Big Family Food and Fun: September 6-12, 2026

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: September 6-12, 2026 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: September 6-12, 2026

On Sunday morning, we ate our traditional get-ready-for-church breakfast of Breakfast Cookie Bars – but I forgot to take a picture. But better than a picture of cookies is this photo that our kids’ Bible class teacher sent. Brayden gets to be a helper once a month in Acacia, Josie, and Auggie’s class. Here he is reading them a book while waiting for class to start!

The Case family, plus our friend Derek, joined us for lunch that day. We had a simple meal of Slider Sandwiches and Sides, with Brayden’s leftover Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert.

 

After lunch, Elias and Malorie took Acacia out for her “birthday adventure.” This is a special gift they give each kid on their birthday, and it usually involves a little outing and a small treat. The real gift is special time two-on-one with Elias and Malorie and the kids LOVE it!

Our friends had invited us over to swim in their pool that afternoon and the kids could hardly wait! Taking our crew swimming is quite a feat, but with four in life jackets and lots of bigger people in the pool to help out, we were able to make this happen. It was the most fun and Matt and I loved catching up with our friends!

They fed us Pizza, Watermelon, and Cookies after swimming – plus we got to enjoy their pet turtle. It was such a great night!

Monday was a very big day with 19 of us heading to enjoy Vala’s Pumpkin Patch together. We’d heard good things about this place but it is expensive so we hadn’t checked it out. Thanks to finding super cheap tickets online plus a sweet and generous gift from a loved one, we made this happen for our family. The energy and effort it took to enjoy this time with the kids was very well worth it. At one point, Bonus Buddy declared, “This is the best day ever!”

Josie does not like train rides (unlike some of our other kids who live for train rides). So we were very proud of her for sitting with her emotional support sisters-in-law to try it this time. She did great and actually had fun!

We ran into friends from York at the Carousel – what a treat!

There were activities for the youngers and the olders to enjoy, so sometimes we split up to make it all happen. Even though we were at Vala’s for almost eight hours, we still didn’t get to do everything. Part of this is due to how long everything takes with this many kids. And part of it is because Vala’s is huge.

Either way, we all had a wonderful day. As we headed out, I tried to gather everyone by this sign that said, “Please leave with at least as many children as you brought in.” Matt and I felt very accomplished that we had, in fact, started with eight kids and ended with eight kids.

We had eaten all day and had lots of cold drinks too, but we were still hot and hungry when we left. So we stopped at a McDonald’s close by on our way home and picked up 80 nuggets for dinner. I handed out more cold Capri Suns and that was dinner. Back at home, we gave everyone a bath to scrub off sweat and dirt, then watched a show before tucking everyone into bed. What a great day!

On Tuesday, the kids had one more day off of school. We decided to go to the zoo to keep them busy that day.

I baked a batch of Vanilla Pumpkin Cheater Muffins and thawed a loaf of Banana Bread to take with us. I also made some Chicken Salad and packed some Crackers to go with it. We grabbed 3-pound bag of Clementines, Cheese, Raisins, Sunflower Seeds, and Applesauce. Then I cleaned out yesterday’s food wagon to repack it for the day at the zoo.

It was hot that day so the zoo was pretty quiet. This was a welcome change compared to the huge crowd at Vala’s the day before. Counting kids to keep track of them was much easier!

We made it to the Penguins in time to watch them eat their lunch. This made us hungry, so I sat and peeled the ENTIRE bag of clementines, handing them to kids who ate them faster than I could peel them. They were cold, refreshing, and hit the spot – even for the kids who don’t normally like these.

We ate our lunch and played in the water, then ate a ton more food. Mom and Dad were exhausted and needed coffee ;) so we headed home, letting the kids know that they had earned a popsicle once we got back to the house.

That afternoon, Matt stayed home to start ABA therapy sessions while I took four kids to Tuesday Food Distribution. All of them did an amazing job serving and helping that day!

Before leaving, I’d made Taco meat and put it in a crock pot to stay warm plus put Queso into another crock pot to heat. Matt had set out everything else and we enjoyed Nachos or Tacos for dinner.

Kelsey sent me this fun photo of the Real Food “Velveeta” and Rotel Dip she’d made that day. She made a few tweaks based on ingredients they had on hand and it was delicious!

School started back up on Wednesday! I made Nutella Bars while we got everyone ready for school, plus some kids ate Breakfast Sandwiches.

Emma usually comes on Mondays but we switched her to Wednesday this week so that Matt and I could still have a morning off. We headed to Holmes Lake for a walk and to let the beauty of the water calm our nervous systems.

When we got home, Auggie was helping Emma mop the kitchen. He was so sweet!

Brayden was in charge of taking snacks to his youth group that evening. So he helped me clean up our popcorn machine and make popcorn.

For dinner that night, we had Baked Potatoes in the Crock Pot that had slow cooked all day. I had a package of sliced Ham from Aldi that I put into a small crock pot to warm up. Then I made Peas and Green Beans and got out Canned Pineapple. This meal was super tasty -and simple to fix plates throughout the night. Matt and I spent the entire evening doing paperwork and having a big meeting at our living room table from 5:00 until bedtime, all while ABA therapy was also going on. Somehow, everyone got fed that night.

Thursday I had another meeting all morning while Auggie had ABA therapy and Matt hung out with Hopelyn and Arrow. (We are having a lot of extra meetings and appointments these days as we work on important details regarding the needs of our precious Bonus Buddy.) Then we all played outside in the beautiful weather while we watched for Auggie’s bus to come.

I hadn’t had a chance to grocery shop for way too long since the kids had been home from school for two extra days this week. I needed to ration my energy and time, so I put in a Wal-Mart pick-up order for essentials like milk, eggs, and greens. After I picked that up, I went next door to Sam’s to get bulk produce and a few other items. I’m not able to focus right now on shopping my favorite stores for clearance deals and meat mark-downs like I normally do. All my energy is going toward our kids’ needs and I am mentally pretty tired. So I just picked up the basics and headed home.

Brayden had mowed the lawn with Matt while I was gone, then was a great help in getting groceries put away. He read his homeschool assignment for a few minutes longer before we loaded up Hopelyn and picked kids up from school.

Our friend Christina has been taking such good care of us during these past few tougher weeks. She knows what our kids eat (or don’t eat) and has supplied us with food like cooked noodles and cooked hamburger meat to take a major load off my plate. I used her offerings to make Spaghetti that night. Some of us ate the entire meal, and some of the kids only ate noodles with butter and salt. This meal took me only five minutes to make thanks to Christina. Such a gift!

She had also baked some Banana Oatmeal Bars for our kids to snack on and they gobbled them up!

On Friday, I had two more meetings in the morning. After that I was completely worn out and decided to rest as much as I could before the kids came home from school. Brayden and I did his afternoon homeschool work out in the sunshine. Then he headed back to school for a club meeting so I continued to sit in the sun, breathe, pray, and rest. It was a very restorative afternoon and I was so thankful!

For dinner that night, I cut up a watermelon then air fried corn dogs from the freezer plus Burritos that Christina had made. This was a perfect Friday night meal as we worked our way through three kids’ ABA therapy all evening before bed.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the library for Sensory Storytime. We had plans to go to a park afterward, but rain shut down that plan. So instead, we hung out at the library for about 45 minutes before heading home.

Getting home earlier than planned gave me extra time to get work done around the house. We are slowly finding ways to get all the kids more involved in helping with chores and cleaning projects now that they are getting older. Every part of training these kids takes extra time and effort. But after several hours, they had each done something to help – from sweeping to mopping to moving furniture – and they felt good about what they had done.

While we were cleaning in the basement, Anna put a dress on a doll head. She was proud of this and wanted a picture with her “twin.” Were the rest of us freaked out at all by a doll head in a dress? Oh no. This is not at all alarming to see.

I made Mudballs!! After the tough few weeks we’ve had, it felt so good to get this simple need taken care of. Keith and Bonus Buddy live on protein in this form.

The evening was incredible!! Asa and Eva had been given three tickets to that night’s Husker game. They invited Matt to go with them, and then worked to move all the mountains to make it possible for him to go. This included dropping their babies at our house and asking lots of people to come help with ten kids. Elias and Malorie were the MVPs of the night since they knew all the ins and outs of the house and the kids. But Asa had also asked the Baker family to help out, and they showed up in force. As the plans had unfolded, our friend Trent figured out that if he came and helped too, that would free ME to get out of the house for the night also. What an incredible gift!

In short, we left our eight kids plus Arrow and Phoebe at the Castle with Elias, Malorie, Caleb, Klaire, and Trent. Then my friend Robin whisked me out the door and took me to dinner. I snapped this photo of kids snuggled up to Klaire as I snuck out. The kids were in great hands. :)

Asa, Eva, and Matt joined this sea of red at the Husker game and had a blast. Robin and I sat outside at H.F. Crave and enjoyed dinner and beautiful conversation. The night was a gift to all of us and we are so grateful!