Big Family Food and Fun: October 11-17, 2026

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: October 11-17, 2026 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: October 11-17, 2026

We started our week with Breakfast Cookie Bars, of course. Then for lunch after church, 25 of us gathered at our house. We had sweet conversation around the table and outside while kids played. Our meal was Spiral Sliced Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, Salad, and Buttered Rolls. Plus our friend Kristin made Blackberry Bars for dessert!

That afternoon, it felt good to put all the leftover ham into a container for a future meal. Plus, Elias and Malorie had picked up a couple of Rotisserie Chickens for me and I got that prepped for the week.

Then we loaded up and headed to an event at Lincoln Symphony that was free for kids that day! They got to make some crafts…

But most exciting was that they got to try out different instruments!

It was the coolest event! We ran into some York friends there, which made our time extra good and special. Then we got to watch an hour-long symphony for kids: Lou the Baby Dinosaur. They didn’t allow pictures to be taken during the performance, but wow was it impressive! Kelsey, Hopelyn, and Kelsey’s parents were there too, and all of the kids enjoyed the entire show so much!

Back at home, I baked five Frozen Pizzas for dinner and we played outside until bedtime. It’s “make a leaf pile” season!

Emma came over on Monday morning, so after we got the kids to school, Matt and I went and walked around Holmes Lake! Then Matt headed home to work the rest of the day on the lift that we’d rented. I headed out to Panera to sit and write. It was so restful and refreshing!

At school pick-up time, I always take a snack to help our kids transition from school to home. This time I took them all a Pumpkin Spice Roll-Out Cookie, which they love! These cookies are made with whole wheat and are lower in sugar, so I consider them to be more of a snack than a dessert. They just think they are eating cookies in the middle of the week! (We usually reserve our sugar/desserts for the weekends.)

Acacia had a hard time making it home, and Keith came to the rescue to offer her support.

That evening, Kelsey and Hopelyn stopped by. Several weeks ago, God gave me the idea to make a Memory Bear for Bonus Buddy. I reached out to Buddy’s grandma and asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing a couple of shirts that had belonged to his daddy. Grandma graciously came through, and I turned the shirts over to Kelsey. Last week when Kelsey’s mom was visiting, the two of them spent hours of time and prayer together to create this precious bear. It is everything I’d hoped it would be and it brought out some needed emotional release and comfort. Buddy and I sat together and cried with the bear for a while before moving on for the evening of dinner and play. What a beautiful gift.

For dinner that night, I had used Rotisserie Chicken to make Chicken Cheese Melts – 12 with ranch and 12 with barbecue sauce. I air fried some Hashbrown Patties and got out Pickles. Everyone chose whatever fruit they wanted, and that was dinner. The evening was extra hectic because Matt was working on the lift most of the time. We had three RBTs with us for ABA therapy, and we all survived!

Daddy gave everyone a ride as he moved the lift to a new spot at the end of the night.

At school drop off that morning, Keith was struggling to want to get in the door. I attempted to distract him from his distress by “noticing” that he and Bonus Buddy were both wearing Star Wars-themed shirts and requesting a picture. This turned Keith’s sadness to smiles and Mom ended up with a fun 2nd grade best buddies picture!

A few of our Tuesday appointments got canceled, which was a bummer but also freed me up to get some other work accomplished. I made a double batch of Monster Cookie Bars for school lunches.

I also made several Breakfast Burritos. Meanwhile, I just got a new phone because my old one was not working well anymore. I got it set up that morning and had fun playing with its camera. Pretty impressive for a phone camera. Check out this beautiful burrito. :)

Hopelyn spent the day with us and helped me get Auggie onto the school bus at noon.

I had a meeting that afternoon during naptime and Brayden’s homeschool time. He did a good job working on his assignments and reading independently while I talked with one of our ABA therapists in details about some big needs. I came away from the meeting both discouraged and encouraged. Discouraged because it seems that for one of our kids, we’re looking at some bigger challenges. But encouraged because our therapist is willing to keep digging and finding answers to help. God is faithful.

I took Brayden, Kiya, Buddy, and Josie to Tuesday Food Distribution.

For dinner that night, we ate Baked Potatoes that had cooked in a crock pot all day. Everyone topped their potato however they wanted – with leftover Ham or Chili to work with.

The evening was a bit overwhelming again as Matt was trying to get as much accomplished as he could on the lift while I held down the fort otherwise. The weeks that Matt rents a lift to work on our house are very necessary! But not my favorite. :)

This though, moments like this are my favorite… Who better to help a six year old brush her teeth than her three year old brother?

On Wednesday morning, I was able to put together a monster-sized batch of Mudballs for the kids to have on hand for protein snacks.

It was a big day as Wednesday was the final day of the quarter and there were award assemblies for different grade levels all throughout the day. At 10:00, Matt stayed home with Auggie and his ABA therapist while I got to go to the school to see Kiya receive an honor.

That afternoon, Acacia got an award and both Matt and I were there for that. Meanwhile, Malorie was awesome and picked up both Sam’s and Wal-mart orders for me. Teamwork is the only way to make this dream work.

My friend Heather sent me this delicious-looking photo of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread that she’d made to feed the youth group that night.

Keith has been begging me to teach him to sew – yikes. I had already put him off many times, not because I didn’t want to teach him but because sitting down one-on-one with any kid usually draws in allllll the other kids and this activity required needles and scissors. I finally said yes, and indeed, all the kids eventually joined and created a special variety of chaos. Basically, everyone was able to find a stuffed animal or doll that needed repair and our dining room turned into a hectic hospital emergency room in which many bears, babies, dinosaurs, and puppies were stitched up while kids begged for a turn with the needle.

ABA therapy for three kids was happening during this time, which was both helpful and not helpful. ANYWAY. I don’t want to do that again any time soon, but hooray for all the needed stuffy repairs that we were able to knock out that night! And the kids were thrilled to take a turn at sewing.

Meanwhile, dinner prep got delayed, though Matt did all he could while I put the final stitches in. We had a Taco Bar with Seasoned Meat, Beans, Tomatoes, Spinach, Cheese, Sour Cream, Salsa, and Chips or Tortillas.

I had a pan of Stick of Butter Rice baking to go with this meal, but something went weird with our small oven and it took over two hours to bake. Then it ended up part overdone and part underdone. Ugh. Even with that, it tasted good AND one of my picky kids proved her dominance over the situation and ate four servings. I can’t predict who will eat what when. :)

Thursday launched our kids’ Fall Break! I cut sliced bread with a pumpkin cookie cutter in an attempt to make Fall French Toast. I made two loaves worth and we ran out too quickly. (I put all the scraps into a large pan to make Bread Pudding for later!)

Arrow and Hopelyn came over for the morning, plus Auggie had ABA therapy. It was raining so we had to entertain ourselves in the house. We played games and built with magnatiles…

After lunch, we took the kids to play at the Children’s Museum.

Back at home, two kids started their ABA therapy sessions and Acacia and I did some baking.

I had a lot of bananas that needed to be turned into something tasty, so we made Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins and Banana Cake.

Dinner was super easy as I had used Wednesday’s leftovers to put together Taco Soup in a crock pot that afternoon. We ate it with strawberries and muffins.

Brayden and Kiya entertained themselves with a couple of science experiments that evening. It was messsssssy. But they cleaned it up at bedtime, and the mess was worth it!

Fall Break: Day 2! It was chilly and windy outside, but it wasn’t raining. We started out by going to a library that was new to us. We enjoyed a Magnatile Challenge there, coloring pages, and reading our favorite books.

We had packed lunches, so we all sat in the van with our sacks and ate as we headed over to a Fall Family Fun Day at HobbyTown USA. This event was incredibly generous as everything the kids got to do was free. They all got Lego sets to work on and take home (for free!). Plus they did Foil Art and got to race Remote Control Cars out in the parking lot. We hung out here for several hours and loved it all!

Back at home, we got out coats, hats, and gloves and sent the boys out with Matt to a Men/Boys retreat with Heartlands. Kelsey and Eva and their girl babes came over and we had a GIRLS NIGHT! We started by baking some Zucchini Bread together.

We munched on Chicken Nuggets, Carrots, and Strawberries for dinner and enjoyed time with Phoebe who was wide awake and ready for fun!

Next up: NAIL SALON!!

Hopelyn helped with Phoebe’s diaper change before sending her home with her mama.

Our Zucchini Bread turned out perfect!

At the end of the evening, I pulled out a Pumpkin Sewing Kit as all of the girls have been very determined to learn to use a needle and thread. Kiya has some experience with sewing so she was able to help from time to time. It was fun to see them all work so hard, even if this project was challenging. 45-minutes was just long enough to attempt this before we packed it up and headed to bed.

On Saturday, we took our kids to a Fall Festival at Crossroads Church. They had advertised this event all over the city and wow did the city show up! We were very impressed with all the work that went into this and our kids had so much fun!

There were hayrides, inflatables, playgrounds, a petting zoo, a huge maze, and Keith’s and Bonus Buddy’s favorite: a rock climbing wall.

We spent several hours at this festival and still didn’t get around to every activity.

They served a free lunch to EVERYONE. It truly was incredible.

Our last stop was the “pumpkin patch” where we got to select a pumpkin to take home.

We made it home in time to open the door to our long-time friends who live a couple hours away. Parents visited, kids played, and we all enjoyed catching up! The best part? It was Kiya’s birthday so our birthday dinner time got to be extra special with our special friends!

Kiya requested Hamburgers, Cheese Puffs, Green Beans, and Strawberry Parfaits for her birthday dinner.