Big Family Food and Fun: July 7-13, 2024

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: July 7-13, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: July 7-13, 2024

Sunday was my favorite as we had plans for family to come eat after church, plus we grabbed several others to join too. I didn’t get great photos of the food because I was too excited to capture the people. There were 25 of us gathered in our kitchen and dining room. Lots of babies and kids. Lots of noise. Lots of awesomeness.

We ate Overnight Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Cream Cheese Corn, Caramelized Sweet Peppers/Onion, Caesar Salad, and Rolls.

For dessert we had Brownies and Homemade Ice Cream. Ever since our friend gave us a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, we’ve found that making ice cream is SO EASY. What a treat! (I’ll share details soon about how I make it so easily.)

For dinner that night I simply warmed up Mac and Cheese Leftovers from last week and tossed peas on top.

Later while the kids played outside, I took out three chilled cans of fruit – two of pineapple slices and one of peaches – and handed them out on plastic forks as a snack before bed.

Monday morning I used up some tortillas to make Quesadillas for breakfast. That’s not something we normally eat in the morning, but we’ve ceased to be normal. :)

We were completely out of fresh produce (again) and if you can believe it, we were out of bacon, ha. So we headed to Sam’s with all the kids, armed with shopping snacks and water bottles.

We picked up a delightful $4.98 Rotisserie Chicken and ate it at home as soon as we got the cold groceries put away. As you can see, we also dove right into our newly purchased grapes and blackberries.

I had a migraine and tried to rest that afternoon. Then for dinner we pulled out random bits of meat from the fridge to use up in a Nacho Bar.

We’d splurged on some Fudgesicles a Costco last month and this night was a great night to enjoy them outside after dinner. Pretty much all six fudgesicle eaters had faces like this one after the treat.

Tuesday morning I took BabyBoy#11 to his pediatric neurologist and was soooo encouraged by her expertise and care for him. We are in good hands, praise God.

We got home just in time to enjoy a wonderful visit with my cousins who were visiting from Kansas! I set out a big spread of Sandwich makings so we could put together BLTs or turkey and cheese or any combination we wanted. Plus we had a cucumber from our neighbor’s garden and lots of fresh fruit.

After lunch, we all walked together to “our” Sunken Gardens.

Late afternoon, Brayden, Kiya, and I went to hand out food at our weekly Food Distribution. For the past few weeks, Brayden has been put in charge of picking up coolers as they are emptied out, cleaning them, then lining them up in the hallway to dry. This has been excellent for him and without knowing it, all the other volunteers are pouring such encouragement into him as they offer him praise and appreciation for  his work. He is glowing by the end of our time there each week.

Back at home, I had told Elias to throw Costco Fish Sticks into the air fryer for dinner, which we ate with fruit and salad. I only managed to get a photo of the last plate of fish sticks we made, but…

…it is worth noting and probably chuckling over the fact that we ate THE ENTIRE BAG of 60 fish sticks in this one meal. That’s how we roll, I guess. :) And yes, I did take a moment to snap this photo of the empty fish stick bag in our trash as I was looking to see how many the bag contained at the beginning of the evening.

While I was doing dishes that night, I caught these three having a meeting of the minds. I love that BabyBoy#11 tries to join in with the fun when he can. :)

Wednesday morning I made French Toast, Hashbrowns, and Honey Dew Melon for breakfast.

Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and Anna had dentist appointments that morning so the three littlest stayed home with Daddy and the others headed to the clinic with me.

Wearing sunglasses in the dentist chair is the best!

We made it home after only one major meltdown as the appointments ended, then played outside until lunchtime.

We had brought home a container of croissants from Food Distribution the day before so we used them to make Turkey Bacon Cheese Melts for lunch.

That afternoon, I made a pan of Stick of Butter Rice for our dinner casserole.

I browned meat and turned the rice and beef into Tator Tot Casserole for dinner that night.

Our church had a Popsicles at the Park event that evening so we put on our swim suits and headed out to join the fun. Of all things, the clouds rolled in and gave us a nice downpour while we were there.

Once the rain stopped, the kids all headed back to the water to splash around. Matt and I snuggled with Little Sweetheart and Arrow while Justus hung out with BabyBoy#11.

I had to get a photo of Acacia wearing her match-y hat with her suit. It was a bonus to get a sweet shot of Elias and Malorie in this one too. :)

Thursday morning after breakfast, Malachi called. He’d been serving at church camp the week before and this week was filming/editing video at York University for a special program they had going on. We’d been missing him and guess what? Today he happened to be in Lincoln touring the Capitol Building with the crew he was working with. Would we be able to bring him some coffee, plus some for Bruce, Kenzie, and Chris?

Our Littles demand so much and our Bigs ask so little. So it is my pleasure to drop everything and try to make things like this happen.

We already had plans to load up bikes and kids and go to the park. So I made four coffees too and away we went to the park, detouring to the Capitol.

We were all so excited to squeeze Malachi for a minute before we all headed our separate directions.

At the park, we all spent a good deal of time fighting over who got to ride which bike, even though everyone had chosen one specifically before we left home, oy.

This guy had requested that he also bring his “new” wagon so he could haul it with his bike on the trail. Daddy was extra amazing and said yes.

Later, it turned into this sweetness…

We work up big appetites and while we had plans to eat leftovers for lunch at home, we still had apples, popcorn, and apple sauce for a snack.

I was blessed to go have some Arrow time that afternoon. Oh and guess what? Before I headed over, Asa texted, “If you were able to bring over some tasty coffee when you come, it would be enjoyed…” Hahaha, yep. Seems it was a big coffee-request day for all. Your wish is my command. (Just hand over the baby.)

I had divided last night’s Tator Tot Casserole into meal-sized packages like this for Asa and Eva to eat or freeze as needed.

After I left their house and had an hour to myself to pick up some groceries. I scored chicken thighs marked down!

Back at home, I walked into this scene in which Malorie was helping Keith make salads for dinner and Acacia was helping Matt warm up Hearty Bean Casserole that I’d put together that morning for a quick dinner.

The entire pot of Hearty Bean Casserole and all the salad was gone at the end of our meal. Tasty!

Our treat/snack that night was the Costco Fudgesicles again. This girlie tried to convince me that she hadn’t had one yet and wanted me to go get her one. Good try.

Friday morning we had plans to meet friends at the zoo. They had to cancel, but our family still loaded up a picnic and wagon and headed over!

The day was HOT, so we spent most of our zoo time playing in the water area.

Of course, we had to go say hello to the flamingos. Plus we enjoyed a crocodile, fish, eagle, and turtles along the way.

It was lunch time so we found a shady table area and pulled out all of our food. We were starting to all melt after that, so we headed home to cool off and rest.

I took three of our girls to Ms. Kathi’s for a couple of hours and headed over to snuggle Arrow while they were there.

Back at home, we made a very simple meals of Frozen Pizza with Spinach for dinner.

BabyBoy#11’s hair was getting out of control and down in his eyes so I decided that this evening was a good time to give it a trim outside. Before:

And after:

He didn’t love sitting still while I cut his hair, but he was pretty proud afterward. And yay, now he can see again!

The heat was pretty intense that night so we needed to go inside. But everyone was going a bit nuts inside without some sort of structure. So I got out some fancy paper for the kids to “make quilt squares” like we had seen in the Quilt Museum last week. Mostly they just “made a mess” but at least they stayed busy and calm for a while.

My brother Kevin and his wife Michele came that night to stay for the weekend! Saturday morning I made Sausage Cheese Eggs and served them with Bagels, Yogurt, and Fruit.

I used some of the eggs to put together some Breakfast Sandwiches for the freezer. Then the rest of the eggs all got eaten!

It was precious to see Uncle Kevin and Aunt Michele loving on the littles.

I put our Ice Cream Maker to work again to make a double batch of Oreo Ice Cream for our lunch dessert.

Asa, Eva, and Arrow joined us. Justus, Kelsey, and Little Sweetheart came. My nephew, Austin, came. There were 21 of us altogether and it was awesome.

We Smoked Chicken and ate it with Rolls, Corn on the Cob, Caesar Salad, and Fruit.

Then we enjoyed three varieties of Homemade Ice Cream.

The rest of the day was spent resting then getting ready for Sunday. That was our week!