Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting
God grew us more and more this year – in so many ways. Spiritually, physically, and numerically.
From our house to yours, Merry, Merry Christmas!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!This year, I’m very focused on consumable Christmas gifts for our family. Let me explain why!
As most of you know, we had gotten to a point in life that we’d traded our gifts of toys and snuggly jammies for gifts like video and music equipment. I only kept a few toys around that I felt were worth saving for our future grandkids. AND THEN. Then God brought us more babies.
Woohoo and wow. The past two Christmases we have enjoyed building up our toy supply again. And not only that, for the first time ever, some of those toys are of the GIRLY variety.
Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know we shouldn’t put a gender label on toys for kids, but listen. My big boys never asked for a dollhouse for Christmas. Nor did they request baby dolls and lip gloss. Last year though, all of our little kids (both boys and girls) got a dollhouse. With a pink roof. The girls play lovingly with the dollhouse dolls and furniture. Meanwhile, the toddler boys strip the dollhouse dolls naked and send them sailing down the dollhouse staircase to see how far they’ll fly. Fun is had by all, so yes, dollhouses can be gender-neutral. But anyway…
As we’ve accumulated toys the past few years, we’ve also accumulated even more children. There are a lot of people living in our house – currently, ten to be exact. Lots of people take up lots of space, and so do their shoes, backpacks, clothes, and naked dollhouse dolls.
Also, our 7 and 6-year-olds struggle to share, put things away, and get mad when their “really important toy” that they leave out on the floor gets chewed on by a baby or hurled across the room by a toddler. I don’t want to give them more “stuff” that will ultimately create more conflict. So between that and the fact that – did I mention we have a lot of kids – this year, I’m very focused on:
Am I only wrapping food and putting it under the tree this year? Nope! Not that kind of consumable. Though food and drinks definitely make great gifts and there will be some of that for sure!
As I’ve been planning for Christmas this year, I’ve been excited about how many items are really fun to open but can be used and not accumulated! Like craft projects. Office and school supplies. And yes, food and drinks.
DON’T TELL MY KIDS! But here’s what they’ll all be getting this year. It’s both fun and practical, and woohoo, not terribly expensive! Each person will get:
Here are a few more details to help you understand what I’m planning:
There will be 14 of us at Christmas this year with Matt and me, all of our kids, plus the oldest two boys’ wives! I am having SO MUCH FUN putting all of these gifts together!!!
Tell me who you’re shopping for and what your gift plans are. This is so much fun!!!
We go through cases of applesauce pouches at our house. But these Brainiac snacks are a step above and would make a great stocking stuffer that your family would consider a great treat! Get free shipping on orders over $35, which makes this even better!
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Our friends at MadeOn skin care have been helping people fix their dry skin with their 3-ingredient Beesilk lotion bars for years. I LOVE using their products, and all of my kids do too. That’s why I put several lotion bars and lip balms in all my kids’ stockings. I’m going to buy them anyway, might as well use them as gifts, right?!
THIS LINK will get you $3.00 off the regular-sized lotion bar. Plus use the code: HH10 for an additional 10% off your entire order!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!What? I don’t make a traditional Christmas dinner at our house? Well, it’s traditional…for us. But it’s not normal for most.
First, let’s talk about how much I love Christmas. I MEAN I LOVE IT. So much. I go all out at Christmas and I don’t feel bad about it. (Though it’s going to look different from past years simply because we have so many kids now! It’s going to have to be smaller simply because we’re bigger. Eh?)
Current family count: 14
2 parents, 6 sons, 4 foster daughters, 1 daughter-in-law, and 1 very serious girlfriend.
This is amazing.
Side-note: If you’re going to date a Coppinger, you need to love babies.
Christmas last year looked like this:
But of course, that was before we filled our “loving room” with people.
And I mean FILLED. It gets nuts. The baby gate can’t handle how crazy this is. I have so much fun spoiling everyone at Christmas and in short: I don’t want to cook that day.
Yes, but not on Christmas day. I don’t want to miss one second of our Christmas fun! And there’s something else:
We eat turkey at Thanksgiving. Sometimes ham. Plus several days of leftovers. So we kind of want something different for Christmas.
Lasagna, baby. It’s a family favorite and after so many years, it is now our Christmas favorite.
My personal favorite thing about lasagna for Christmas is that I can make it weeks ahead of time and freeze it. Then I pull it out and bake it low and slow while we’re enjoying our gifts. Mid-afternoon when we come up for air, we head into the kitchen and eat lasagna with salad and sparkling juice.
It’s easy. It’s delicious. It’s one of our favorite traditions!
I’m chuckling at this picture because it’s an old one from back in the day when one 9×13 pan would be enough to feed our family. Now I usually make huge lasagnas in these. They freeze great. And then we throw the pan away.
(Wow have I changed a little bit from back in the new HeavenlyHomemaker days, huh? Aluminum pans? Chuck it after using it? Yes. I’ve learned that people are a much more important focus and I don’t feel bad about taking some shortcuts so I can instead focus on people.)
So there you have it. We enjoyed turkey at Thanksgiving. We got tired of turkey. I don’t want to mash potatoes on Christmas day. We eat Lasagna.
God bless us everyone.
What’s your traditional Christmas dinner?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Need ideas for the best gifts for all the people in your life? Here’s a list of lists!
This post is short and sweet. But boy does it pack a punch of ideas! Click on any of the links to get so many wonderful gift ideas!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I wanted to share a fun way we are counting down to Christmas without spending money this year. It’s also giving us some great family fun time too!
Every year I buy new games for Christmas. But this year? I’m not letting myself. Why? Because we have SO MANY GAMES. And many of them we’ve hardly had a chance to play.
So this year? I’m determined that we’ll spend some extra fun time playing games and reading books in the evenings leading to Christmas.
One day when all of the little kids were at school or napping, I dug out a pile of our favorite games, plus some that our elementary-age kids haven’t played before. I grabbed some of our Christmas books too. I wrapped them all and piled them on top of the mantle.
I ended up with 16 packages total, so beginning December 9, we’ll begin taking turns unwrapping one package each evening. We’ll get all ready for bed, then play a game together before our family singing and prayer time.
My hope is that this will become a new family tradition – and not just at Christmastime! During the long winter nights, I’m hoping we get into a habit of pulling out games to play together or books to read together.
Hopefully, I’ve picked out games that our younger kids can play and our older kids will still enjoy! Our game-gift pile includes:
If you don’t have many Christmas books, and you don’t want to spend the money to buy some, head to the library. They are free, you can wrap and enjoy them, then take them back to the library by their due date!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Have you always wanted to make a Gingerbread House but found yourself frustrated because it’s so difficult? Try this way instead!
Listen, if it isn’t easy, I don’t do it. And that’s not just because I have 387 kids now (plus-minus). I’ve always been this way. Complicated projects don’t work for me. I’m not a perfectionist. I’m not super detail-oriented. I’m most definitely not super artsy. So I only make easy projects.
Hahaha, I just re-read what I typed up there. “If it isn’t easy, I don’t do it.” HAHAHA. Well, that is not even true. I do hard things all day long. #387kids I’ll do the hard things if I feel like it matters. My babies most certainly matter. People matter. Love matters. Detailed projects don’t matter to me.
But shucks if I want to do fun projects with all of these kids that I love! Especially during holidays! Gingerbread houses always sound like such a fun idea to make together. So I finally found a way to make them that is easy!
What I avoid:
Oh, I do when we make Gingerbread Houses. :) This is for an art project, yo. This stuff doesn’t get eaten because “sorry kids, the houses have been sitting on the mantle for too long and now they are yucky to eat. bummer.”
I’m going to give credit where credit is due. I saw this idea here. She does a lovely job sharing how to do this. Go watch the quick how-to video here. SO EASY!
Bonus tips:
This is the only time you’ll ever hear me say this: Go out and get yourself some poptarts, candy, and frosting tubes. :)
Enjoy making these super easy Gingerbread Houses with your family!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Did you miss out on getting your Junior Chefs signed up a few weeks ago? Great news!! We’re all caught up with our initial registrants and able to give you one more chance to get your kids registered!
But here’s a quick breakdown of this week’s final offer:
Sign up for the yearly subscription and get these right away:
Can’t wait to add your Junior Chefs to our list!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I love sharing our favorite games!
It’s much trickier now to find time to play games as a family – mostly because we have a lot of little ones who like to put game pieces into their mouths. But whenever we can, we like to pull out a game to play with our 6 and 7-year-olds. And once all six little ones are put down for the night, we can get out some of the more detailed games for the grown-ups!
In case you’re looking at games to enjoy during the holidays with your family, we wanted to share these lists again. We’ve added new ones too!
Family Games Little Ones Enjoy
Family Games for Bigger Kids and Adults
Your turn to weigh in! What are your favorite family games?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Are these really the BEST Pumpkin Bars? I guess you’ll have to try them to see!
I love how moist these are! And how cool is it that they are made with whole grains and no one can tell?! (I use freshly ground soft white wheat, which is a whole wheat pastry flour, to make these.) I love that they are lightly sweetened instead of loaded with sugar. And this:
I LOVE THE CLOVES.
There’s something about the flavor that the cloves gives this recipe that makes is so very good. Cinnamon? I’m always all in with the cinnamon! Sometimes I skip other spices just so I can enjoy the cinnamon in a recipe.
But don’t leave out the cloves in this one. Oh, it makes the Pumpkin Bars – well – it makes them the BEST Pumpkin Bars.
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I love lots of recipes in the fall. But these are my favorite fall recipes!
Because it’s fall. So it’s soup time.
We need a lot of these quick ideas handy because we are on the go for soccer games during the fall!
It’s a great year for apples. We love making these fun treats with all the fall apples!
There’s something about pumpkin recipes from September to December!
What are your favorite fall recipes?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!