Big Family Food and Fun: November 24-30, 2024

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: November 24-30, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: November 24-30, 2024

Saturday evening, November 23, we kicked off our family Sabbath where we set aside 24 hours to focus on doing less and enjoying more. I had a dish of Chicken Cheeseballs in the freezer that I thawed and baked that evening for our dinner. I made tator tots for a special treat and got out spinach for everyone to eat with our meal.

After dinner, everyone got completely ready for bed and we spent the last part of the day sitting in our cozy, decorated living room watching Little House on the Prairie.

Sunday morning for breakfast we enjoyed Breakfast Cookie Bars that I’d made a week ago and frozen. I forgot to take a picture until after they were almost gone!

We love enjoying community on our Sabbath, so I prep our Sunday Lunch food on Saturday morning. After church, we had many friends join us and several contributed to the meal. We had Pulled Pork, Baked Potatoes, Salad, Fresh Fruit, Rolls, Cole Slaw, Potato Salad, Mac and Cheese, Chips, and Desserts. It was a feast!

Thirty of us gathered around our dining table and living room table.

The weather was nice enough that kids could play outside and grown-ups could visit.

After lunch, our friend Megan was sweet enough to let Anna paint her fingernails. Later, Megan sent me this picture. Anna had had a rough day on Saturday and needed this special time more than Megan knew. We are so thankful for community.

We enjoyed time with friends all afternoon. Then at dinnertime after everyone left, we reset our house and made a simple dinner of French Toast and Sausage with Applesauce.

Monday morning after we got the older four kids to school, I spent time getting ready for our trip to Kansas later in the week. I packed baggies of snacks and put them into a basket with other items we might need. Matt spent the entire morning on the phone trying to figure out some issues we were having with our van. Yikes – it was not great timing to have van troubles as we were prepping to go on a trip! But we were thankful the issues manifested before driving on the interstate with a van full of littles!

When the girls got home from preschool that afternoon, they were all eager to show off what they’d been working on.

Keith was super hungry while I was making dinner, so he ate an entire pear and then several slices of another.

Altogether, we ate through a three pound bag of pears that evening. I used leftover baked potatoes from the day before along with cooked hamburger from last week to make Taco Potato Skillet.

After I worked on dishes in the kitchen, I walked into the living room to find Daddy reading to a pile of kids.

Tuesday morning I scrambled 15 eggs with sausage and cheese. We ate them with an assortment of bagels, fruit, and Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Bars.

Ready or not, I had to head out the door that morning for an 8:00 Speech Evaluation for Auggie. Malorie helped Matt get the other kids ready for school and out the door – not an easy job! Auggie did great with his new therapist, and now we get to go to speech therapy every Tuesday bright and early. Sorry, Malorie. Thanks, Malorie.

When Auggie and I got home, we witnessed the girls doing a kid exercise video. Well, Anna and Josie were doing it. Acacia just wanted to sit and watch, ha.

Auggie found Malorie’s sunglasses and thought he was very cool.

That afternoon after school, I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to hand out food and clean up at our weekly Food Distribution site.

Matt held down the fort at home while we were gone. Before I had left, I’d put a bunch of chicken legs into pans and dumped on some barbecue sauce. Exciting? Not really? But tasty? Yep. And so easy! Matt baked the chicken at dinner time, steamed broccoli, and buttered/toasted some rolls. It was a great dinner to come home to!

The kids’ Thanksgiving break started that Wednesday. We spent the day getting ready to travel on Thursday. Unfortunately, we’d learned that our van needed a major repair and couldn’t be driven to Kansas. So we made plans to rent a van so that we could still go see family.

The kids were pretty antsy on Wednesday as we prepared for our trip. This was also the day our Bonus Buddy was moving out and we all had a lot of feelings about it.

So we tried to keep them busy with different activities. We made a batch of Buttery Almond Cookies.

Then we gathered around the table in the living room and made a couple of crafts.

Late morning, Eva dropped Arrow off to hang out with us for the day! He was a perfect distraction for all of us with his sweetness and smiles.

We warmed up leftovers for lunch and Brayden made a salad to go with our other meal choices.

Josie devoured her salad and went back for seconds.

After Arrow napped, he got to enjoy more Auntie and Uncle time. Oh so sweet.

We said our good-byes to Bonus Buddy, with plans to have him come for visits in the future, praise God. We sure do love this little boy.

I was pretty emotional, and also busy packing and prepping for our trip. So we ate a simple meal of Frozen Pizza on paper plates for dinner.

After we ate, we spent some time packing our travel lunches for the next day. Brayden was very proud that he made a TURKEY sandwich, stating that while we weren’t having a regular Thanksgiving meal, he would still be eating turkey, ha! :)

Thursday morning we finished getting ready and loaded up to head to Kansas for the weekend. I had made a huge Lasagna, so we grabbed it from the freezer to take with us for one of our meals there.

I gave myself permission to unplug and take some days off from trying to juggle in work during our vacation. I might try to share some pictures of our weekend in next week’s post if I’m able! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family!