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Big Family Food and Fun: December 24-30, 2023

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Here’s our Food and Fun: December 24-30 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 24-30, 2023

We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve service at church Sunday morning, then came home and set out a simple but fun Sub Sandwich Station. We had a variety of breads, meats, cheeses, and chips. After we built our sandwiches, we toasted them in our Air Fryer to melt the cheese and crisp up the bread. So good!

After lunch, we exchanged Christmas gifts with one of our housemates. She gave the kids soft blankets and fun snacks for a movie night. :)

After we put the littlest kids down for naps and older-littles downstairs for a movie, Elias, Malachi, and I surprised Matt with a brand new Settlers of Catan game. We all love this game and hardly get a chance to play because of lack of time. This was a perfect way to enjoy Christmas Eve afternoon! (P.S. I was sooooo close to winning, but then Elias snuck in the win. Stinker.)

Asa and Eva were enjoying Christmas Eve with her family, and Justus and Kelsey came over that evening after they were finished with their responsibilities at church where Justus is worship minister. We had a simple meal of Nachos and would you look at that? Matt and I got to actually sit down together to eat!

Kelsey made her family’s traditional Christmas Eve Hot Fudge for us to enjoy on ice cream after dinner!

We found some interactive Christmas Dance Party videos on Youtube and Justus led the kids in getting lots of wiggles out before bed.

Everyone settled in surprisingly well that night, then Kelsey helped me stuff stockings and set up everything for Christmas morning. “Santa” got the kids new coats or a new outfit, clocks for their bedrooms, and a weighted stuffed animal to help them with calming needs. (The kids have no idea that their awesome new animals are therapeutic. They just think they got an adorable new friend.) :)

The next morning, I stuffed stockings and set out a few extra gifts for all the older kids too. :)

We ate Egg Casserole and Monkey Bread (<—that our neighbor had made!) as everyone woke up that morning. Asa and Eva came over around 8:15 to enjoy the day with us.

We had pulled the living room doors closed and put wrapping paper on them so that the kids wouldn’t see into the room before we were all gathered to enjoy our Christmas morning together!

Then the doors opened to reveal all the treasures!

It snowed all day long, creating a feeling of special Christmas magic!

We took turns opening gifts from each other while the snow fell outside.

Keith got ear protective headphones (that we found used at a Restore and knew he’d love because working with Daddy is his favorite!) and a hat with built in light. If those were his only two gifts, he would have been as happy as can be.

We made Chicken Strips and Fries for lunch. Asa and Eva had picked up a huge cup of Cane’s Sauce for us – a family favorite. I made a couple bowls of salad, some buttered toast, and we had a Costco cheesecake for dessert. Everyone loved this meal for Christmas!

Asa went outside during the afternoon and took this photo of our snowy Castle.

For dinner that evening I set out a variety of meats, cheeses, crackers, chips, and dips that I’d picked up at Costco, Sam’s, or Aldi. It was a perfectly easy meal we could all snack on that evening.

Tuesday morning we warmed up leftover Egg Casserole. Then at lunch I felt the big need to give us some vegetables so I made these spinach-filled smoothies for the kids and these for the grown-ups. The kids had gotten oatmeal packets in their stockings so they requested those also. A weird lunch? Yes. But it filled their bellies and we got lots of greens into our systems.

Brayden, Kiya, and I went to hand out food at our weekly Food Distribution that afternoon. Before we got home, Elias warmed up leftover Lasagna for dinner that night plus steamed some broccoli.

Food Distribution was different that week because of the holiday. There was extra food but fewer people to go through the line. The lady in charge let everyone go through twice, which I loved to see as everyone was able to go home with a lot of free food for their families. When that was finished, there was still plenty leftover so all of the volunteers took home quite a bit too.

We brought home a lot of organic greens, several bunches of bananas, a large selection of breads/rolls/buns, and a few other miscellaneous items.

Wednesday morning we warmed up more Egg Casserole leftovers and ate it with some muffins we’d brought home from the Food Distribution. (I cut them in half so everyone could have a little bit.)

I cut up all the bananas from Food Distribution because they were on their last leg. They went into the freezer to be used for smoothies or Banana Bread.

Anna had a dentist appointment that morning so she and I enjoyed reading some books together in the waiting room. Any one-on-one time with our kids is rare and special.

Picking out a new toothbrush is so fun, but also, making decisions is hard, ha.

For lunch we warmed up leftover Roast and Carrots from the week before plus leftover green beans and corn. It felt good to be slowly getting the fridge cleaned out!

We had a lot of bread from Food Distribution plus several bits of lunchmeat from last week’s Sub Sandwiches. So for dinner I made a big pile of Grilled Meat and Cheese Sandwiches with Tomato Soup.

Thursday morning I baked several sheet pans worth of bacon to enjoy with breakfast and to have leftovers for upcoming meals. I also made a lot of French Toast and we ate it with syrup or applesauce.

A couple of the kids had appointments that morning so while I was with them for those, Matt and Malachi held down the fort. At lunchtime, Malachi made six boxes of mac and cheese and a pan of peas. (Someone who shall remain nameless put a pea up her nose during lunch. Never a dull moment.)

That afternoon during nap/rest time, I ran to Walmart and Sam’s to pick up some items for an upcoming birthday meal. While I was at Walmart, I checked for clearance items and I HIT THE JACKPOT. Their spiral cut hams were marked down to $0.50/pound!!!! I’ve never seen anything like this. I decided to “only” buy eight hams, ha. They were 10ish-pound hams for just $5.00. Crazy good. We have a freezer full now and I can share with our married kids plus anyone else who might need or want one.

At Sam’s I found chicken tenderloins marked down so I picked up two packages. I plan to use these for Pizza Chicken Bake and Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips.

Later that afternoon, the kids were acting hungry so I made everyone a big cup of Smoothie using some of the greens I’d gotten at the Food Distribution that week.

While I had the spinach out, and because I really had a lot in the fridge and didn’t want it to go bad, I made these muffins with both spinach and pumpkin. Hooray for sneaking in veggies!

I can’t remember what we ate for dinner that night, and I can’t find any pictures so that must mean that we ate leftovers and I didn’t think about documenting it. :)

For breakfast on Friday morning we enjoyed Brayden’s birthday request of biscuits (that we’d gotten at Food Distribution) plus sausage links, muffins, and fruit.

I mixed up a double batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies that morning so we could put together and deliver Happy New Year gifts for our neighbors.

We knew an outing would benefit the kids after being cooped up for so many days in a row, so we loaded up and headed to The Front Porch, which is a coffee shop/play area at a church here in Lincoln.

I packed Capri Sun and cracker/cheese packs for the kids to snack on during a play break.

When we got home, Brayden, Keith, Anna, and I worked together to make Brownies for his birthday dessert that night.

Malachi had put pizzas in the oven to bake for us so we took those out, slid the brownies in, and had our lunch.

That evening we planned to have a big birthday dinner for not one, but two birthday boys! Yep, Brayden and BabyBoy#11 share a birthday. Kiya used salad kits to put together two bowls of salad for us. I love that I can turn this job over to her (or to Brayden) now!

BabyBoy#11 didn’t have any opinions about the meal choices for the day. :) But Brayden requested Orange Chicken (the boxed kind from Sam’s) for dinner. I baked a dish of Stick of Butter Rice to go with it and of course, we had Kiya’s salads.

Dinner was awesome, with Asa and Eva plus our friend Allan joining us.

BabyBoy#11 is battling eating challenges so he enjoyed his bottle for dinner. (And then puked up his bottle, the poor dear. Pray that we can find the right specialist for him and get to the bottom of his eating needs.) We still put a candle in the Birthday Brownies for him to “blow out” even though food is a no-go.

Then, per Brayden’s request, we added the 0 candle to turn the one candle into a 10!

After brownies, we all headed into the living room for present time. Of course, BabyBoy#11 mostly loved the tags on his new sweatshirt. :)

Saturday morning we packaged up the cookies we’d made for neighbors along with some others goodies, tea, hot cocoa, and chocolates.

I’d saved the Trader Joe’s bags we’d gotten while Christmas shopping and these made perfect gift bags.

It was sunny and 40 degrees so a perfect day to take a walk around the neighborhood delivering packages.

Whenever we try to do anything like this, I do question my sanity. It’s hard enough to keep up with laundry, dishes, and keeping everyone fed and happy. To get anything extra accomplished and then head out the door with this many little ones (stopping every few minutes to deal with a behavior issue or an ouchie or a diaper need or…) – well. I always wonder if it’s worth it.

Yes. It’s worth it.

The kids LOVED this. They took turns ringing doorbells, handing over gifts, and whenever we caught someone at home, the kids felt so loved and appreciated by our neighbors who gushed over the gift. It was also fun to leave surprises on the porches of neighbors who weren’t home at the time. :)

Lunch was a tasty but simple meal of Croissants with Turkey, Bacon, and Cheese (with snuck in spinach) melted in the oven.

We all had an afternoon rest time and then it was Birthday Party time! We had invited a few York friends to come for the afternoon/evening to celebrate Brayden’s 10th. We usually just have family birthday time (which we’d had the night before), but since it was a significant year for Brayden, we told him he could have a party. The kids played, the adults caught up and visited. It was wonderful.

We ate Brayden’s birthday choice of Chicken Nuggets and Fries along with a tray of fresh fruit and a plate of veggies.

There was cake, there were cookies, there was a lot of laughing and joy.

After all the excitement of Christmas along with three birthdays within the past nine days, I felt some relief that we could maybe settle down for a while. Ha. And then I remembered that we have two more birthdays coming up in January. Party on!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 17-23, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 17-23 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 17-23, 2023

As you can imagine, Sunday mornings are a bit hectic at our house as we try to get out the door to church with so many little ones. I’d get more done ahead of time on Saturday night if I wasn’t already just trying to survive the regular needs of Saturday night. Phew.

At one point in the morning this Sunday, I was able to run to our laundry room to gather outfits for our five littlest. I laid them on the back of our living room couch like this so that Matt and I could work together to get everyone dressed.

Our Sunday lunch that day included 23 lovely people and it was marvelous! I set up a big Baked Potato Bar and our friends brought salads and desserts.

I usually bake potatoes like this in a crock pot. But I needed my crock pots for other things, plus 10 pounds of potatoes don’t fit into one crock pot. So I “baked” them in our large roaster, hoping it would work well to do the job I needed it to do while we were at church. Phew, it worked!

Our potato bar included Chili, white queso, bacon, shredded cheese, butter, sour cream, salsa, ranch, guacamole, and olives. At the last minute, before leaving for church, I also threw 24 hotdogs into a crock pot to cook all morning. I knew we’d have a large crowd and I wanted to make sure we had enough food. AND I realized that a lot of baked potato toppings can double as hot dog toppings (chili dog, anyone??).

We went through all 24 hotdogs plus almost 10 pounds of potatoes this meal. It was awesome!

Here’s our drink station filled with coffee options, hot cocoa, and tea:

The selection of desserts our friends brought was so good. Those frosted bars there look like brownies but take one bite and you realize they are a delightful Ginger Snap bar. Wow. So good. I’m not going to tell you how many I ate with my coffee that afternoon. And the next day. :)

Our friends trickled away for the afternoon and our family pulled up the Husker volleyball final match to enjoy together. This photo is a peek into why we love living in Lincoln. Being able to enjoy time with our adult kids is a gift I can’t put words to. (Even if the Huskers did choke and forget how to play their sport, bless ’em.)

After the game, we got the kitchen cleaned up from lunch and I decided that there would be no more cooking or dishes that day. Anna finished off the can of our lunch olives while I put five frozen pizzas into the oven for dinner.

I only burned one of them. Ack.

Some friends of ours had been sick all week so we decided to put together a surprise package for them and deliver it to their porch. Brayden, Kiya, and Keith made cards…

And we put together a box filled with treats and crafts. Look at these adorable ornaments from Delight Design! I have a stash of them for our kids to color or paint so I put some in for our friends to color.

I had a couple of frozen Lasagnas in our freezer so I put one in a large gift box to go along with our surprise box along with the cards our kids had made. Then we loaded everyone up to go make our delivery.

We had some disposable cups with lids leftover from our Christmas party the night before, so we put some hot cocoa into them and told the kids they could have one for the road after they buckled in. This was a GREAT idea that we will probably not do again any time soon because giving kids sugar while confining them to car seats made for an extra-crazy van ride home, oy!

Someone gave us the gift of this delicious loaf of cinnamon-y bread at church on Sunday so Monday morning we enjoyed it with our breakfast.

Eva came over and helped Matt with the littles while Keith and I headed to our  Food Distribution set up to help get food ready to give away on Tuesday. Mid-morning, Eva sent me this “Mini-Laura” photo of Acacia. :)

There was a Sam’s close-by so after Keith and I finished helping at Food Distribution, he and I headed to Sam’s to pick up a few necessary food items as we get ready for Christmas.

That afternoon, I browned 4-pounds of sausage and 6-pounds of hamburger meat to get meals ready for the upcoming days.

I used a combination of cooked hamburger and cooked sausage to make a huge Lasagna for Friday night. My dad and his wife were coming for a visit and we were planning a fun evening with all of our big kids coming to see them.

I then used some of the cooked sausage to make four pans of Quiche for our dinner that night. Brayden was happy to mix up a big bowl of Caesar salad to go with them, plus we had some strawberries.

I had planned for us to make these Reindeer Cookies for a couple of weeks and we finally made it happen Monday night!

Our little Josie-girl had fun trying to put antlers and a nose on her cookie. Turned out pretty good, don’t you think?

Anna was very proud of her cookie creation!

While the cookies were baking, the kids watched part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer since it matched the theme of the evening.

And then they ate their cookies before getting ready for bed!

Tuesday morning Keith decided that pancakes sounded really good. :) I had a Kodiak mix from Costco so he helped me mix it up and I made a huge batch of pancakes on our griddle for breakfast.

A dear lady at church had told us on Sunday that she had the week off and to “go out for some time to yourselves before Christmas!” while she came to babysit. Ohhhhh such a sweet offer!

So Tuesday mid-morning we left the youngest five with Kathi, Elias, and Malachi while Matt and I had an early lunch at Cheddar’s. I took this picture to send to another friend who had given us a gift card to use on a date sometime. Great food and uninterrupted conversation!

I wrapped presents all afternoon during naptime, then picked up Brayden and Kiya to head to the Food Distribution to give out food. This service opportunity really stretches them and is teaching them so much about seeing others and showing love. It also sometimes triggers some tough emotions as sometimes they see someone that reminds them of a person from their past. We tend to have a few things to work through as we drive home on these days.

This particular day, they had been given an excess of donations from various grocery stores so we brought home two bags of food like potatoes, salad kits, canned soup, buns, rolls, and bread.

I had put White Chicken Chili into the crock pot earlier in the day so that dinner would be ready to serve without me being there to make it. I forgot to take a picture that evening but here are the lovely leftovers in the fridge. ;)

Wednesday morning after we got Brayden and Kiya off to school, Matt and I loaded up the youngest five to run final errands before Christmas. We went to Aldi because butter and cream cheese were on sale. I got a case of both – woot!

Then we headed to Costco, putting two kids in my cart and three in Matt’s.

I felt a little bit like a crazy woman, but that afternoon I also went to Sam’s. I’d gone to a different Sam’s with Keith earlier in the week but they didn’t have the bacon I wanted and we must have our bacon, mustn’t we? This Sam’s had it and it was still hugely discounted! I got two boxes, which equals 20 pounds. I feel no regret. :) :) :) I am now FULLY stocked up on groceries and ready for Christmas!

When Anna got off the bus from preschool that afternoon she was excited to open a gift from her teacher. It was so sweet to watch her delight as she pulled the little items out of her package!

Have I mentioned that we have not one but FOUR birthdays in our family in December? This particular day, we were celebrating Malachi turning 19! Per his request, we had a junk food buffet, ha. I couldn’t handle only serving pizza rolls and corndogs so I included grapes, berries, and carrots in the food line.

Several off his friends came to Lincoln to celebrate with him plus his cousin from Kansas. SO special! Asa and Eva came too (Justus and Kelsey weren’t able to join). It was a great evening!

I could only scrounge up 10 candles for our 19-year-old. I need to put candles on my Walmart list. :)

We had “present time” in the living room, giving Malachi some very adulty gifts like dishes and boxes of mac-and-cheese. He and his cousin are planning to get an apartment together soon so he’s starting to collect needed items.

Somewhere in there, I managed to get Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and Anna to join me in putting together little gifts for their teachers. Phew, what a busy (but great!) time of year.

Acacia wanted to get in on the action, the little sweetheart. She put together a teacher gift for the teacher she doesn’t have, haha.

Thursday morning I made our daily smoothie, then put a roast and carrots into the crock pot to slow cook all day for that night’s dinner. (Note to self: Put the carrots on the bottom next time so that they can cook in the juices and turn out to be more tender.)

My dad and his wife, Tacy, arrived early in the afternoon – such a treat to see them! (We hadn’t seen them since Adoption Day in May.) We visited all afternoon, then for dinner enjoyed the Roast and Carrots plus Buttered Corn and Rolls.

Our nephew, Troy, was still here visiting too – so much fun to have family in town!

We finished off dinner with Christmas Cookie Cut-Outs, which we’d made like this. So I gave each kid a cookie with some frosting and sprinkles so that they could decorate their treat before eating it.

Friday morning it was fun to make several pans of bacon with the big box I’d picked up on sale earlier in the week. We had it with Cheesy Scrambled Eggs and Grandma Tacy’s Banana Muffins that she’d made and brought for us.

Papa walked to school with Matt, Brayden, and Kiya. Then he and Grandma Tacy were excited to walk Keith and Anna to their bus when it came to pick them up at noon. :)

We set out a fun Sub Sandwich bar for lunch with a variety of breads, meats, and cheeses plus avocado, spinach, and condiments. We had chips and carrots on the side and we were nice and full afterward.

Acacia and Josie ate their lunch at a little table Papa and Grandma Tacy had brought for them. It’s soooo cute.

When Keith and Anna got home from preschool that day, they were excited to pull everything out of their backpacks and tell us about their Pajama Day – Gingerbread Party. :)

Kiya and Brayden made crafts at the table with Grandma.

We ate a huge Lasagna for dinner with Caesar Salad and Green Beans.

Plus we enjoyed Christmas Cut Out Cookies and Frosted Brownies.

All of the older kids were able to be there to enjoy some Papa and Grandma Tacy time. :)

I happened upon this scene in the kitchen and while I had to keep up with littles and couldn’t hang out with them, it was delightful to me to see all of our Bigs enjoying each other in our kitchen. :)

We gathered in the living room after dinner for a little bit of Christmas gift exchange time.

And then we attempted to put some VERY HYPER CHILDREN to bed. They are all a little bit extra-emotional because of the holidays. Having extras at our house is so exciting – but makes it hard for them to regulate. Which makes it hard for me to regulate as I work with Matt to settle everyone. This was the third night in a row of crazy bedtime behavior (it started on Malachi’s birthday evening) and I was in tears by the time we finally got them calm and into their beds.

Ugh. This life is so, so good. And also very much hard. It is everything all at once. God led me to read Psalm 18 on Saturday morning and the Truth from it is so good and was so needed. He is our strength. He is our rock. He delights in me and loves me. This is how we can walk through these days. Breathing all this in changed Saturday for me.

My dad loves to buy donuts for us when he comes to visit so we enjoyed those with an Easy Egg Casserole and fruit.

We had gifted my dad a Big Boggle game for Christmas and I reallllllly wanted to play it with him. So we decided to let the kids open a gift from their CASA that she’d delivered that week. I knew that the gift was a huge set of Magnatiles and thought the kids might spend some timing enjoying them so that I could have some good grown-up game-playing time. This plan worked out about as good as it could work, haha. Dad, Tacy, and I played several rounds of Big Boggle even while there was a bit of chaos behind and around us. :)

I had started a full crock pot of Ham and Potato Soup that morning and it was ready for us to eat at 12:30. I buttered and warmed up some rolls we’d been given at the Food Distribution to help stretch the meal. We had a few additional friends hanging out that morning and Justus and Kelsey stopped by too. So altogether there were 20 of us and we finished the entire pot plus all the rolls! (And some clementines and cookies.)

I rested that afternoon after Dad and Tacy headed home. Then I went to the kitchen, turned on Christmas music, and did some baking as the girls were waking up. I mixed up my Peppernut recipe but made them into regular cookies instead of a billion tiny bites like my grandma used to make. They taste delicious like this and of course take much less time.

I also made Fudge and Shortbread.

After all of that, I didn’t feel like making dinner, ha. So we made popcorn and got out fruit, cottage cheese, peanut butter pretzels, and yogurt.

While Matt and I started our Saturday night bath process, Malachi and the boys set up our new Corn Hole game that Papa and Grandma Tacy had gifted us. :)

Then the best thing happened! We settled all of our clean, jammied kids into the living room for Singing and Prayer time. Just before time to head upstairs, the doorbell rang. Who could it be??

The kids were AMAZED by this special visitor and each one of us received a beautiful handmade (by Mrs. Claus) gift. It was incredible and sweet and well, we have some pretty great neighbors. ;)

And that was our week! Merry Christmas!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16, 2023

Sunday we were blessed to have friends join us for lunch after church – a precious family of five that we have known for many years. Living in Lincoln with them now is a huge blessing so that we can worship and spend time together.

I made a Spiral Cut Ham, Cheesy Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans. Their family brought Salad, Cucumbers, Cornbread Muffins, Brownies, and a Trifle. It was an amazing feast!

When our kitchen looks like this, it is my favorite. I will stare at this photo and praise God for all He’s given.

We visited and the kids played a good part of the afternoon. Then I turned some of the leftovers into casseroles. I used leftover ham to make an Easy Egg Casserole and put it into the freezer for Christmas morning. Then I made two Ham and Hashbrown Casseroles – one for us to eat this week and one to give to a mom who just had her first baby.

At dinnertime, we finished off some of the side dishes from lunch along with Roasted Chicken. After we got the kids to bed, Matt finished getting all the chicken off the bones. Throughout the week, we can have easy chicken meals, plus I can make broth with the bones!

Monday morning Eva came over to help with the kids. I took BabyBoy#11 to a WIC appointment. Then I was blessed to spend two entire hours visiting with my friend Charlene – a rare and awesome treat!

Monday evening, Brayden had a Ukulele Concert so I made a big pan of Cheesy Chicken and Rice (this recipe but with chicken instead of beef) so we could have an early dinner before his performance.

Most of us were able to watch his concert and he was so excited (and nervous) that so many were there!

Justus and Kelsey surprised him with flowers afterward. :)

Here’s our crazy concert crew:

Tuesday after breakfast I used the chicken bones from Sunday night’s chicken to make a big pot of broth.

Keith and Anna had home visits from their preschool teachers that morning. Then as soon as all the littles went down for naps that afternoon, I headed out by myself to shop at Costco. I got a few more Christmas gifts plus milk, fruits and veggies, olive oil, chicken nuggets, diapers, and a few other needed items.

I got home just in time to unload the van and then pick up Brayden and Kiya to head to the Food Distribution where we help hand out food each Tuesday afternoon. I had used the last of Phyllis’ pulled pork to make BBQ Pork Melts, which Matt and Elias baked at dinnertime. So we got home and ate them along with leftover potatoes and fresh spinach.

Wednesday morning I used leftover ham from Sunday to make Ham and Cheesy Eggs and then let the kids choose a bread item. (We almost always bring home quite a bit of bread leftovers from the Tuesday Food Distribution.) That day we had a couple varieties of loaf bread plus bagels and Cranberry Orange Muffins.

Our morning was full of appointments and meetings. As we were getting kids dressed, Keith requested to comb Acacia’s hair for her. I usually let the girls look at pictures on my phone while I brush their hair (to keep them still) and Matt was able to capture this sweet sibling moment. Acacia actually let Keith brush her hair for quite a while!

I had a lot of tortillas from Azure Standard in our freezer and I wanted to make a big batch of these Burritos, so for lunch I made a Burrito Bar so that I could the leftovers to put together freezer burritos.

For dinner that night I used the chicken broth I’d made on Tuesday to make a pot of Chicken Noodle Soup (with spaghetti noodles since that’s what I had on hand). I also made a blender full of these smoothies because I had a lot of greens in the fridge to use up.

Justus had come over to give Brayden a piano lesson so he grabbed a bowl of soup too.

I was going to get out a Christmas craft for the kids to work on that evening, but I discovered a wrestling match that then turned into an I Spy game with Daddy. And before we knew it, it was bedtime. :)

Thursday evening we had signed up to deliver a meal to friends who just had a baby. So we decided that we would eat an early dinner, load everyone up to look at Christmas lights since we needed to head out to drop off food.

Brayden saw what we were having and asked if he could make dinner. Yup! From start to finish, he made our Orange Chicken and Steamed Broccoli. (This may not seem like a big deal for an almost-10-year-old. But for this guy, it is a very big deal and we are so thankful he has come so far as to do something like this.)

Meanwhile, I pulled out some frozen Christmas cookies to frost and decorate for the new parents we were delivering food to. Following these methods of making cookies with kids is sooooo helpful and this night proved it! The cookies were already rolled out, cut out, and baked. All we had to do was frost and sprinkle. Kiya loved helping me with this job and wanted to know who else we could make food for. :)

After we ate Brayden’s delicious dinner, Matt loaded all of the littles while I finished putting together the meal we were going to deliver: Ham and Hashbrown Casserole, Steamed Broccoli, Grapes, and Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies.

After we dropped off the food we found fun neighborhoods with lots of Christmas lights to enjoy. When we got home, Elias had pulled up the Husker volleyball game – perfect timing! We won the game just in time to get the kids to bed. :)

Friday morning I made a loaf of bread worth of Eggs in a Nest. Kiya had requested them since I hadn’t made them in a while. Perfect!

That morning I also made a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins with some bananas that were turning black.

Putting the muffins into festive paper liners turns them into Christmas muffins!

We loaded all the kids up that morning to run errands. First stop: Trader Joe’s to look for a few gifts to put together for teachers, etc.

Keith got to push a kid-cart, which totally made his day!

After school that afternoon, Keith proudly pulled out an ornament he had made at school and wrapped by himself.

Look at who is learning to write his name!

That evening, we all put on our snuggly-est jammies and headed to church for a Christmas Pajama Party! The children’s ministry team did a wonderful job putting together a super fun evening for the kids. We had a great pizza meal.

We had a dance party.

A grinch and an elf showed up and started a “snowball fight” which was a huge hit!! Well, except for with Acacia and Josie who weren’t so sure what to think about the whole thing, haha.

More dancing!

There were crafts and a bingo game and a chocolate fountain – a WONDERFUL party that we all loved! Best of all, the kids were all jammied up and ready for bed as soon as we got home. :)

Saturday morning I set out the Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins  I had made the day before. I also baked the remainder of the box of bacon I had bought a few weeks ago. We had a few yogurt cups from Aldi so we finished those off too.

Mid-morning we loaded up snacks and kids and headed to the indoor play place at the zoo.

I had made a big bowl full of Tuna Salad so we could eat right away when we got home.

During naptime that day, we spent time getting ready for a Christmas party with some friends who were coming from out of town. Kiya set out fun Christmas plates and juice pouches.

Then the kids watched as I attempted to put together Santa Bananas. Hahahaha, you got me, Pinterest. We were all giggling the entire time I was putting these together – especially every time I tried squirting the whipped cream onto the Santa hats and into Santa beards. The whipped cream didn’t cooperate very well.

Oh – and then the red M&Ms started to bleed so by the time we served these, Santa had quite the bloody nose. Sorry ol’ fella. It was FUN though and I’m glad we tried these. Good luck if you decide to try too. :) :) :)

We set out a buffet of Hotdogs, veggies, and other fruit to go along with our Santa Bananas.

Justus and Kelsey came over to help, thankfully! Altogether there were 8 adults and 16 kids. Was it loud? Do you even have to ask? But look at this precious, full table…

After dinner, we all loaded up in our cars/vans and drove around to enjoy Christmas lights. When we came home, Matt and Justus had popcorn ready and then Justus and Kelsey helped serve Hot Cocoa to go with it.

What a night! Matt had already bathed four of the kids earlier while I was working on the infamous Santa Bananas. Kelsey threw two of the girls into the tub after Hot Cocoa. Our guests headed out and we tucked everyone into bed after a fun time together!

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023 post…

Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023

Sunday before we left for church, I put a huge Lasagna  into the oven to bake plus made a pot of buttered corn and buttered hoagie buns to warm up later,  (The day before, I’d made a bunch of lasagnas to try and get ahead.)

We invited another family to come over and eat with us, plus all of our older kids came, plus one of our kids’ friends.

Altogether there were 21 people who ate, which made our pan of Lasagna look like this by the end of the meal. It was an awesome time!

For dinner that night, I made a big pot of Chili. I froze the leftovers so we can have an easy meal another day.

Monday, we had “leftover breakfast.” Leftover Warm Vanilla Soother, leftover Breakfast Sandwiches, and leftover  Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins. With blueberries and yogurt.

Eva came over to help with kids and I took Keith to the dentist for a checkup. He did awesome!

When we got home, I sliced apples and served them with peanut butter and sprinkled cinnamon for a snack. We ended up going through five apples for four kids. It hit the spot!

Having Eva’s help meant I had extra time and hands! So I took advantage and made Mudballs (x5) and Snickerdoodle Bites (x8). These are some of our favorite snacks.

We were out of baby carrots so in the late afternoon while dinner was cooking, Keith helped peel carrots so I could make carrot sticks.

For dinner that night, I boiled two pounds of whole grain angel hair pasts and stirred in a container of white queso from Costco along with a little bit of milk. Then I added diced ham. It was so good! We ate it with leftover peas.

During the evening we got out some craft kits to keep the kids busy. We started by making Reindeer Hats. Then we wore those while making Sticker Cards with Christmas scenes.

Even this guy got to be a Reindeer!

We gave up on gathering all 9 kids for a picture (our 7 plus two friends). But here’s what we managed to get. You can’t hear it through the screen, but you should know that this picture is LOUD. ;)

Ah, here’s another Reindeer.

Tuesday I didn’t get many pictures. We had Scrambled Cheesy Eggs for breakfast with fruit then cheese/crackers/avocado cups for lunch. I picked Brayden and Kiya up from school and headed to our Food Distribution site to help hand out food.

The kids have become great at helping vacuum after the giveaway ends…

We got to help ourselves to some of the leftover items – mostly bread, rolls, and buns but also some greens, fruit, and sweet potatoes.


One of our housemates treated us all to Costco pizza and salad for dinner that night! (This was all that was left after we all enjoyed four large pizzas.)

Wednesday morning I used some of the biscuits we’d been given at the food distribution and made Sausage Gravy to surprise Matt. (Biscuits and gravy is a favorite meal for him.) The kids had biscuits with butter and jelly plus clementines.

They were still hungry and I didn’t want to fill them with more empty carbs so I got out last week’s Crustless Cheesecakes for them.

In the midst of fixing breakfast plates and taking kids potty, I started a big pot of broth for our dinner that night.

We loaded up all seven littles, dropped Brayden and Kiya at school, then took the other five to Wal-mart for a few essentials. Somewhere between the girl’s clothing and picture frames, one of the girls peed her pants. This picture does not accurately share how much pee was on the cart and floor.

Clean up on aisle nine!

We got it cleaned up, changed her into new leggings that I was planning to buy anyway, got some groceries, and headed back out to the van. PHEW. (Have I mentioned lately that Matt is a rock-star dad??)

Our dear friend Phyllis came all the way to Lincoln to visit us that afternoon. She is one of our biggest prayer warriors, a huge support, and precious encourager. She always spoils us with her delicious cooking and baking when she comes. I texted this picture of our favorite Phyllis cookies to Malachi saying, “Guess who’s here??” He was like, “No way! ON MY WAY!” He loves Phyllis. We all love Phyllis.

Here are some of the littles hanging out in the kitchen later while I finished making dinner.

I used that morning’s broth to make Beef and Noodles (like this except with beef. and store bought noodles). We had loads of veggies in our soup broth – such a great way to guzzle down nourishment!

Thursday morning I made two loaves worth of French Toast like this plus four pans of bacon. Having this big box of bacon that I scored on sale a couple weeks ago has been SO NICE!

I have loved the ease of these Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins, so I experimented with making Flourless Banana Muffins (without the chocolate). They turned out ok but I’m going to make some tweaks to make them a little bit better. Then I’ll share the recipe with you!

Thursday night we warmed up Pulled Pork that Phyllis had made and brought to us. It was delicious with corn, spinach, and fries.

Friday evening our church had a Christmas party. Then a friend of mine and I snuck out to go to our monthly Adoptive Moms Support Group. THEN, Saturday morning our church hosted a lovely Christmas Brunch for ladies. It was all so much fun and so very good. But I was too busy enjoying it and didn’t get many pictures.

Before leaving for the brunch on Saturday morning, we made pancakes and sausage. I had helpers and a fit thrower, but we got the job done.

Eva dropped off Asa to help Matt with kids, then I hopped in with Eva to head to the brunch. Before leaving I made a bowl of Chicken Salad and Asa was using it to make the kids sandwiches when we got back. I made a blender full of these Smoothies to finish off lunch.

For dinner that night I made 5 Cheese Tortelloni with sauce, plus Garlic Butter Shrimp, steamed broccoli, and Caesar salad. It was a great feast – and super easy to make.

I had an idea to make these cookies with the kids and maybe watch a Christmas show, but then we turned on the Husker Volleyball game and really enjoyed watching that instead. The game ended just in time for us to give kids baths before bed. Here are the three littlest girls with clean and braided hair at bedtime. :)

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: November 26-December 2, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: November 26-December 2, 2023 post…

Here’s what we ate and what we did this week!

Big Family Food and Fun: November 26-December 2, 2023

Sunday morning we woke up to snow!! The kids were so excited and it was so pretty. They started making plans for sledding and a snowman – even though there was only about an inch of snow on the ground. ;)

I made a big pot of oatmeal to warm us up on a cold morning.

Before we left for church, I used leftovers from Thursday’s Nacho Buffet to make Taco Soup for us to eat for lunch when we got home.

I had made a lot of bacon from the sale I’d taken advantage of last week so I used some to make Turkey Bacon Cheese Subs for dinner. I cut and fried leftover baked potatoes plus warmed up leftover steamed broccoli.

We ate an early dinner that night because everyone started getting hungry early. Therefore, I knew we’d need a snack before bed. Anna and Acacia helped me make Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins and we set them aside for later.

We’ve found that our evenings can be LONG since it gets dark so early and it’s too cold to go outside to play. If we don’t have a plan and keep our evenings structured, everything can quickly turn to chaos. So we try to plan activities for our evenings to help the kids stay calm (<— this is a loose term, ha).

I had made a run to Hobby Lobby on Saturday and had taken advantage of their 1/2 off Christmas crafts sale. For such a low amount of money, I think we have enough evening projects to last us from now until Christmas!

This particular night, we used a chain kit I had picked up to make a Christmas Countdown Prayer Chain. The littlest five kids mostly just crawled around and tried to destroy the chain, oy. But Brayden and Kiya were engaged in helping. We thought of 30 people or people groups (aunts, uncles, cousins, our church, etc) to pray for and wrote them on our chain pieces. Each day from now until Christmas, we’ll take off the end of the chain and pray for whoever we wrote down.

This was SUCH a good activity for our kids, though it did trigger some sadness, hurt, and tears as we wrote down some of their biological family’s names. We prayed differently that night at bedtime – for continued healing for the ones they miss and for the ones that caused hurt. These precious children are so dear.

We moved on to our muffins before heading up to get ready for bed. As it turns out, we needed to finish all of our clementines too. :)

Monday the kids had a final day off from school before going back after Thanksgiving break. Eva came over to help with the littles and I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to our weekly Food Distribution set up to help get ready for the Tuesday giveaway.

Brayden spent most of his time helping Kathleen, the leader of this distribution site, set up a snack table.

Kiya and I used sharpies to mark out the bar codes on products. I took this TERRIBLE picture as I was trying to not waste time with my phone out and as a result, moved my hand while snapping it. I’m posting it here anyway, you know, to prove that Kiya was there too, haha.

When Kiya and I finished marking all the chip bags, Keith helped drive the boxes into the store room.

After naptime that day, the little girls and I made a big batch of Cream Cheese Cut Out Cookies. I put them into the freezer for later in the Christmas season for us to decorate and share with people.

For dinner we had Beef Roast that I’d slow cooked all day with carrots. I made cornbread (from a mix, thank you Costco).

Before bedtime that evening, we all gathered in the dining room to enjoy the first prayer link in our Christmas countdown prayer chain that we’d made the night before. We prayed together for aunts, uncles, and cousins then sang some songs before heading up to bed.

I love that I was able to capture this sweet moment with Anna, Josie, Elias, and Malachi. :)

Tuesday morning the kids headed back to school after a six-day Thanksgiving break. I made Bacon Cheesy Eggs with applesauce for breakfast.

We felt like we could all use an outing, so after we dropped Brayden and Kiya off at school the rest of us went to Aldi for groceries. Right away, I loaded up on salad kits and other produce.

Matt kept his cart on the move so that BabyBoy#11 wouldn’t fuss. We got stocked back up on our Aldi favorites before heading out to run other errands that morning.

That afternoon Brayden, Kiya, and I handed out food and helped clean up at our Food Distribution site. There was quite a bit leftover so we were blessed to bring home some food for our household too. Here’s a fuzzy picture of the kids heading to the van after their great volunteer work.

Back at home, we enjoyed dinner that had been cooking in the crock pots. Smoked Sausages and Party Potatoes with a salad.

We also got out the containers of raspberries we’d picked up at Aldi that morning. They looked like this in exactly four minutes:

Wednesday morning we used fresh greens to make these smoothies to go with our breakfast.

Late morning, all the littles “helped” me make pizza for lunch. BabyBoy#11 entertained himself on the floor crawling around and playing with toys. I choose to ignore how many times the kids licked sauce off their fingers. All the germs baked off in the oven, right? Sure. They did.

Here are the first two pans of pizza. Another pan was still baking, giving us LOTS of pizza to enjoy.

Which is why for dinner that night we ate more pizza. :) Matt and Elias had been gone all day so I was a bit worn out and didn’t feel like making anything else. Brayden learned how to put together salad kits to go with our (cold) pizza, and that was dinner!

We sat at our living room table later that evening and made paper ornaments with stickers. The kids had so much fun with this craft!

The next day I was blessed to take a day off!! Matt, Elias, and Malachi watched the kids all day so that I could have a much-needed day to myself. I Christmas shopped most of the day, which I loved. My final stop was Costco, and Matt and I had decided that their pizza would be our dinner. Did we just have pizza three-meals in a row? Yes. Did all the kids get fed? Yes. This is a win.

Eva had taken new photos for our family on Thanksgiving and I had picked up the prints that day while I was out. So we gathered around on the floor by our “picture wall” so the kids would watch me update their pictures. I couldn’t believe how long they sat still watching me!

Part of the fun was seeing all of the older photos in each frame. (Every year I just add the new photo to the front of the pile. So each time we open up the frame, we can look at all the photos inside to see how much each kid has changed through the years.)

Tada! The updated wall!

Friday morning I made Breakfast Sandwiches.

Mid-morning we took the littlest five to play at one of our libraries. Wow, was it a disaster that morning. We had a lot of rough behaviors while we were there, plus poopy diapers and kids who needed to poop and bleh. Some outings are great, and some are not. This one was not. As always, Matt and I are discussing what might have gone wrong and what we could do differently next time. But some of their behaviors are triggered by who-knows-what and happen who-knows-when. Ugh, God help us. (He is. He always does.)

Naptime was extra good and needed that day. I spent some time baking (which was therapeutic for me!) so that we could have easy snacks on hand. I made a double batch of Lemon Muffins, which only turned out so-so.

Then another batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins, which have become a favorite!

And then some Crustless Cheesecakes which I personally really like to eat on the run.

We had a super early dinner because we had tickets to go see our Zoo Lights (a wonderful and sweet gift from a dear friend). That morning I had “dumped sauce on chicken” for an easy meal. I rewarmed Tuesday’s potatoes, made a salad, warmed up corn, and made a bowl of Pineapple Fluff. We were nice and full, then got bundled up to walk around the zoo to see the awesome lights.

Here we are at the entrance, putting on our 3-D glasses which made all the lights look like candy canes.

We headed to the train right away so we could hopefully avoid long lines.

After the train ride, we walked through the zoo and had an amazing experience enjoying all the lights. At 7:30, BabyBoy#11 declared that we were FINISHED, poor guy. It was time to get ready for bed anyway, so we headed back to the van to go home and get to bed.

Saturday morning I made French Toast like this, Warm Vanilla Soother, and several pans full of bacon.

Kelsey texted later that morning to share that she’d made my Applesauce Muffins and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. So fun!

We had read that Home Depot was offering a free workshop for kids to come and build Gingerbread Houses so we decided to give it a try.

Apparently every single family in Lincoln had decided to try it too. This was only half of the crowd we discovered there! So we took our kits “to-go” knowing with all seven littles, we’d never be able to build and paint our kits there.

Back at home, Matt took the kids to the basement to build their houses.

Brayden was very determined to build his without help and he did a great job!

They were very proud of their finished products. :)

I made a big pot of hotdogs for lunch with sliced pears and a plate of veggies.

That afternoon I made one huge Lasagna plus three regular sized Lasagnas (because if you’re going to make one you might as well make four).

We cleaned out the fridge’s leftovers for dinner that night, got baths, and enjoyed a little bit of Husker volleyball before heading to bed. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: November 19-25, 2023

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Here’s our Food and Fun: November 19-25 post!

Here’s what we ate and what we did all week!

Big Family Food and Fun: November 19-25, 2023

Saturday night I started a pork roast in the crock pot to cook overnight to eat after church the next day. Here’s my pork roast recipe. Here’s the overnight cooking method.

To go with our roast, I made a big pan of Party Potatoes. I had intended to make Honey’d Carrots, but left the carrots steaming too long and burned them, ugh. So we steamed some peas instead.

For dinner that night I pulled out some leftover taco meat we had in the fridge and stirred it into a triple batch of Creamy Mac and Cheese. We ate it with baby carrots, easy peasy.

It’s been in my head for weeks to work with the kids to put together Fall Treat Bags for our neighbors. Sickness and the craziness of life has derailed us. But we’re finally finishing our project and packaging up goodies! We had stickers from Delight Design to put on our brownie and muffin bags – so cute!

We had set up our tree with lights the night before and on Sunday night, the kids added ornaments.

Monday morning after Brayden and Kiya got to school, we put BabyBoy#11 down for a nap, left the three little girls with Daddy, and Keith and I headed to the Food Distribution site to help set up for the Tuesday giveaway. Our goal is to help our kids learn to serve and help others. The one-on-one time with Keith is so good too. Here he is, admiring the table of snacks we set up.

For dinner that night we made Tuna Melts with Tomato Soup and fresh pineapple.

I had made a bowl of Easy Pumpkin Whip that I intended to serve for dessert. But I saw several almost-empty containers of ice cream in the freezer that I wanted to get rid of and forgot all about the Easy Pumpkin Whip. Goof. So we had the Whip for breakfast on Tuesday instead. It’s only lightly sweetened, has protein and pumpkin in it – so it made for a good breakfast!

Our friend Paula had dropped off this loaf of Pumpkin Bread and we enjoyed it that morning too! So good!

I had sausage patties and a lot of English muffins, so I scrambled some eggs and put together 14 Breakfast Sandwiches to have on hand.

Three of the kids put on swimming suits that morning, haha. Josie stayed in her jammies. Meh, it was Thanksgiving week and I was extra busy. Regular clothing was optional. The three little girls had a get-together in our playroom saying over and over, “So nice to see you!” “So nice to see you!” in their preschool and toddler language. It was so sweet.

I had two appointments that morning and the second one was right by Sam’s. So I took advantage of being kid-free and ran in to get as many groceries as I could. I got a couple of special items for Thanksgiving – Martinelli’s and fancy whipped cream. Otherwise I got the regular needed items – milk, produce, peanut butter, sliced cheese, grass fed hamburger meat, and our favorite beef smoked sausage.

After school, Brayden, Kiya, and I went to hand out food at the Food Distribution site. When we got home, Matt had started warming up the casserole I’d put together from Sunday’s leftovers plus leftover peas.

Wednesday, Matt and Elias headed to York to work on our properties. Kelsey had the day off so she came over to help with kids and Thanksgiving prep! We had a huge day in the kitchen, getting a lot done for the holiday and then some.

I had picked up this 10-pound box of bacon at Sam’s the day before. It was highly discounted and ended up being just $3.40/pound so I was pretty excited! We baked several cookie sheets worth of it that morning, eating it for breakfast and then putting the rest in the fridge for easy-t0-warm-up breakfasts or sandwiches during the next few days.

Kelsey took the three littlest girls into the living room to color while Kiya, Keith and I worked on Pumpkin Pies.

Kiya did most of the “work” of adding ingredients to the blender and Keith helped push buttons on the blender. ;)

Our pies turned out great! Here’s our easy, real food Pumpkin Pie recipe.

Next, Kelsey got the kids involved in potato scrubbing and carrot peeling/cutting.

So far, we hadn’t let these two use knives, but Kelsey talked them through it and they did great!

Meanwhile, we browned 6-pounds of hamburger meat to use that night and through the weekend.

I used half of the cooked meat to make Sloppy Joes for dinner. We ate them with grapes and salad.

Thursday morning Justus showed up at 5:20 to get the turkey on the smoker. I had coffee and God time, then got mashed potatoes in the crock pot.

Mid-morning I made these rolls – first time I’d made rolls in a long time! Kelsey snagged this photo. :)

We’d FINALLY finished our “take fall treats to neighbors” project and were determined to deliver before our Thanksgiving meal. Our bags were filled with frosted brownies, muffins, and oatmeal cookies.

Matt loaded up all the bags plus six kids and walked around the neighborhood handing them out and wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving!

Meanwhile, guests started to show up and we finished the meal prep. Justus’ turkey turned out amazing!

Here are all of my Thanksgiving meal recipes.

Here’s this year’s crew! It included all of our family plus one of our housemates (who is now part of our family). Plus a dear friend from York and two YU soccer guys we’ve come to know.

After the feast, the guys played a game in the living room and we gals rested for a while on the couches.

I packaged up a plate of food for a friend who wasn’t able to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal that day, then we started getting kids ready for Eva to take our family photos.

UGH. It was then that Anna came down from her “nap” with styrofoam stuffing all over her. Which meant that something had busted open and the filling was also all over her bedroom. Praise God for sweet daughters-in-law who cleaned it all up for their tired mother-in-law.

Eva is a rock star who took individual photos of all of us, plus one big family photo. (I’ll share them with you when we get them!) We came home and put together a Nacho Bar for dinner.

Then, we turned on a Christmas show for the kids to watch while we adults played Stuff Happens before bedtime. THAT was my favorite part of the day!

Friday I got zero pictures, hahaha. I was so tired that day I wasn’t on my top game. We picked up our Bonus Boy for the weekend (age 4, former foster son and half sibling to some of our kids), ate leftovers, we made mac and cheese, I took a nap. That’s about all I remember. :)

Saturday we loaded up all 8 kids and took them to the Children’s Museum for the morning. It was a great and needed outing!

We ended our time at the museum with the kids all “working” at Runza. It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen them do as a group. They had on hats and aprons, flipped burgers, took orders, filled drinks, made fries – goodness it was sweet.

Elias had started lunch for us so that we could eat right away when we got home – Cheese and Spinach Quesadillas with Tomato Soup and apples.

For dinner that night, I baked whatever chicken tenders and patties I found in the freezer. Plus I put waffle fries in our air fryer, steamed broccoli, and opened up cans of fruit. It was a fun, easy meal and a great way to end our week!

And now – Christmas time!!!!! Here’s to a great new week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: November 12-18, 2023

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Here’s our Food and Fun: November 12-18 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: November 12-18, 2023

After four weeks of sickness, this week got off to a much better start!

There was a “Friendsgiving” Potluck for our kids ministry after church. We took Pizza Chicken Bake, Cream Cheese Corn, and a Chocolate Fudge Pie. I was too busy getting food ready to remember to take pictures except for this. Impressive, huh?

This was such a sweet and fun event for families!

After the kids ate, there were several tables/stations set up with crafts and activities for them to do. Our kids LOVED this!

We came home for naps and playtime, then got ready for our big birthday dinner. Almost a week late, we were finally able to get all of our older kids over to celebrate Matt’s 50th birthday!! We feasted on some of his favorite foods: Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Peas, Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies, and Homemade Ice Cream.

My second batch of Homemade Ice Cream didn’t work, so we had to get out store bought ice cream to make up for it. :) This Vanilla batch was pretty tasty though!

Because of all the sickness at our house, we hadn’t been together for over a month. :( I can’t tell you how beautiful it was to have everyone here!

One of Matt’s favorite things to do is play games. But, playing games with this many littles is almost impossible. We plan to try and hire sitters and have a big game day eventually. But for this night, Kelsey had the idea to turn on a show for the kids so that at least all of the adults could play a short game of some sort.

I’m so glad she thought of that! 50-minutes of game time is better than nothing. And how about that – 50 minutes of gaming for a Happy 50th Birthday?! :)

As a very boring but practical side note, I wanted to mention the amazingness of this chicken. I get these drumsticks at Costco (or sometimes Sam’s) for $0.99/pound. This entire package of meat cost only $8.42.

It included around 30 drumsticks and fed 10 adults and 8 kids – with leftovers. This is such an economical way to feed a lot of people!

Monday morning I scrambled 16 eggs with cheese to go with muffins and bagels for breakfast.

Eva came over for the morning to help with kids, praise God. So Keith and I headed to help sort and set up food at the weekly Food Distribution where we volunteer. He was having a rough behavior morning so it wasn’t great. But he did look cute in his ninja jacket and bike helmet (you can never be too safe).

Dinner that night was Lasagna Casserole with green beans and oranges.

Our dear friend Charlene was visiting that evening and I captured this sweet moment when several of the kids were hovered around her to look at pictures.

Tuesday was Keith’s birthday!! He requested birthday pancakes for breakfast. I attempted to make him a special #5 pancake, which worked sort of fine when I first created it.

But not so fine when I tried to flip it, hahaha. #nailedit

We “puzzled” it together onto his plate and it worked just fine.

That afternoon Brayden, Kiya, and I went to the Food Distribution and handed out food to almost 100 people. It is such a joy to do this! We were blessed to come home with a few items also:

We arrived home just in time for Keith’s big birthday dinner. Keith requested pizza and since we had so much going on, Matt and I decided to have some ordered and delivered. It was fun, but we won’t do this again any time soon. (High cost compared to frozen or homemade, delivery fees, then a late delivery and sub-par pizza) But again, it was a fun thing to do for his birthday and he was very excited!

Kelsey captured several of these photos, including this one where three of our little ducks are in a row.

Then it was cake time! I made him a vanilla cake with vanilla pudding and whipped cream. So tasty!

Have I mentioned that birthdays at our house are LOUD? Here’s present time!

Wednesday friends from York came to visit!

We celebrated one of our small housemate’s birthday that evening. YES, it was birthday week! I made burgers on the smoker, baked beans, and fried zucchini and squash.

We sure ate a lot of cake this week!

After present time, the kids gathered around another of our housemates for a special story time.

Thursday was a full day and one of my favorites. A dear York friend was celebrating a birthday and her sister invited me to come surprise her at the dinner party she was arranging. Even though York is only one hour away from our new home in Lincoln, it’s hard for me to get away and I hadn’t been back one time since moving the end of June.

Matt came up with a plan to make it possible for me to join our friends here, and I can’t put into words how wonderful it was to sit around this table with this precious group of ladies:

I love living in Lincoln – but out how I miss our community in York. I praise God for the chance to be with them on Thursday!

Matt and Elias headed to York to work on our properties Friday morning. Malachi helped me out with the littles all morning. We didn’t go on an outing so our morning was pretty chill. While the kids played, I finished bottling the big batch of vanilla I’d been brewing for several months.

Since I knew dinner time would be a bit tricky with Matt and Elias out for the day, I decided to make frozen pizza for dinner. I’ve been determined to have our kids finish making some Fall treats and crafts to take to our new neighbors before Thanksgiving. So I decided to attempt turning our night into a Fall Pizza Party so that we could make it happen.

We baked 8 frozen pizzas altogether, which fed 7 adults and 8 kids (with some slices leftover). Then the “party” started. For the record – one of the real reasons I planned a “party” was so that we wouldn’t have two hours of chaos after dinner before bedtime. Free play time doesn’t work very well for this crew, so I tried to structure the evening so that our kids would know the plan and so that there would be at least some form of order.

One of our housemates had brought back some ears of blue corn from her farm this week, so she did a wonderful job showing our kids that this is where blue corn chips come from. (Then they got to enjoy a blue chip as a treat!)

The evening craft was simple (and NOT MESSY HALELLUJAH). The kids decorated lunch sacks with stickers so that we can hopefully fill them with treats and deliver them to neighbors.

I had picked up a super inexpensive and cute “Build a Turkey” game at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, so we had we rolling dice to add turkey feathers to our birds. :)

We gathered on the couch to read some Mother Bruce books – which was sweet but a little bit nuts with so many little ones crawling everywhere. The party was fun though and THEN IT WAS BEDTIME and also Matt was home by then, hallelujah again. :)

Keith found that I’d put these jammies into his container so he put them on. These aren’t just any jammies. My mom (who died of ALS 19 years ago) had given these to Asa (who is now 26) when he was a five year old like Keith is now. So Asa wore them when he was 5, then Justus, Elias, and Malachi. They were special, so I saved them, not knowing there would be more brothers down the road. Brayden wore them. And now Keith. The elastic is completely shot, but are we going to save them for BabyBoy#11? Oh yes we are.

Saturday morning I made a few quick-to-grab foods to hopefully make Thanksgiving week a bit easier – Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars and Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins. Of course we’ve already eaten a good part of these. But there are still some left that might help us get through holiday prep?? :)

I made a triple batch of Snickerdoodle Bites to hand the kids as needed. These should last at least through Tuesday.

Our church youth group had plans to hand out Thanksgiving meal kits to families in our neighborhood Sunday evening and we had signed up to provide a kit. So we took all the kids to the store to complete our list of food items. I divided the list into three – one each for Brayden, Kiya, and Keith. We helped them find their food items and tried to help them understand what a blessing this would be for a family to have a wonderful meal on Thanksgiving with all they were picking out.

Keith took his job of picking sweet potatoes very seriously.

Once we got home, we put together our big sack of food to take to church the next day.

The rest of the day was very full of outdoor work for Matt and housework for me. So I was incredibly thankful that last week when Kelsey was here making freezer meals, she had left one for us. I baked it ad dinner time and we ate the entire thing!

Then the crazy fun began. I had told the kids that we could set up our Christmas tree that night if they were willing to work hard and cooperate. They were very willing. :) :) :)

We didn’t decorate it – only set up the tree and put on the lights. THAT was plenty for one night with this many littles. The ornaments will go on Sunday evening.

What a full, wonderful week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: November 5-11, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: November 5-11 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: November 5-11, 2023

Food and…fun? Not all of it has been fun this week.

Some people get an extra hour of sleep on the night we turn back the clocks. At our house, we got an extra hour to endure a very long morning caring for sick babies. Oy.

For the past three weeks, our family has been passing around viruses and bugs. The latest involved low fevers. The one before that involved puke. We have canceled all plans and have not let our older kids come over to the Castle for fear that they might catch all of our ailments. So Matt and I are a little on the tired side.

We stayed home from church on Sunday, and eventually, Keith had dressed himself in a football helmet, snow boots (three sizes too big), and pajama pants.

Sunday morning I put The Easiest Spicy Ham and Potato Soup into a crock pot for us to enjoy at lunchtime.

We watched church service online, then the healthy kids went outside to play since the weather was so nice. They were playing “school” and I heard them talk about setting up a school cafeteria. So when it was time to eat, I carried their lunch out to be served in their “cafeteria.” :)

Here’s poor Sissy, one of the three littles feeling so crummy all day.

Keith was well, and he had fun making a three story house out of boxes!

For dinner that night, I made a big batch of Breakfast Sandwiches. They were a huge hit and all of them got eaten, along with strawberries and clementines.

Monday morning I made a big pot of oatmeal. I put a chunk of frozen banana into the littlest girls’ bowls of oatmeal so that it would cool off faster.

I surprised Matt with a Peach Cobbler for his birthday. (Not really a surprise since this is what I make for him for every birthday and Father’s Day, ha.)

We had planned on all of our bigger kids coming to join us for a birthday dinner for Matt, but with so much sickness traveling through our house, we postponed our gathering. :( I went ahead and made one of Matt’s favorites that night for those of us who were already at the Castle: Sausage Stromboli! I hadn’t made this for years and it was SO GOOD.

That afternoon the kids helped me make one of Matt’s favorite desserts: Banana Pudding. :)

Instead of 50 candles, I just put 1 candle in the pudding. Birthday celebrations at our house are LOUD, exciting, and pretty tasty. :)

That night was a rough one with a teething BabyBoy#11. We’re finding it a bit tough to catch a break and get enough rest, but we’ll get there!!

Tuesday morning the toddlers were feeling better so we loaded up the five littlest to go to Walmart after we got Brayden and Kiya to school. The outing helped the morning go better! Someone had given us 10 Free Junior Frosty coupons to use at Wendy’s so while we were out, we grabbed all 10 to surprise the kids with after tonight’s dinner.

Brayden, Kiya, and I helped give out food at our local Tuesday Food Distribution that afternoon after school. We were blessed to bring home some food and flowers for our family to enjoy!

Being at the Food Distribution means we get home just in time to eat dinner, so I had smoked Brats and Hotdogs before leaving that afternoon. They were warm in the crock pot when we got home, and we had them along with baked beans, oranges, and carrots.

When we bought this home, we “inherited” a lot of items since it was formerly a Bed and Breakfast. Many of the items we didn’t need and donated. But we love that some of the things left behind include outdoor lights, heaters, and a lovely fire pit! We gathered around the fire pit that night and told stories – so fun (and a little crazy while trying to keep littles from touching the fire).

Justus and Kelsey were over and she captured the above photo before going in to get the fun free Frostys Matt and I had picked up earlier in the day. They made everyone extra shivery, but it sure was a special evening!

Wednesday morning I made these Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins with cheesy scrambled eggs.

We’d been given a lot of tomatoes at the Food Distribution the day before, so we made BLTs for lunch.

One of our housemates had visited family over the weekend and brought back many dozen farm fresh eggs! So we had Easy Breakfast Casserole for dinner. I taught Brayden how to steam broccoli to go with our meal.

We had a feast of Easy Breakfast Casserole, broccoli, oranges, and muffins. We also warmed up a piece of buttered garlic bread that the kids had chosen at the Food Distribution the day before. (Junior Volunteers like Brayden and Kiya get to choose two items off the tables as a thank you for their help. They usually choose something sweet, but lately Brayden has been choosing things like mashed potatoes and garlic bread, ha.)

Thursday Elias and Malachi picked up our Azure Standard order for me. We got frozen corn, green beans, and hashbrowns (30 pounds!), plus yogurt, tortillas, and palm shortening.

For dinner that night I made Quick Crock Pot Spicy Pasta Dinner with green beans and corn.

Friday morning we dropped the kids off at school then headed to Walmart with the five littlest. We had plenty of time before getting Keith and Anna off to preschool, so we decided to try taking everyone to Great Clips to get Keith’s hair cut. Were we crazy? Sure. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

The three little girls actually sat very well in the waiting area sharing the grapes we had just picked up at Walmart.

The gal was super fast and Keith is as handsome as ever.

Ope. Still eating grapes. :) :) :)

For an extra special treat, we headed to Freddy’s and picked up kids’ meals with free coupons we had been given at a trick-or-treating event a couple of weeks ago. We ate at home though, because restaurants with this many littles is a no-go. :)

For “French Fry Friday” I made ham/cheese and turkey/cheese melts on buns with tator tots and sweet potato fries, plus black berries and grapes. There was spinach hiding in the sandwiches under the cheese, shhhh.

That afternoon I made made a double batch of these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, subbing the chocolate for butterscotch chips. These are a favorite of our older boys and we were finally making plans to get together for Matt’s 50th birthday celebration on Sunday!

Saturday morning I had more bananas turning black so I made yet another batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins. They had gone over so well earlier in the week, I knew they’d be a hit again (I was right)! We finished off the Egg Casserole leftovers and had yogurt too.

Our Saturday outing was to grab jackets and head to the zoo to take advantage of our membership and the indoor play area with the spider monkeys. On our way in, we had the rare treat of seeing the Red Panda playing outside!

I packed juice and peanut butter pretzels for a snack break.

For lunch back at home I made quesadillas and warmed up the last of Sunday’s The Easiest Spicy Ham and Potato Soup.

Kelsey had some freezer cooking plans and came to the Castle to execute them. Spending the afternoon in our kitchen with her was SUCH a treat!!!! Especially since we have had so much sickness and have avoided having anyone over. We’ve missed our bigs!!

She and Justus joined us for a simple dinner, which was leftover chili and sandwiches.

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: October 29-November 4, 2023

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It’s our Food and Fun: October 29-November 4 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: October 29-November 4, 2023

Sunday for lunch we had a pot of Chicken Taco Soup, using up the last of our smoked chicken from the week before. This soup is so easy to throw together when your meat is already cooked. Just dump everything in and go!

That evening, our friends Paula and Randy dropped off 10 lunches for Brayden and Kiya to take to school this week. (This is something new they started doing to help us and it is amazing!) They made five with turkey sandwiches and five with ham, and it looks like they had way too much fun labeling them. :) :) :)

Since I’d been sick, it had been quite a while since we’d gone to the store. We had no fresh produce, plus the kids needed an outing. So Matt, Malachi, and I took everyone to Wal-Mart Sunday evening so that we would have fruits and veggies to enjoy. Taking all seven kids to the store is always NUTS, but hey look at that. Now we have fruit.

Dinner that night was one of my favorite “cheater” meals. Orange Chicken from Sam’s with Caesar salad and rice.

Monday morning I got out Peanut Butter Snack Bars from the freezer for the kids to eat for breakfast. Everyone got to pick whatever fruit they wanted to go with it.

Our neighbor had heard that I’d been sick so she made us a pot of Chili for dinner Monday night. This was SO wonderful since my energy was still on the low side.

Tuesday morning I made some very ugly Pumpkin Muffins for breakfast. I think the melted coconut oil hardened back up and the cinnamon didn’t get stirred in well. BUT, they tasted good and got eaten so it was all ok.

I made these Smoothies to go with the muffins and put them into fun Halloween cups someone had given us.

That night I made a Taco Bar for dinner, seasoning the meat this way.

We had plenty of candy after enjoying two big events last week, so our kids had a lot of fun handing out candy to trick-or-treaters who came to our house that night. We had lots of kids stop by so it was great! Then Matt took our three oldest littles out to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. It was super cold that night so Malachi and I kept the littlest four at home.

Wednesday I made an Aldi run to get stocked back up on milk and yogurt. Here’s a list of groceries I regularly buy at Aldi. This particular day I got milk, whole milk yogurt, crackers, juice, baby food, fritos, fruit cups, granola, canned corn, canned soup, cream cheese, eggs, salad kits, grass-fed hamburger meat, and bananas. My total that day was: $239.

I got home just in time to make this 10-Minute Instant Pot Mac and Cheese for lunch. I made a double batch and it worked great!

We had leftover hotdogs in the fridge so for dinner that night I turned them into Lazy Dogs.

We ate them with kiwi, clementines, and cucumbers.

An unfortunate stomach bug had started traveling through our house – a terrible thing with 16 people living here! So for dinner on Thursday I kept our meal very mild – Baked Potatoes, steamed broccoli, and asparagus.

The weather had warmed up quite a bit, thankfully, so those who felt well enough played outside in the leaves after dinner. :)

Friday morning I used the rest of our homemade applesauce to make a huge batch of Applesauce Bread and Muffins.

After we got Brayden and Kiya to school, we got the other five ready and we loaded up for Costco. I dressed the girls in coordinating outfits – so cute!

Two carts and $410 worth of groceries later, we headed home to put it all away and to get Keith and Anna off to preschool.

I declared it to be French Fry Friday, so for dinner we ate Chicken Nuggets, Fries, Strawberries, and Raspberries.

Saturday morning we ate Applesauce Bread and fried potatoes that I made with Thursday’s leftover baked potatoes. I also took some time to make a triple batch of Snickerdoodle Bites to have on hand for snacks.

We went to our favorite Saturday morning Library Sensory-Friendly Storytime. Then after the regular program we stayed at the library to read books and play with their hands-on learning toys.

Late afternoon I could tell we needed to get ahead of some sibling struggles so I pulled Brayden in to help me made pizza for dinner. He was thrilled with this and at dinnertime, we gave him all the credit for “making dinner.” He was very proud. :)

We had picked up a watermelon at Costco the day before, hoping it would actually taste good in November. It wasn’t too bad! The weather was great so the kids had played outside a good part of the afternoon. Pizza, salad, and watermelon tasted pretty good to hungry kids (and their parents and big sibs).

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: October 22-28, 2023

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It’s Big Family Food and Fun: October 22-28!

Big Family Food and Fun: October 22-28, 2023

Last week’s illness turned into pneumonia for me (a constant struggle since I was exposed to black mold in my dorm back in college). So I stayed home from church Sunday morning, knowing that Matt would have plenty of help with the littles there.

A few weeks prior, I had put a large Pork and Hashbrown Casserole into the freezer so we pulled that out to bake all morning for lunch. Here’s a poor photo of the casserole ready to pull from the oven plus sides we grabbed from the fridge: leftover peas, that crazy bowl of leftover pineapple that we can’t seem to finish, a package of sweet peppers, and a loaf of bread to slice, butter, and toast.

Before heading back to bed that morning, I made Apple Dip that our family loves to enjoy for dessert.

Asa and Eva joined us for lunch and it appears that Asa and Keith had some sort of dual when they arrived. Or is that Keith? We can’t tell.

Eva’s parents had heard I was sick and they texted to see how they could help. I requested 10 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so that I could put together easy lunches for the school kids this week. (It’s crazy how even the simplest tasks feel hard when you’re sick.) Not only did they make and bring ten sandwiches, but they made ten entire bagged lunches! We started our week with a sack full of sacks – filled with sandwiches, chips, applesauce, and treats! We felt so blessed to be cared for this way. :)

Dinner that evening was Tortelloni and spinach. I forgot to take a picture, so here’s one from this post last September. (Awww, it’s our York kitchen…)

After dinner and toys were cleaned up for the evening, we got out a new craft kit for the kids to enjoy. This might have been a favorite for me because they are completely un-messy!! And they are great for kids with extra sensory needs. These babes stayed calm for ten entire minutes doing this. That may not sound impressive, but in our world, ten calm minutes is amazing.

Monday I was still not feeling well and asked some friends to come over for the evening to help with the kids. Malachi cut smoked sausage and put it into the crock pot for dinner.

Elias boiled 2-pounds of noodles and we put a container of White Queso from Sam’s into it. (Try this – its so good!) We made Caesar salad to round out the meal. Since our friends were coming over for the evening and I wanted to be sure our meal stretched far enough, I also got out a few cans of mandarin oranges. And then I went to bed and slept the entire evening while we had extra help. :)

Tuesday I felt a tiny bit better. We needed something quick to eat so I made Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Bars. Look at those sweet little Josie hands reaching up for a bar…

That afternoon, Elias seasoned two chickens and worked with Matt to get them onto the smoker for dinner. At meal time, I steamed green beans and made Mashed Potatoes like this. Such a comfort-food meal!

Justus and Kelsey had come over and after dinner we all “helped” Kelsey wrap up some boxes to turn into Giant Legos for a Trunk or Treat project this weekend. My energy was still so low that I wasn’t much help with crowd control. :/

Wednesday morning I had a special ed teacher coming over to spend time with BabyBoy#11. I needed a little something to eat before this meeting so I (too) quickly put this Smoothie into the blender – overfilling it in my haste. The lid came off and I ended up exploding it all over the kitchen and all over myself.

One of our housemates witnessed the entire thing and came to my rescue. “You go change and have your meeting. I’ll take care of this.” And she did. Sniff. We are well cared for.

For dinner that evening I got out the tidbit of leftover roast and potatoes we had from last week plus some of this week’s leftover chicken. I put the meat on hoagies with spinach and melted Havarti cheese on top. So good!

I fried the small amount of potatoes and got out leftover green beans. We all just got a tiny serving of sides, but we all got full. :)

Brayden had a special field trip on Thursday morning and the request was that all the kids try to put themselves fully into 1897 mode, from clothing to food. He wore his button-up shirt, jeans, and boots and here was his lunch that day:

A biscuit with butter, beef jerky, and an apple wrapped up in a cloth. He took a tin can for his water and was so excited that he could hardly sleep the night before. :)

Thursday evening we had plans to go to “Boo at the Zoo” which is a very big deal here in Lincoln. So that we could have an early dinner and get out the door easily (hahaha) I made a bowl of Chicken Salad with some of the leftover smoked chicken from earlier this week. We ate it on rolls with veggies and canned fruit and it tasted SO GOOD.

Here we have “New to the Neighborhood Community Helpers:” a gardener, a teacher, a construction worker, a babysitter, a policewoman, a fire chief, and a garbage man.

Friday turned COLD. The night before, Malachi brought up our totes of coats, gloves, and hats and Matt sorted them into piles. Keith tried on EVERYTHING when he got up on Friday morning. :)

Anna got in on the fun too, but somehow her “bundling up” included huge purple pants and a princess dress from our dress-up clothes trunk, plus crocks that are several sizes too big. At least she found a hat, though. :)

The best discovery from our sorting of warm items was the Blues Clues slippers from 2001(ish). Asa was the first to wear those, then each boy after that, and somehow we still have them for Keith to wear. (And all of the little sisters. Taking turns is a whole big thing around here.)

I had an IEP meeting at school for one of our kids that morning then three therapist sessions throughout the day (one of them for me, praise God).

Because the day was packed, I simply threw a huge pack of hotdogs into a pot to have warm at dinnertime so the kids could eat before moving on to our evening events.

The fullness of this day ended with Trunk or Treat with our church family in the evening. Thankfully, Justus and Kelsey fully took over the plans we had to be a part of it. We sent a very bundled up Brayden, Kiya, and Keith with Elias so that they could enjoy the event. But Matt and I kept the littlest four at home to stay warm.

Saturday we took the day off, as much as one can take the day off with so many kids. Nobody got dressed that day; we just chilled in jammies or whatever we had all slept in the night before. We did some cleaning, we watched some soccer, we didn’t go anywhere. It was great and needed.

I didn’t get a picture of lunch that day, but I asked the boys to make 5 boxes of mac and cheese. FIVE. BOXES. Which seems like plenty, doesn’t it? Excessive even? Sure, but we have housemates and they needed to eat too.

That pot of mac and cheese was devoured before Matt and I could have any or before our housemates came down to eat. Wow. I don’t even know how much to make in the future. Eight boxes?? Ten? Make two pounds of this instead? Yes probably.

That night I used some of the smoked chicken from earlier in the week to make Chicken Gravy to go over the leftover mashed potatoes. This tasted sooooo good on a cold, jammie day. The buttered peas really hit the spot that night with the kids too. Adding plenty of butter to steamed peas makes them taste like candy, apparently. ;)

And that was our week!

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