter when confined to a room that doesn’t allow the sound to bounce anywhere but back at you.

BUT………………………….

Do you know what? My children are growing. We CAN drive anywhere, even 18 hours in a vehicle when making a move to another state and have NO MELTDOWNS!!! We pack up our children and do an awful lot of exploring and driving. We sometimes have them sitting for hours while we get to our destination, and we do it!!! MELTDOWN FREE!!!
Dinner times at our table, are enjoyable. It is nice now when our little ones can carry on a conversation about something fun in their day. Sure they tend to raise their voices or multiple ones talk at the same time, but we are a family work in progress. It is getting better and it is fun.

The noise level isn’t that bad anymore. I have found the beauty of headphones and my Blackberry. (smile) I took a lesson from my teenagers who like to walk around at times with their headphones in and I thought to myself, “hmmmm, I am going to try that.” Do you know how nice it is when I am spending some time doing writing, that I can pop in my headphones and listen to music to “drown” out the extra noise? I especially enjoy it, early in the mornings when I listen to my bible teaching. I watch it on my laptop or phone and use my headphones as to not disturb the rest of the household. It is very calming.(smile).

I have even learned the blessing of having them at night. My husband is a light sleeper and I hate to have the television on, if for some reason I am up to disturb him. I started listening to my bible app as I fall asleep and you know that I can STILL hear my children when they wake up. Even if I have trouble falling back asleep, it is nice to just pop in my headphones and restart the sermon I was listening to and drift back asleep without disturbing my husband.

A blessing in something as small as headphones.

Welcome to the series………My Large Family Controlled—-to the best of my physical ability—Chaos—because there is always something. Keep watching for more.

part 2

Well our Resurrection Day has come and gone this year.  I did not scrounge the computer for the latest Pinterest  Easter crafts.  We didn’t spend $20 per child for an Easter basket and I won’t have to deal with little ones having meltdowns over sugar highs and lows from eating too much candy.  In fact, it came and went with zero stress because I did not have to “perform” and be the Easter bunny this year.  It is a path I have chosen for a long time.

We enjoyed a wonderful service at church this morning and Jadyn and Lauren participated in a drama.  It was a very powerful and anointed message about breaking every chain, watch it and be blessed.

Back in the days of being a heathen-smile-, we would spend lots of money on having the children’s Easter baskets full.  Most of the candy went to my husband and myself which is never a good thing.  We would spend hours dyeing eggs, only to throw them out.  How many hard boiled eggs can 5 people eat???

When we become Christians, we continued on with the same practice for a few years and then our church ladies group, made Resurrection Eggs.  That was pretty fun, this was before you could buy them inexpensively at the store.

We took an empty egg carton and decorated the cover with cardstock and placed our plastic eggs inside.  We placed the following items in each egg:

• 3 dimes
• a rope
• a stone
• a crown of thorns
• a cloth
• communion cup and bread
• a palm leaf
• dice
• a sword
• a cross
• praying hands
• empty one

We then had bible verses to go with each instance of Jesus death and resurrection.  My children thoroughly enjoyed opening up each egg and then us explaining the meaning of the item.

After having multiple babies and my time limited, I gave up on doing the eggs.  Even just putting together a  special dinner brought upon more stress for myself, I couldn’t even think about doing extra.  I resorted to sharing the story straight from our children’s bible.  Simple and easy.  Through this time, we skipped the whole Easter baskets because sugar and little ones do not mix.  We did things like kites, bubbles, and stryofoam airplanes.  Things Daddy could do with the little ones if the weather permitted.  Some years we did nothing.  My children were still okay, never feeling deprived.

We had that for many years.  Then of course, things get damaged in a household—especially in a large family household–thus I don’t have my resurrection eggs anymore.  I will have to put that on my To Do List…..for one day.

Do we teach our children about the Easter bunny or Santa Claus?  For many years, during the time when we were spiritually growing, we had lots of little ones.  I believe that God just had us weed out doing those types of activities and it happened out of necessity.  We may joke around to our children about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and the Tooth fairy, but we don’t make it a point to make them believe that they are real.  Whenever a child looses a tooth, I say in a playful manner, “Oh, go and tell the tooth fairy that you will be needing a dollar tonight!”  The tooth fairy is Dad.

This year I bought some of our children’s favorite candy and on Saturday,divided up a small bowl for each one and said, “come see what the Easter bunny dropped off.”  They smile because they know that I bought the treats.  They enjoyed a sugar filled treat and then I let them run around and finish up with a good brushing of teeth.

We don’t glorify or make much of a deal about it.  But then we don’t try and “hide” the fact that the world has made it about the Easter bunny.  We just say Happy Resurrection Day!  We explain what the day means and my children are like “okay.”  Plain and simple.

Buying the candy was a treat, because I don’t do that.  We also bought a new pack of bubbles, something else we don’t normally do.  We spent the day having dinner.  We made it all on Saturday and then heated it up while we were at church on Sunday.  Came home, had dinner and then went out to enjoy the day.  Our life is spent, doing things with our children.  We celebrate togetherness always!

Here is what we made this year for dinner.  We skipped the traditional ham. We just had a dinner at church and had ordered chicken from our local store, and my husband made the comment that we should have that for Easter dinner.  Normally, I would be slightly offended, but my thought immediately turned to the toxic thinking(remember that?) and I said, “sure we can do that.”  Guess what??  It was one less thing to worry about.

Here was my chicken, heating up in the morning before church.  I heated it at 450 degrees to get it crispy again, then covered it in foil and left it in the oven on 170 for 3 hours.  Our sandwiches I just covered in foil and left them on the stove top and they were still warm for lunch when we got home.

I made some ham and cheese sliders.  The reason being, was I knew that my little ones would have to eat dinner later in the day as well.  I can’t get away with just feeding them once, so I thought the sandwiches would be great for that. 

We made macaroni and cheese–the staple for any household celebration.

Baked beans—from a large 10 pound can from Sams Club–just heat and serve.

Green beans–with some bacon bits and french fried onions.  Another no-fuss dish.

Tossed salad—my favorite and macaroni salad—my husbands’ favorite.

My girls were busy making strawberry pretzel dessert and dirt cups.  Something they enjoy doing.

This was a very easy meal to wake up in the morning to and prepare.  I did almost all of the prep the day before, I just heated all of the food on 400 degrees in the morning to get it nice and hot.  I then put the oven on 170 degrees and left it while we were at church.  It was all warm and delicious until we came home 3 hours later.

My ideas over the years about food have changed so much.  I stick to simple and easy and guess what?? My life is stress free. I don’t feel like I need to gorge on all the wonderful dishes only to feel regret the next day.  I keep it light and then it is no big deal.

Does that mean that one day I won’t return to doing Resurrection Eggs? Maybe one day. I know I will continue sharing with my children what the day means.  I will also explain what the world thinks about that day and how it came to be and why Christians have changed it to be about Jesus, as they do Christmas.

I wish I could say, we have matching outfits and the cookie cutter looking family, but ummm unfortunately sometimes we are just good enough all getting out the door dressed, teeth brushed, face washed, breakfast, and on time for church. I didn’t even get a photo of everyone all dressed up.  As soon as we got home, the girls pulled their buns out and the little boys, put on their comfy shorts and tshirts. (smile) that is okay…. Maybe one day……………….

One of my favorite bible verses is Psalm 24 and it states:

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the LORD And righteousness from the God of his salvation.…

If I could figure out how to play” Give us Clean Hands” in the background, I would. But I am not that technically savvy.  You are going to have to look that song up, if you don’t know it already.   Anyways…..

What exactly is meant by having pure hands? It can mean a number of things, but it ALWAYS goes along with having a pure heart.

As Christians we do things with clean hands because it will be seen by others.  But having a pure heart with those  actions VALIDATES it as it is seen by God.

Clean hands will do right things in front of men, BUT a pure heart will do them for the right reasons.

Clean hands are our actions towards others, BUT having a pure heart is our motivation.

Having clean hands is what we do as Christians, BUT having a pure heart is WHY we do it.

Having clean hands expresses our care, BUT having a pure heart is what EXPRESSES our character.

It is important to have clean hands in all that we do.  Our job on earth is to do the will of the Father.  God’s motives are pure.  We are to glorify God with our actions.  How are we going to be an example to the world around us, if we do things deceitfully or with our own motives?

We can’t walk around worried about what others may think.  We need to ONLY do what it is God has us do.  We then leave the rest up to God. It isn’t our worry, it is His.  God says to place all of our worries over unto Him.

1 Peter 5:7

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Are we doing that?  Or are we so concerned about what others think and that is our motivation for doing things?  We are doing this series so that you can evaluate all of the different areas of your life that we need work on.  We do it so that we can get more lined up on God.  We don’t do this stuff because we WANT to.  No, we would rather do what WE feel like doing.  We are doing these changes so that we can get lined up with God and receive His anointing.  God’s anointing is the Holy Spirit.  We WANT the Holy Spirit to be evident in our lives so that we can receive clear direction, help, guidance, and discretion to make the right choices for our journey.

For myself, when I wasn’t walking right with the Lord, I didn’t have the anointing of the Holy Spirit in my life, I am like “what is that?”  I would listen to preachers who would speak on receiving God’s anointing.  In my mind, I was offended—wrong thing to do!  My thoughts turned to, “Oh they are doing this for the money.”   What is the first thing that Satan does as soon as the seed is planted???  He comes to steal the seed.  That is exactly what he tried to do.  For myself, I am not a preacher, I am not even an evangelist, I am a Mother of lots of children.  But I have received God’s anointing and walk with it daily.  It guides me and I would NEVER want it any other way.  It has completely changed the way that I live my life.  It affects every area and it is awesome!!!  I am not saying this because I want money, my blog is FREE, I don’t have annoying pop ups, I don’t have advertising, I try and make it about God.  I let Him bring me the money I need to continue with things and He does.  I write this stuff because it is part of my life.  I have always wanted to help others but wondered how could I do that in my situation in life.  Well God provided a way and it is through this blog.  I am thankful to be able to share what it is that helps me get through my life.  I get excited and want to share that with others.  Because I know how much it is CHANGED MY LIFE FOR THE BETTER.

Evaluate your actions, are they done for God or for yourself?  This part goes hand in hand with having a pure heart.  If our heart is pure and lined up with God then our hands will be clean.  It can’t be done any other way.

part 5 ears for hearing