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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.