Big Family Food and Fun: November 23-29, 2025

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: November 23-29, 2025 post!

We enjoy a Sabbath rest from Saturday evening through Sunday evening – so I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoons and miss posting some of these pictures. I’ll catch up on our last Saturday activities before launching into our new week!

Saturday, November 21-22

Over the weekend, we loaded up and headed to Kansas for our family’s holiday gathering. From my seat, I couldn’t capture all seven kids in the photo. The seat backs are too high! But I promise they are all in there.

We got to stay in a hotel, which was a big, wonderful adventure for the kids. Breakfast in the lobby two mornings in a row was extra special and filled with Fruit Loops.

There were 32 of us all together, and I’m so thankful for this time we got to spend with each other.

We swam in the hotel pool, went skating, ate wonderful meals, had a time of worship, and tried to cram in as much conversation in as we could.

Saturday evening, we went to a huge Christmas Light event at a park.

Big Family Food and Fun: November 23-29, 2025

Sunday, we gathered in a conference room at the hotel and had a time of worship before going our separate ways. Then, we loaded up and went over to my brother’s house for a few minutes. This was a sweet bonus part of our trip that was unplanned and so very lovely.

The kids traveled very well and we are so thankful! Back at home, we unpacked and started laundry, then made Frozen Pizza for dinner.

On Monday morning, Emma came over to hang out with the three littlest kids so that Matt and I could get caught up on needs. I spent the entire morning shopping. Woot, check out the cart full of meat markdowns!

One of my stops that morning was Costco, and I brought home a Rotisserie Chicken for dinner. We ate it with Caesar Salad, Steamed Broccoli, and Rolls. Then I used the bones to make a pot of Broth to use for soup later in the week.

On Tuesday, the girls discovered the new packages of socks I’d gotten for them. Little Sweetheart was over so she helped them put the pairs together. This was a grand activity.

Early in the afternoon, I worked for a while to get ahead in the kitchen. I made a pan of Simple Pizza Chicken Bake for Matt to bake at dinnertime. I also cooked some chicken separately in a pan so that I could add it to Monday’s broth for soup. And I cooked twelve hamburger patties for our lunch the next day. The kids would be home for six days for Thanksgiving break, so getting ahead put my mind at ease a bit.

When it was time to get Auggie up from his nap and pick kids up from school, Matt found him asleep on his soft rug like this. I think we are almost done with our crib. :)

I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to help at our weekly Food Distribution. We were blessed to bring home a lot of extra food for our own needs this week. Plus we put some into our Little Free Pantry for our neighbors.

Wednesday morning, I had a lot of overripe bananas that needed to be made into something tasty. So I baked Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins and a big batch of Angela’s Banana Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies. We ate the cookies for breakfast, plus had more to freeze after the second round baked.

We packaged up the muffins to take with us to the zoo that morning.

It was cold outside, so we took advantage of the zoo indoor play place with the spider monkeys. We met friends there, which made it extra fun!

And Arrow joined us too. This boy loves balls, so he was in heaven, surrounded by hundreds of balls!

It’s a good thing I made 48 mini muffins that morning for our zoo snack. Here’s how many we brought home after our outing.

Somehow, everyone was still hungry for lunch when we got home. I’d made hamburgers the day before and rewarmed them for our lunch that day.

After we put Auggie down for his nap that afternoon, it was the moment we’d all been waiting for: Time to put up our Christmas tree!

The kids did absolutely fabulous, working together and enjoying this. We were so thankful for how well they did!

We keep decorations pretty simple. Yet, the job is still exhausting. So I was very grateful that all I had to do for dinner was pull out the broth and chicken I’d made ahead of time, boil, and add noodles. Chicken Noodle Soup was a perfect dinner that night!

Thursday morning, I made a big batch of Applesauce Bread and baked them into small loaves to share with others.

The kids declared it a Pajama Day as we were having a very low key Thanksgiving day. We watched the parade on TV, which was a special treat. Throughout the morning, we did different projects. Keith was very excited to teach everyone how to draw a handprint, then turn it into a turkey. He set up paper and pencils for everyone and thankfully, everyone cooperated with his fun idea.

Matt had joked that since I wasn’t cooking a big turkey feast for the day that I should instead make Homemade Soft Pretzels. He was totally kidding, yet I decided that this would be a lovely (and delicious) project for all of us. (He decided to joke about me making Sausage Stromboli next to see if he gets the same results, ha.) The kids loved playing with their dough!

I’d found a paper coloring and activity Thanksgiving tablecloth on clearance and laid it out on our living room table. This was a very fun thing to do here and there throughout the day.

Our pretzels turned out super good and I was so glad we’d made the effort and the mess.

Our Thanksgiving lunch that day was very special, yet still simple. I’d found Tri-Tip Steak marked down, and googled how to make it. The results were super good, and tasted great with our pretzels, buttered potatoes, and green beans.

Later that afternoon, we had Cheesecake and Chocolate Cheesecake (same recipe, with cocoa powder blended in).

We put together some Hot Cocoa cups to share with neighbors via our Little Free Pantry tote.

We simply used a fun, festive cup with lid and put in a hot cocoa packet, a small candy cane, and a chocolate.

Our older kids’ families started arriving late that afternoon! They’d all had other plans that day so we’d decided to get together in the evening to hang out. (Elias and Malorie were visiting her family in Texas all week.) Acacia and Josie took turns “reading” books to Arrow.

We made a good attempt at playing Story Circle with our whole crew. Each person said one sentence and the next person added their sentence, until we had created an absurd story together. This sort of worked and was sort of nuts, but at least we tried and had fun.

I set out some munchies for us to eat for dinner: Meatballs, Pretzels, Chips/Dips, Blueberries, and Cherries.

Then we turned a movie on for the kids while the grown-ups played a game in the dining room: Cards Against Humanity, Family Edition.

One of my favorite scenes is watching our beloved adults hanging and visiting in the kitchen, which was our final fun of the day as mamas and daddies gathered their babies to head home for the night.

Friday morning, we needed to avoid being out and about too much because there was a home Husker football game, which means heavy traffic. But we did need some kind of outing to re-set our kids who had turned into major screamers all morning. So we loaded up to run a couple of errands. We used more of our fun Boo at the Zoo coupons to get seven free Kids’ Meals for them to eat for lunch when we got home!

Asa and Eva both had photo shoots that afternoon, so Arrow came and hung out with us. Grandbabies are the best!

We watched Husker Volleyball that evening, and I scooted Arrow’s high chair into the living room so that he could eat and hang out where the game was. Auggie decided that he, too, needed his chair in the living room and that he, too, needed an apple. Was he also wearing his sisters’ robe? Yes.

Just before bed, Matt found the Bible class videos our children’s minister had sent out. So we watched those after brushing teeth and before heading up for the night.

Saturday I spent the morning in bed because I wasn’t feeling well. We took the kids to a birthday party that afternoon/evening.