Big Family Food and Fun: September 7-13, 2025

Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: September 7-13, 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, September 6

I only took one picture on Saturday evening, and it was this one. I’d picked up super inexpensive ribs that day and smoked them for our dinner that night. They tasted great as a Sabbath meal, though they weren’t super kid friendly for our crew. At least the weary parents got to enjoy ribs. ;)

Big Family Food and Fun: September 7-13, 2025

Sunday morning, we ate our traditional plate of Breakfast Cookie Bars. They were dry this time…what did I do wrong? I have no idea. We ate them anyway (and swept up a lot of crumbs later).

Our Sunday Lunch crowd got to enjoy musical entertainment! Kiya has just started to play Viola, so she got out her instrument to show our friend Clara, who plays Violin. Before we knew it, Clara was playing a song for us to enjoy. It was so sweet!

For our lunch that day, we enjoyed a Buffet of Dips! I had asked everyone to bring their favorite chip, fruit, or veggie dip to share. I made Cream Cheese Salsa Dip, Caramel Apple Dip, and Hamburger Sauerkraut Dip. Friends brought Bean Dip, Spinach Artichoke Dip, Hummus and Pitas, a variety of Fruit – it was such a fun spread!

There were 27 of us gathered that day – with some new friends joining us to make our time extra special.

Matt and I enjoyed Community Group time that afternoon while the kids watched a movie downstairs. Afterward, there was lots of happy hubbub in our kitchen! Elias and Malorie were making their work lunches for the week. Elizabeth (our friend and housemate) was showing Malachi how to use her Espresso Machine. Kids were running in and out so I went outside with them and asked Malachi to take over making 5-boxes of Mac and Cheese for an easy dinner.

One of the new friends that we’d met on Sunday had brought over 18 fresh eggs when he came for lunch!! I mean, everyone is welcome to show up empty handed and simply enjoy the meal with us. But to bring a dozen and a half beautiful brown chicken eggs sure was a fun gift. We enjoyed them (yes, all of them) for breakfast on Monday morning.

We had a meeting that morning with our kids’ ABA therapist and the rest of the day went by in a blur. Brayden helped me make dinner that night because he was very excited to make hashbrowns.

We had bits of this and that for dinner, putting together enough to feed everyone: Baked Potatoes in the Crock Pot, Brayden’s Hashbrowns, Leftover Ribs that I’d slow cooked to make more tender, Leftover Strawberry Parfaits, Zucchini from our neighbors, Green Beans, and Watermelon.

Tuesday morning, we got the kids off to school and then I took Josie to a clinic for a morning full of evaluations. If you recall, we’ve been seeking answers and more resources for each of our kids and have finally been finding doctors and therapists to help. Today was Josie’s turn and she was very excited to have her “pointment.” By the end of the very long morning, she was OVER IT. But she hung in there and enjoyed the prize box as we headed out. We didn’t finish with all her assessments yet, so we’ll head back in a couple of weeks for more. Thankfully, this team of professionals is in Lincoln, so we don’t have to go far!

Back at home, Matt and Malachi had been holding down the fort with Acacia, Auggie, and Little Sweetheart. We got the girls on the bus for preschool, put the babies down for naps, and I caught Matt up on Josie’s evals. Then I made a large Cheeseburger Casserole for Matt to bake for dinner. I slid it into the oven so that all he’d have to do is turn on the oven at 4:00.

Auggie and Little Sweetheart snacked on cereal while I did a little more kitchen work.

Then we picked up kids and headed to hand out food at our weekly Food Distribution. The kids focused and got into work-mode this week. I was very proud of them! (I’m proud of Kiya too, I just didn’t get a picture of her there this time!)

Whelp. At 4:00, Matt turned on what he thought was the oven. But, in fact, he turned on our stove top griddle. So, for one entire hour, our griddle was nice and hot and our Cheeseburger Casserole did not bake. Not even a little bit. At dinnertime, Matt realized his mistake, put the casserole into the fridge for another day, and warmed up Burritos that he found in the freezer. Thank goodness for these burritos! And thank goodness for a smart husband who can quickly figure out how to save dinner. :)

Those Burritos were quickly gone and we continued to warm up all sorts of random items from the freezer and fridge until we were all full. It ended up being rather fun, and once again, I got to delight in a kitchen full of cool adults hanging out together in my favorite room. Little kids ran in and out, and ABA therapy was happening all over the house or yard. While so much of our days/nights are hard, I will look back on these moments as a treasure. While it might look like craziness, full kitchen hubbub like this is actually the most sweet and peaceful part of our life right now.

Wednesday morning, I had yet another meeting. This time it was an IEP meeting for one of our kids. Matt stayed back with the three littlest kids while I got the others to school and then just stayed until meeting time. Once I made it back home, Matt had everyone eating a snack (again) and while all was calm, he informed me that everyone had been pretty high maintenance all morning. Ugh.

What saved the day? Eva sent us a super sweet video of Arrow and the kids wanted to watch it over and over (and over).

During Auggie’s naptime that afternoon, I ran to Aldi for our week’s grocery needs.

That evening we had an extra special dinner. Why? Well. Back in January when it was Elias’ birthday, none of his friends or our family that lives outside of our house were able to come over for his birthday dinner. We’d been fighting illnesses at our house, it was crazy cold, and while I did make him a special dinner, it was kind of a bummer birthday.

Sooooo, since September is the only month of the year that we don’t have any actual birthdays to celebrate, we decided to have a January 18 Birthday Dinner Redo for Elias on September 10. See? It all makes sense. :)

He invited a couple of friends and everyone in our household was here, plus Asa and Arrow were able to come. The banter and conversation in the kitchen was amazing as I finished dinner prep.

I made Crusted Tilapia (frozen from Costco) and Seasoned Shrimp (frozen from Aldi) plus three pounds of Taco Meat. We set all the fixings for Fish Tacos, or Regular Tacos and we feasted!

Thursday, both grandbabies were here for the morning!

Auggie had an ABA therapy session most of the morning. During one of his breaks, he walked into the playroom to check on both of the babies. :)

During another break while we were all outside, these three sat on a step and enjoyed the special treat of a yogurt cup.

During naptime that afternoon, I made two huge Lasagnas for our upcoming Sunday lunch. I put them into our pantry fridge to pull out and bake Sunday morning.

That evening, we tried again to bake this Cheeseburger Casserole. SUCCESS! We set out some simple sides as we enjoyed our casserole during an absolutely crazy evening full of intense meltdowns, Zoom telehealth therapy sessions, ABA therapy, and more meltdowns…but at least the casserole was delicious.

Friday morning, I made a quadruple batch of Chewy Granola Bars to eat for breakfast and to have on hand for snacks. Some of the kids had Bagels instead and Brayden had a Breakfast Sandwich.

Acacia and I spent the morning at Speech Therapy and Physical Therapy. Matt stayed home with Auggie, who had ABA therapy, and Josie, who got some special Daddy time.

We had a meeting at school for one of the kids that afternoon while a friend stayed back home with a napping Auggie. This was the last of our many meetings and appointments this week and it was a productive one. We have learned that we have to advocate intensely for our kids in many ways. It is a full time job – one we are grateful to do and one for which we are constantly praying for God’s wisdom and strength as we seek to do it well.

Dinner that night was Burgers and Fries with Cantaloupe and Pickles.

Saturday morning, I baked several pans of Bacon  and made a bowl full of Pineapple Fluff Salad.

I also made a double batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies for Sunday.

Then we loaded everyone up and headed to our favorite Sensory-Friendly Story Time. This is a highlight of our week!

On our way home, we picked up a Hy-Vee order with our WIC items. Did I forget to take a picture until almost everything was put away? I sure did. Here are the last few items on the counter while we finished putting the food away.

Lunch was pretty awesome – Turkey Bacon Club Sandwiches with Cantaloupe and Pineapple Fluff Salad.

Keith had a soccer game that afternoon, and it was HOT. He played his heart out and scored two goals.

We got a bunch of hot, grumpy kids back to the van and home again. The rest of the day was spent cleaning then heading into our time of Sabbath. And that was our week!