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Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025 post!

Before launching into the week’s food and fun, I’ll share the tail end of last week’s fun. We were home relaxing for Sabbath that evening, enjoying fun treats and family time.

Dinner that night was Fish Sandwiches – or just Fish Sticks for those who didn’t want a bun. We went through an entire Costco-sized bag of sticks, reminding me that almost everyone in our household likes these and it makes an easy meal that is different from our norm. Mental note: add fish sticks to the upcoming Costco list…

Our Sabbath dinner also featured special sparkling water and the kids’ choice of a dessert. We practiced memorizing scripture while we ate and talked through what these verses mean in our lives.

Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025

Sunday morning, we ate what has become our traditional, effortless Sabbath Sunday morning breakfast: Breakfast Cookie Bars that I’d made ahead and frozen.

We had a lovely group join us at lunchtime, with 25 of us around the table that day.

We had asked one of the families to please pick up Rotisserie Chicken from Sam’s on their way here, which they were happy to do (plus they brought their traditional Doritos that the kids all love). So our meal that day was three Rotisserie Chickens with Homemade Bread and Butter, Green Beans, Potato Salad, and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. It was all so simple and so good, and a wonderful time of fellowship.

Ms. Megan had brought a Color Wonder kit so many of the kids joined her around the living room table before and after lunch to color. :)

Later that afternoon, we loaded our family up for a Kid Event at the Mall. Our friend Caitlyn had been at our house for lunch and joined us on our outing. Malachi hopped in too, plus our friend/housemate, Kermit. It was great to have so many adult helpers!

The kids got free books, water bottles, games, and bubbles. They got to golf and play instruments.

We had decided to make the most of this outing since we had braved the cold to get to the mall. So when the event ended, we headed over to the play area (as did many of the other families with kids at the event – so it was packed!).

Malachi needed some new business-casual clothes for his work, so while the kids played, some of us went next door into H&M to shop. We scored some great deals from their clearance racks! And Anna made a new friend…

I had packed us a picnic dinner – something we haven’t been able to do all winter long. But this was a great opportunity to enjoy a winter picnic, so we headed to the food court tables and had Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwiches, Salami, Cheese Sticks, Apples, Applesauce, and Carrots.

As we were finishing up our meal, Matt bought an order of fries for everyone to have a small surprise treat before we headed home.

There was no school on Monday or Tuesday of this week (pre-scheduled days off). It snowed all morning and part of the afternoon so we just hung out in the house, trying to keep kids busy.

Brayden and Keith became occupied with Legos for two entire hours, creating the beginnings of a Lego City!

Breakfast and Lunch that day was an assortment of leftovers as we finished up tidbits of Breakfast Cookie Bars, Chili, and Noodles throughout the morning/afternoon.

I made a pot of broth that morning with the leftover chicken bones from the three Rotisserie Chickens the day before. For dinner that night, I used the broth to make Simple Chicken Noodle Soup.

Tuesday was another scheduled day off from school. (With the weather being what it was, likely the kids would have had a snow day anyway!) I made Blender Pancakes for our breakfast that morning.

Being cooped up in the house for the second day in a row was starting to affect everyone. So we tried to keep the kids busy with activities. They’d been listening to “Wavin’ Flag” on Alexa quite a bit, so I looked up the back story to talk through the origin of the song with them. Then we got out supplies to make flags. Was it the most exciting idea I’ve ever come up with? Nope. But did it kill twenty minutes of our day? Yep. So it was a win.

Hahaha, Acacia’s enthusiasm… :)

Brayden was excited to help me make lunch, so he cut up Beef Smoked Sausages to cook.

While the rest of our lunch was cooking, the girls helped me make Breakfast Cookie Bars for upcoming Sabbath Sunday breakfasts.

Lunch was a very exciting offering of Sausages, Mac and Cheese, and Peas.

Mmm, the Breakfast Cookie Bars turned out just right this time.

Matt played a game with Brayden and Kiya that afternoon…

Then our friend, Cindy, and two of her kids came to hang out. This was such a blessing for our evening as our kids love playing with her kids and Cindy poured love into our family the entire time she was here. Brayden and Kiya helped her make little Pigs in a Blanket to go with our dinner.

We enjoyed a fun meal of Chicken Nuggets/Strips, Pigs in a Blanket, Fries, Fruit, and Salad.

Wednesday turned out to be a Snow/Cold Day off from school. Anna helped me make a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins that morning.

Did she get to lick a spatula after we got the batter mixed up?

And had Josie made her way into the kitchen and needed a spatula to lick also?

The Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins turned out great and helped us get through the day as everyone needed something to munch on.

At lunchtime. Acacia helped me prepare leftovers. I was determined to clean out the fridge so we got out jars of pickles to finish off along with our lunch. She felt it was necessary to open the jars with the rubber gripper.

It was a big day for some of the adult Coppingers! Matt, the four older boys, and Malorie had bought tickets to go to KC to watch Messi play. The weather postponed the game, and yet Wednesday’s rescheduled game was still going to be played in freezing cold temps. Did they decide to still go? Yes, they did. Did they realize they were a bit crazy for all of this? Also, yes. Did Arrow fully support their choices??

Everyone gathered at the Castle and we sent off the heavily bundled up soccer fans (Matt, Asa, Justus, Elias, Malorie, Malachi, plus two friends from Lincoln who hopped in). Eva, Kelsey, Arrow, and Little Sweetheart stayed back at the Castle with me to help with kids throughout the afternoon/evening. Eva read lots of books to the littles. At one point I think she had six kids piled around her, but they scattered before I could get a picture of them all.

Kelsey played several games at the table.

We needed something active to do (it day three in a row of not leaving the house, oy!). So I told the kids that if they cleaned up the living room and play room, we’d be able to set up an Obstacle Course like I had done a few weeks ago. Auggie got a turn with the vacuum. :)

Eva captured this shot of me explaining the obstacle course to the kids. It started at the bottom of one set of stairs, went all the way through the living room and playroom, up the other set of stairs, and back. Phew.

It involved masking tape and sour cream lids (fancy!). The kids wound their way around the house over and over.

Meanwhile, Eva and Kelsey took advantage of the kids being occupied to put their babies in the high chairs to feed them. Look at Lolli’s grandbabies eating like big kids. :) :) :)

Knowing the day would be full, I’d put Spicy Ham and Potato Soup in a crock pot that morning. At dinnertime, we served it up – so easy.

I had kind of been dreading the day that Matt and so many other adults would be heading out of town, leaving us behind with kids. But wow was it great having Eva and Kelsey and their babies here! I truly enjoyed the day with them and am so thankful for the gals our boys have chosen. OUR DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW ARE AMAZING!

MEANWHILE, in Kansas City at the game, Messi scored a goal right in front of our crew. AND, while cheering, several of our peeps made it on television. A couple of friends watching the game from home realized, “Hey, that’s the Coppingers!” so they got screen shots and sent them to our boys. It is so much fun to have this shot of Asa, Justus, Elias, and Malorie! For the record, after this moment, everyone determined that it had, in fact, been worth it to drive all the way there and freeze half-way-to-death to be a part of this moment.

Thursday was – guess what? – another Snow/Cold Day off from school. The weather promised to warm up over the weekend, but meanwhile, the temps were still dangerously cold. So, while we considered leaving the house to keep us all from going stir-crazy, we just didn’t want to endure the misery of the cold. So we hunkered down at home, trying to maintain peace while we played.

I’d pulled out a pan of Chicken Cheeseballs from the freezer that I’d made a few weeks ago, so we baked them for lunch. I also made two tortilla packages worth of Quesadillas and opened three cans of fruit for our meal.

After lunch, I baked two pans of rice and browned 2.5 pounds of hamburger meat.

I stirred all of the rice and cooked meat into a large pan and turned it into a form of Taco Rice Skillet for our upcoming Sunday Lunch.

That afternoon, I pulled kids into the kitchen to help me make Peanut Butter Honey Fudge. I had almost forgotten this recipe, but it was a perfect treat to make since we were cooped up and needed an activity.

Brayden got to to do the stove-top part of this.

Then we scooped the mixture into fun molds, then the rest into a dish.

Dinner that night was Costco’s Tortelloni with Sauce plus Steamed Broccoli. A few years ago, I did a price breakdown to share that this entire meal only cost $1.41/person. Want to see what the cost is after inflation 2.5 years later? I did the math!!

After dinner, we ate some Peanut Butter Honey Fudge!

Then we spent the rest of the evening playing Charades.

Oh, and Kelsey sent me this delicious picture of their dinner that night: Simple Pizza Chicken Bake!

With a January full of sickness and a February full of freezing cold temps and a household full of constant intense-kid-needs, I felt like I’d been hanging on for dear life. I have been getting up early each morning to have some glorious time in the Word and in prayer. But otherwise, I’m on the go all day with needs piled on top of each other.

God made it very clear to me on Friday morning that I needed to meet my own needs so that I could effectively care for my family. So as soon as I was able, I packed myself up and headed out the door. (The kids were able to be back in school that day!) I sat at Panera by the fire with a cup of coffee, resting and working. In a setting like this, my work is restful, which is a blessing.

Feeling refreshed and enjoying my alone time, I headed next door to Costco. I looked through clothing for clearance sales, then filled the bottom of my cart with fresh produce.

I then decided that since I was kid-free, I should stock up on everything we’d finished off at home during the past couple of months. Did I need a second cart? Yes. But did I get one? No. I just kept piling my one cart higher and higher. Craziness.

Back at home, Matt and I got groceries brought in and put away before picking up kids from school. I had a smile back on my face again, thanks to the down time I’d enjoyed. Anna washed grapes for our dinner while Brayden and Kiya helped with other parts of our meal.

We had Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Tomato Soup, Onion Rings, and Grapes.

Saturday morning, Malorie and I left all the kids home with the guys while we headed to church for a Ladies’ Brunch. The speaker was none other than our very dear Kelsey. The morning was incredibly wonderful in so many ways and I’m so thankful we got to do this. Back at home, Asa, Arrow, Justus, and Little Sweetheart had joined our crew so I went home to kids, grandbabies, and big boys. I felt so filled and blessed.

The Italian Cream Cheese Chicken I’d started before the brunch smelled good when we got back! That evening, we were planning to celebrate Justus’ birthday a week late, and this was his dinner choice.

Malachi had made a batch of Hot Cocoa while we were gone. I love that he does this!

Brayden and Kiya helped me make Butterscotch Bars for the night’s birthday celebration.

We slid them into the oven, I finished this post, we got some cleaning done, then the family joined for Justus’ birthday. And that was our week!

 

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025 post!

Before launching into the week’s food and fun, I’ll share the tail end of last week’s fun. It was a fantastic afternoon/evening!

Saturday the 8th, we met up with several other families at church so that we could put together some baskets of goodies for people who are not physically able to come to church any more. For an initial project, some of us stood around two tables tying soft blankets. We completed six of these together.

Meanwhile, our littler kids were in the kitchen baking cookies with Ms. Terra and Ms. Melissa.

Next, we put together some crafts to go into the baskets.

Some grown-ups added homemade soup and bread, plus lotion and other goodies to the baskets along with our crafts, cookies, and blankets. The baskets were beautiful by the time we finished!

We all loaded up to make deliveries. Our family was so blessed to visit a couple we’ve known since before Asa was even born. It was soooo wonderful to catch up with them and share memories. WORTH NOTING: I was nervous to take our seven busy littles into a tiny apartment to visit two people who move slowly and carefully. We didn’t want to disrupt or cause any issues. But as always, GOD IS BIGGER than my worries.

The kids did great (and yes, Auggie did find their TV button and turn it on and off several more than a dozen times – but they didn’t care and thought he was precious because he is). We played with their little doggy, we asked about their grandkids, we listened as they shared some of their health concerns. We filled a lovely hole in their evening and they were beaming when we left. As a matter of fact, WE were also beaming when we left. Will we go back to visit these friends? We most definitely will.

Well now, what did we get to do after that? We got to go to a restaurant! Other families had also made their Basket Deliveries and we all met back up at Runza for dinner.

Our littlest kids have had few if any restaurant experiences (because truly, this is a lot of little ones to take into an eating establishment) and they were fascinated. Everyone else was already there and some had already eaten, so friends were ready and able to help us get our tribe seated and supplied with ketchup and water. I ordered several packs of Chicken Strips and Fries and went back and forth handing them out until everyone was full enough.

Then we enjoyed some ice cream cone tokens that my niece had given us. Here’s Acacia with our church’s children’s minister as they talked through our ice cream cone order. Their relationship is so sweet and we are so thankful for Ms. Mandy.

Was it freezing cold outside? Yes. Did that stop us from eating ice cream? No way.

I have a lot of favorite parts of this night, but this photo shows you one of my favorite favorites. Brayden and Kiya got to sit with some of their big kid friends to eat and they had the time of their lives.

We got home just in time to head to bed! What a great Saturday!

Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025

Sunday morning, we ate a plate of Breakfast Cookie Bars before church.

I did a little prep work for our Sunday lunch gathering, making BBQ Chicken-Bacon-Ranch Sliders to heat up after church. (I had slow cooked a bunch of chicken thighs with barbecue sauce ahead of time and shredded it, then spread it onto the buns with the other fillings.)

Three other families joined us that day. We all marveled at how great it was to be together since it had been so long since we’d been able to gather this way (thanks to holidays, sickness, and bad weather). Friends brought Fruit and Veggie Trays, Mac and Cheese, Chips, and Cookies to go with our Sliders. Our food spread was delicious.

There were 28 of us all together and I’m not sure who had the most fun: the kids or the grown ups.

That morning, Keith had tied strings like lasers all throughout the house, making us have to crawl under and over as we went from room to room. Our friends are so gracious about our little quirks. :) And what did the girls do after lunch? Nails, of course.

Our Super Bowl meal that night was as simple as can be: Frozen Pizza, White Queso and Chips, plus Leftover Sandwiches and Veggies from lunch. We went to bed nice and tired that night.

Monday morning, we scrubbed a bunch of potatoes to cook in the crock pot all day for our dinner.

Mid-morning, we took the four littlest on a very boring but needed outing to fill the van with gas and pick up milk since we were almost out of both. I picked up a rose plant to give to a friend who will be celebrating her first Valentine’s Day after the loss of her husband. And I grabbed a couple other things we needed – exciting things like dental floss and apples.

I happened upon a rack full of kid boots marked down on clearance for guess how much?! $1.00! I got ten pairs of boots for $1 each. I was so thankful for this!

After Auggie’s nap that day, he “helped” me make Chocolate Banana Flourless Muffins. We had made a batch of these last week and we went through them so quickly that I hoped another batch so soon would still go over well.

They did. When I pulled them out of the oven that afternoon, we had 21 muffins. At the end of that day, we had eight.

Dinner that night was Baked Potatoes with ham, cheese, butter, sour cream, and peas, plus the above mentioned muffins.

We knew super cold weather was coming in, so we loaded up after dinner and went for a little walk in the mall. Ever tried herding cats…at the mall? There are so many sparkly things in every direction.

We managed to get all seven kids to the play area, which was our ultimate destination.

The effort to get everyone here was well worth it. They jumped and ran and slid and climbed and got hot and sweaty. As we headed back to the van (where being outside in the cold felt really good to all their hot little selves), they all devoured a muffin plus one of the bags of apples I’d bought that day.

Tuesday morning, we ate Breakfast Sandwiches that I had tucked away in the freezer.

SIDE NOTE: I never realized how many eggs we went through. I mean, I did. It was a lot. But now that eggs are scarce and prices are high, I’m rationing them and not scrambling eggs as frequently. Therefore, I’m getting into a bit of a breakfast rut. Time to brainstorm more breakfast ideas for variety. Hmmm….

After we got everyone fed, I dropped kids off at school and took Auggie to his therapy appointment.

He was both nervous and excited to try out the swing.

After we left therapy, we went and picked up Little Sweetheart to come hang out with us.

Late morning, I used leftover BBQ Chicken from Sunday’s lunch to make Chicken Taco Soup. Was this a weird way to use bbq chicken? Maybe. But this is how we use leftovers and save money. (It tasted just fine, by the way.)

Eva texted me this fun photo and told me she was making my Italian Chicken Bake for dinner. Yum! She used her crock pot though – very smart.

I took the kids to our weekly Food Distribution site that afternoon. After that, we met with a new team of Christian therapists that our family is going to start working with. We spent some time getting to know them and they walked me through the therapy plan so I knew what to expect. By the time we got home, Matt, Elias, and Malorie had the littlest four kids fed. Those of us who had been gone all afternoon/evening ate our Chicken Taco Soup and some salad and got ready for bed.

Wednesday was a snow day so kids were home all day. We often feel like we need to be very structured for our crew and keep them busy with parent-led activities so that fights and behaviors are less severe. This particular day, we attempted a mixture of parent-led activities along with times of free play. It worked fairly well. Here’s a photo of us gathered around the table mid-morning for a Bible-focused activity.

Since it was a snow day, we had to make Snowflake Quesadillas for lunch. I was going for a shot of the girls cutting their snowflake tortillas, but Elias was feeling goofy so here he is too. ;)

We ate some Popcorn Chicken and Tomato Soup with our Snowflakes.

After lunch, half of our crew bundled up and headed outside to shovel snow.

Eva was able to make her way to our house to drop off Arrow. Usually he’s here on Wednesday afternoons while kids are at school and Auggie is napping. This time, he had six aunts and uncles to entertain him, so he decided that a nap for him was a silly idea. There was too much fun to be had!! WE ENJOY OUR GRANDBABIES SO MUCH!!!

We made Hot Cocoa during the afternoon.

At dinnertime, Acacia and Josie helped me made salad kits. Sometimes a girl just needs to wear her brother’s protective headphones when working in the kitchen. One can never be too safe.

I had pulled some ham from the freezer that morning and made Ham and Cheese Melts for our dinner that night. We’d been given a special rice dish leftover from Food Distribution on Tuesday, so we warmed that up, and ate the girls’ salads.

Thursday morning, I talked myself into scrambling some eggs for breakfast. I had found some Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eaters in the freezer the night before, so I thawed them overnight for our breakfast. The vanilla variety got eaten right away (before I took a picture), then the chocolate ones were gone soon after.

The little girls helped me make a quadruple recipe of Brownies that morning in hopes that we could put together Valentine treats for our neighbors.

I needed to do some serious Aldi shopping, so we packed snacks and bundled up kids and headed that way. Matt stayed in the warm van with the kids, handing out snacks and books. I ran through Aldi to shop as fast as I could. Somehow this doesn’t look like much, but it was a full cart of lots of good groceries!

When the three elementary kids got home from school, they helped me mix up dough for Cinnamon Rolls. I think it’s been several years since I made these, but I decided that this would be a perfect treat for a Valentine’s Day breakfast the next day. The kids were very excited! They especially liked re-learning about how yeast works and watching the yeast/water/honey mixture get bubbly once it activated.

The rest of the evening got a bit crazy (good, but crazy) as we let the Cinnamon Roll dough rise, then moved on to cutting hearts out of our brownies. I pulled the kids into the kitchen a few at a time to help with this fun but messy job.

Cute, huh?!

It took a while, but I was mostly successfully able get all the little hearts out of the pan. Everyone was happy that while the heart-shaped brownies were for our neighbors, the plate of scraps was for us. :)

Oh yes, and dinner. Everyone needed dinner in the midst of this. Brayden had helped me brown hamburger meat earlier and I turned it into Sloppy Joes while making five boxes of Mac and Cheese. Dinner was later than usual because of our baking endeavors, so I’d sliced a bunch of fresh pears to hold the kids over. By the time dinner was actually ready, the kids sat down and devoured their food.

I’d had to punch our Cinnamon Roll dough down a few times because it took me forever to get back to it. But after dinner, Kiya and I finally rolled them out and cut them. She was my cinnamon-sugar girl. (By the way, I used unbleached white flour this time because the only whole wheat flour I had was pastry flour, which doesn’t work for yeast bread recipes.)

The goal was to get the rolls prepped and into the fridge to bake fresh on Valentine’s Day. Mission accomplished. Then there was quite a kitchen mess to tackle!

Friday morning, I baked our Cinnamon Rolls plus two pans of Bacon for our Valentine Breakfast. The kids LOVED the rolls. What a special treat.

Auggie wore his overalls that day, and I decided that I needed to feature him because babies and toddlers in overalls are THE.CUTEST.

My friend Meghan came to visit late morning and we visited for several hours. I didn’t get any pictures because we were talking (and crying, because that’s what we do). She lost her husband to cancer exactly one year ago this week, and God has brought her and her kids through so much. We had a lot to celebrate (while still mourning).

When the kids got home from school, they were all very excited to pour out their sacks of Valentines to see what all they got!

The temps outside were bearable that day, so Brayden went outside to build a snowman. Introducing: Johnny…

Matt had been in York all day working on our rental property, and unfortunately he’d had car trouble along the way. At this point, he still hadn’t made it home so I was one-on-seven. I had planned for all of us to walk around delivering the Valentine brownies we’d made the day before, but I didn’t think I could pull that off by myself. So instead, I gave careful instruction and sent a few kids across the street to knock on doors by themselves while Auggie and I watched from our porch. They did such a good job!

I had started Beef Stew in a crock pot that morning with some stew meat I’d picked up on sale the day before. It was only a small portion (for our family size) so at dinner time, I also made a pot of Chili. Just as we were dishing it up, Matt called. He and the broken down car had made it back to Lincoln, but he had pulled into a parking lot about three miles from our house, unable to go any further. So, I loaded up the seven kids and we went to pick him up. Dinner tasted extra good when we got back!

Saturday morning, I put one of my $5 hams into a roaster. Some of our friends had a loss in their family this week, so two other gals and I had teamed up to provide a meal for 25 of their family members that evening.

We baked a double batch of Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies (<— I did not make homemade butterscotch chips). I planned to give half of them our friends along with their big meal that night, and save the other half for our Sunday lunch the next day.

Since we were preparing such a big meal for friends that evening, we decided to have Sam’s Rotisserie Chickens for our Sunday Lunch the next day. I gathered some of the kids into the kitchen with me to help me make Stir and Pour Bread to go with our chicken the next day.

This recipe is ridiculously easy and these loaves turned out beautiful!!

I had some melted butter left over in a pan so I brushed it over the hot loaves. Then I tortured us by not letting us eat it!

For lunch, we pulled out leftovers. The best part of the meal was this fresh lettuce that one of our neighbors had given us the day before. She is a student at UNL and had grown it in a green house. Fresh lettuce in February tasted SO GOOD.

We spent the rest of the day finishing the evening meal to deliver to our friends, cleaning and doing chores, delivering more of our Valentine’s Day brownies, and getting ready to move into our time of Sabbath.

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025 post!

I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoons as we head into a time of Sabbath rest. So before I launch into our new week’s photos, I’ll back up and share about our Saturday evening!

I made a simple meal of Quesadillas with ham and turkey for dinner that night with Tomato Soup. Elias had a friend visiting so there was seven kids and seven adults eating that night. This picture doesn’t show you much compared to what we actually ate because I forgot to take a picture before everyone went through the line the first time. We went through three entire packages of tortillas as the quesadillas were a huge hit for everyone!

I have found that it’s easiest to give the kids straws to use when they eat/drink their Tomato Soup. There’s still usually a mess left behind at the table, but straws make the messes smaller, plus they manage to get the soup to their mouths more easily so that they don’t mess up their shirts.

We’ve cut way back on sugar at our house this year, but on Sabbath, we get treats! I had a few brownies that some of the kids chose. But Malachi decided to make a pot of homemade Hot Cocoa, and some of the kids opted for this treat instead. It was so sweet to watch Brayden and Kiya make it with him. Have I mentioned how happy we all are for Malachi to be back at the Castle with us?! :)

This recipe makes such good Hot Cocoa!

Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025

Sunday morning we ate a loaf of Banana Bread from our freezer that our friend BryAnna had made.

It was a true delight to host Sunday Lunch after so many weeks of dealing with sickness in our household. We’ve missed our church family! I baked a Ham and made Baked Beans, Party Potatoes, Corn, and Green Beans with Peanut Butter Brownies for dessert.

We hosted our Community Group later that afternoon, then Anna helped me put together an Egg Casserole with some of the leftover ham from lunch.

Josie (aka Wonder Woman) joined us later and they helped me make Pizza for dinner.

We made five pizzas altogether plus a Crustless Pizza per Brayden’s request.

I served no veggies with this meal (unless you count the peppers on one of the pizzas) because at this point in the day, I was tired and that’s that.

Monday morning, we baked the Egg Casserole Anna and I had made the day before. It was a great breakfast to start off our school week.

The morning with the four littlest felt long, but we kept getting out activities for them and before I knew it, it was time to get the girls ready for their noon bus. Here they are enjoying Water Wonder books for a few minutes.

I had leftover green beans and corn from Sunday Lunch, so I used those to put together a Shepherd’s Pie for our dinner that night. At dinnertime, I slid it into the oven to bake while the kids did homework.

Let it go on record that last time I made Shepherd’s Pie, all the kids ate it right up, giving me great encouragement. This time?? Good grief, the fighting. It was ridiculous and not fun. And it made no sense. Why do kids love food one time and hate it two weeks later? After all these years of parenting, I still haven’t figured that one out. Anyway…

Earlier, Matt and I had decided that we were crazy enough to take all the kids to Hobby Lobby that night to pick out their Valentine cards for their classmates. Then after the dinner fights, we almost decided not to go because we were worried that fits would happen in the aisle full of breakable Valentine decor.

At the last minute, we landed on “we’re crazy anyway, let’s just do it” so we loaded them up and went. All the way there, I was talking them through the plan of choosing a box of cards, sitting in the carts (for the youngest four), not touching anything…

Matt and I did not have high expectations for our time inside the store (it’s better this way). But would you believe, all seven kids were precious angels at Hobby Lobby that night? I’m not sure we’ve ever pulled off such an amazing endeavor. We went into the store at 7:00, the kids all easily chose their cards, we checked out, and we were back in the van buckling up the kids to head home by 7:20. It was a Valentine miracle.

The outing was good for everyone’s spirits, and we got home just in time to get everyone ready for bed. Malachi came down and helped out, holding Auggie for us and then obviously playing a game of soccer with Keith because getting rowdy is how Keith calms down for the night. I can’t explain it. It’s an ADHD thing.

Tuesday morning, I made Eggs in a Nest for breakfast per Kiya’s request. (She proceeded to eat three – yes THREE – of them.)

Auggie had Speech Therapy that morning, then he and I made a trip to Sam’s because his therapy location was close-by. It was a huge stock-up trip because I hadn’t done any serious grocery shopping in several weeks.

Auggie and I got home in time to help finish getting the girls ready for their preschool bus. I’m not sure why I bothered to fix their hair because it was freezing outside and hats were needed. Good thing they are cute with fixed hair AND with sweet winter hats.

After school, Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and I headed to our weekly Food Distribution site to hand out food to the community and to help clean up afterward. We’ve missed this for several weeks because of all the sickness at our house, so it was extra wonderful to be there and see people. Keith discovered a small white board with a marker and spent the entire time drawing on it instead of helping. But it was still a win because it kept him calm.

Here’s Kiya at the end of our distribution time as we were putting away the few leftovers before vacuuming.

We came home to a crock pot full of Ham and Potato Soup that I’d made earlier in the day. Matt made a bowl of Caesar salad and we all dug in.

Wednesday morning, the kids spotted their Valentines that we’d purchased on Monday evening and they reallllllly wanted to work on them. I reassured them that their school parties weren’t for nine more days, but I also allowed Keith to get started on his after he was completely ready for school since we had 20-minutes until time to leave.

Once we got the three oldest out the door, I let the little girls work on their Valentines. Anna can write her name by herself and got through four entire cards before getting tired. ;) Acacia and Josie tried to write their names but as of now, their signatures are much like a doctor’s. ;)

It was our housemate, Kermit’s, birthday so we spent some time prepping a family dinner for that night. Anna helped me crush graham crackers for an Easy No-Bake Cheesecake.

I also baked several pans worth of Bacon to go with Cheeseburgers.

We got the girls out the door for preschool and Auggie down for a nap. Then Eva dropped off Arrow for some Lolli and Pop time! We played for a solid hour and Arrow jabbered the entire time. :)

During his nap, I prepped and baked 16 hamburger patties for dinner. My goal was to have our burgers and bacon almost ready so that I could simply finish them up once it was time to eat – as opposed to making a bunch of bacon and burgers right at meal time when all of the kids were home from school and hungrily whining at my feet.

I cut up several “Raspberry Oranges” to go with our dinner and Josie ate half the plate while waiting for dinner. Kelsey and I tried to get a good picture of her very red mouth, surrounded by the mountain of orange peels she left behind. Josie wasn’t super interested in letting us get a picture, but Kelsey snuck one in. :)

I finished off the burgers in a skillet a little before 5:00, then transferred them to a crock pot to stay warm. Just before serving time, I rewarmed the bacon in a skillet so that it would be hot and crisp. And with that, we had fresh Bacon Cheeseburger fixings all ready to go at 5:30. I also cut up two Beef Smoked Sausages and cooked them so that we’d have enough meat to feed our crowd that night.

The sides were simple with our meal: Leftover Baked Beans, Pickles, Chips, Veggies with Ranch, and Fresh Fruit.

Birthday Cheesecake time!

All of our family plus a few extras were able to join us that night, putting 21 around our table. Nights like this are my favorite.

Thursday morning, we ate a random assortment of breakfast items from the fridge: leftover Breakfast Casserole, Breakfast Sandwiches, and Yogurt. Meanwhile, the girls helped me open sticks of butter to make Breakfast Cookies.

I baked a double batch of Breakfast Cookies, spreading the dough into a pan to make bars to save time.

After we got the three elementary kids off to school, we got the youngest four ready and loaded up to play at the indoor play area at the zoo. An outing was needed!

There’s a ball shoot that is lots of fun here, so Anna used her hat and the kids filled it with balls to put into the monkey’s mouth. The balls get sucked up through tubes, then are released every ten minutes, showering back down onto the floor.

Today, however, something was stuck in the ball shoot. We had a wonderful time watching a zoo worker climb a very tall ladder to try and fix the ball release.

We took bananas and peanut butter honey sandwiches to snack on during our time there.

We got home in time to get the girls ready for their preschool bus and put Auggie down for a nap. Justus dropped off Little Sweetheart and she went directly down for a nap.

I had pulled out bananas to thaw while we were at the zoo, so I quickly mixed up a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins for the oven.

When the babies got up from their naps, we had a delightful tea party in the play room.

Dinner that night was more involved than usual, but WORTH IT. I made Chicken with Cream Cheese Sauce with a pan of Rice and Steamed Broccoli. Super tasty!

That evening, I followed my own advice for making cookies with kids and we made Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies.

Worth noting: I used my wonderful Bosch Mixer to mix up the dough for these cookies, and I just re-read the reason I invested in it. I found it so precious to read this and to re-visit part of the beginning of our foster-adoption journey. At the time of that writing, we had only added three extra boys and one daughter-in-law. We’ve since added FIVE more kids, another daughter-in-law, and a very serious girlfriend. I had no idea when I bought that Bosch Mixer in 2020 how much I’d need it now. I’m so thankful my friend Rhonda encouraged me to do it. Anyway, why am I over here crying over my Bosch? Because this.

Anyway…Thursday night we made heart-shaped cookies, hahaha.

That night, all we did was roll/cut/bake. We’ll save the frosting and decorating for another time.

Friday morning we finished off our Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins from the day before. Eva and Arrow came by for a couple of hours and the Aunties had a good time being helpful. :)

Auggie had been needing a haircut for quite a while and I finally got that done Friday morning! Phew. Here he is, so handsome after his nap…

For dinner that night, I warmed up leftover rice from the day before, made some Taco Meat, and got out other fixings for a Burrito Bar.

After dinner, I was able to give Brayden and Keith much-needed hair cuts. So all three little boys went to bed with fresh heads!

Saturday morning we took our kids to our favorite Sensory-Friendly Storytime.

It was especially fun to see Auggie willing to participate in some of the song/activities.

After story time, Ms. Diane pulled out all kinds of special sensory toys for kids to play with for a half hour or so.

We had a free morning, so next we headed into the main area of the library to play and read for about an hour. Acacia and Josie worked at the post office for a while. :)

Kiya was able to keep Auggie engaged in a book for a couple of minutes before he was ready to move on.

The most special part of the morning was that we let the three older kids check out one book each. This shouldn’t be a big deal at their ages. But with our family dynamics, we’ve not felt comfortable checking out books up until now. There are too many tantrums and impulse control issues at our house, which can lead to destroyed books. And in general, with this many kids, we’ve not been sure we could keep from losing library books in our house. But today, they each got one, and we set out some guidelines for where the books would be kept in the house if they were not being read. We’ll see how this goes!

Back at home, we warmed up leftovers for lunch. Then we sat down to complete everyone’s Valentine cards. This job was NO JOKE. The kids all needed help with several aspects of assembling their cards, and hey all wanted help at the same time. So 90+ cards later, my nervous system was a little wrecked. (And I still needed to help Keith make his. Not today though. Mama needed a break.)

They were all so happy to have their cards ready for their parties, and our time together ended well. We did some cleaning and then I turned on a movie for them so I could finish this post. :)

We had a fun night with church family later, but we also headed into our time of Sabbath for the week, so I’ll share more about that next week!

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Big Family Grocery Spending for January, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Grocery Spending for January, 2025 post!

Here’s how we spent our grocery budget for our large household during the month of January. But first…

This January wasn’t normal

This was a very challenging month with a much lower-than-normal spending total due to illness running through our household all month long (first a stomach bug for 10 of us, followed by Influenza for 8 of us).

Appetites were much smaller overall, and parents didn’t have energy to go grocery shopping the last half of the month. So we ate through our stockpile of food from our pantry and freezer, and we had plenty to work with. Next month might be an extra-large-spending month as we make up for what we didn’t spend this month!

Big Family Grocery Spending for January, 2025

1. Aldi

On January 9, we needed to restock many of our staples so we headed to Aldi where I got many of our favorites: whole milk, whole milk yogurt, granola, oranges, Caesar salad kits, blueberries, ground sausage, ham lunchmeat, Fritos, bananas, fruit/veggie pouches for Auggie, sweet peppers, pear cups, powdered sugar, and salami.

Total for food at Aldi: $87.31

2. Costco

From there, we went into Costco where we really stocked up!

We got a lot of produce: apples, mandarins, mini cucumbers, spring mix, spinach, broccoli, two kinds of grapes, blackberries, raspberries, pears, and potatoes. We also got cream, half and half, beef sticks, almond crackers, yogurt squeezies, mandarin orange cups, avocado cups, eggs, tortilla chips, pasta sauce, rotel, maple syrup, olive oil, coconut rolls, tortelloni, mini corndogs, applesauce cups, granola, two kinds of shredded cheese, frozen french fries, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, chocolate chips, sour cream, and tilapia.

Back at home, as we unpacked from Aldi and Costco, I loved seeing all the variety of fruits and veggies we had to work with as we fed our family meals and snacks.

Total for food at Costco: $429.33

3. Wal-Mart

On January 16, I took Anna and Auggie with me to Wal-Mart so that we could get some of their WIC items and a few other family necessities (boots, tennis shoes – ooh, I scored a pair of shoes for Brayden on clearance for $5!). Elias’ birthday was coming up so I picked up some groceries for his upcoming celebration.

What I find every time I go shopping without Matt or one of our adult kids: One cart is not enough. But with two kids tagging along, two carts wouldn’t have worked either. So I made one cart work – barely!

This shopping trip, WIC provided lots of fruits and veggies (fresh and frozen), eggs, cheese, beans, cereal, pasta, and rice. This is such a blessing!

Total out of pocket cost for groceries at Wal-Mart: $81.06

4. Amazon Subscribe and Save

I didn’t remember to take a picture when our order came in this month, but we got several cases of applesauce, yogurt pouches, pizza crust, and Annie’s mac and cheese.

Total from Amazon: $48.66

5. Wal-mart 

During our time with Influenza, we were not going through groceries very quickly because no one had much of an appetite for many days. But Matt did go get the oil changed in our small car so while at Walmart, he grabbed a few gallons of milk and some bananas to get us by.

Total from Wal-mart: $9.80

6. DaVinci’s Pizza

Someone gave us a gift certificate for Christmas, and we held on to it to use on an evening we needed it. After our many days of Influenza, as appetites were coming back but energy was low, we decided to take advantage. We ordered two extra large specialty pizzas, which was a fun treat after so many days of misery.

Total for DaVinci’s Pizza: $0 (completely covered by gift certificate)

7. Russ’ Market

We don’t normally shop at this local store because its prices are much higher than my go-to stores. But the kids had brought home a $15 grocery certificate at Christmas time (the school sent these home with families who qualify for free lunches I guess?) and it expired this month. So on January 31, I went to use this certificate, plus we had a few WIC items left in our benefits package that needed to be picked up.

Total out of pocket for groceries at Russ’ Market: $21.58

Total spent in January: $679 (would have been closer to $890 without WIC and the grocery gift certificate)

This was less than half of our budgeted amount. But all of our appetites are coming back, plus we have two birthdays to celebrate in February. I’ll take higher spending ANY DAY over having a house full of sick people for four weeks. February, I’m so glad to see you!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025 post!

On Saturday, January 25, we were all still recovering from a longggggg week of Influenza. Kiya was the only kid who didn’t get hit with it, and she was very helpful since I was laid up on the couch for so many days. She mixed together some Tuna Salad for our lunch on Saturday.

For dinner that night, I slowly managed to make Spaghetti. I’m not much of a fan of pasta, but as my appetite came back after not eating much for days and even weeks (because we’d had a stomach bug before Influenza), Spaghetti sounded really good to me. All of our littlest kids really like noodles, so even if they didn’t want sauce, they gobbled down plates full of noodles with Parmesan cheese along with Green Beans or Corn.

Malorie started her semester of online classes, and I walked into the kitchen that evening to find Acacia learning Anatomy with her. :)

Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025

Sunday morning, I made a pot of Tapioca Pudding because again, it sounded really good. We stayed home from church that morning because our coughs were pretty bad and we didn’t want our kids to spread germs.

Lunch was easy because a week ago after our Burrito Bar, I’d stirred together this Burrito Casserole. I slid it into the oven to bake the last part of the morning, plus put the last of our White Queso into a small slow cooker to warm up. We all either made Smothered Burritos or enjoyed the casserole as a chip dip. We got out salsa and guacamole to go with this too – I’d just forgotten to get those out yet when I took this picture.

Dinner was fun because at Christmas time, we’d been given a gift certificate to daVinci’s. We used it Sunday night to order pizzas. Plus Matt made a small cheese pizza for the kids who wouldn’t want fancy pizza.

Monday was a refreshing restart. All six school kids were well enough to go back to school – something that hasn’t happened since before Christmas break, phew! As an added bonus, the day was sunny with temps in the 50’s.

My energy was still very low so we didn’t do much that day besides REST after all the kids left for school and Auggie went down for a nap.

I filled a crock pot with Cheeseburger Soup for our dinner, which was a hit with everyone and we finished all of it.

Tuesday morning, Auggie had both a Speech Therapy appointment and a Neurology appointment. It was the first I’d been out of the house in over a week. I ate a Breakfast Sandwich between appointments in an effort to be filled with protein to make it through the morning.

We had a box of bacon in the fridge that we needed to be finished off, so that afternoon, I baked 8 pans of bacon. I wiped out the last of the box, and we ate bacon that night for dinner stirred into Mac and Cheese with either Peas or Steamed Broccoli. This provided us with a lot of cooked bacon in our fridge for grown-ups to warm up for breakfast or lunches as needed.

This week, Malachi moved back in with us! He’s been living across town in an appointment with his cousin. But they both decided to make a shift so Malachi is back. We are all (Malachi included) very excited about this!

Both Little Sweetheart and Arrow have been able to come over this week per their usual schedule of spending time with Lolli and Pop. Here’s Arrow enjoying a (plastic) donut. After all, grandparents are supposed to give their grandkids lots of sweets, or so I hear? ;)

Dinner on Wednesday evening was Meatball Subs with buns and cheese, Pickles, and Pineapple Fluff. All the kids ate very well that night, something I’m so thankful for after our very rough month.

Thursday morning, I made a pan of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Bars and scrambled a dozen eggs with cheese.

Mashed potatoes sounded good, so the kids took turns “helping me” peel potatoes before leaving for school. They were so excited about this job, but as it turns out, peeling potatoes is harder than they thought. At least they were willing to try. :)

With so many kids’ needs, I finally finished the potatoes mid-morning (took three hours from start to finish, ha) and got them into the crock pot to cook all day. I also pulled out ground chicken from the freezer to make Chicken Cheeseballs for dinner later.

That afternoon, I made two pans of Chicken Cheeseballs. I froze one for another time and baked one for dinner.

This was such a tasty meal: Chicken Cheeseballs, Mashed Potatoes, and Buttered Peas.

Friday morning Anna helped me load the dishwasher. She loved feeling grown up doing this job for me. She even got to push the buttons to run it when she was finished.

It was another gorgeous day outside, so kids played after school and soaked up some sun.

I had picked up a lot of fresh produce at the store that afternoon, so we had a fruit plate with Burgers for dinner that night.

I had found slider-sized burgers marked down at Sam’s a few weeks ago, and they are perfect for our crew since the little ones can’t eat a full-sized burger. We ate 17 out of 18 of these Burgers that night plus Baked Beans, Fruit, and Pickles.

Saturday morning I made Blender Pancakes – a rare treat at our house. I then spent the morning getting ready for the next day’s Sunday Lunch. I planned to bake one of our $10 hams, so I made a big pan of Party Potatoes to go with it. We were hoping for a large crowd, so I also made a small crock pot of Baked Beans and steamed Green Beans. I had Peanut Butter Brownies in the freezer, so I pulled those out for our Sunday dessert.

We ate leftovers for lunch that day in an effort to clean out the fridge. Brayden was excited to help me warm up spaghetti and meatballs.

We spent the rest of the day resting, cleaning, and heading into our Sabbath Saturday/Sunday. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 19-25, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 19-25, 2025 post!

Well, my friends. So far, January 2025 has not been my favorite. Two weeks ago, beginning on January 1, our family started to pass around a stomach bug – affecting all seven kids plus three of the adults in our house. We recovered from that…just in time to start passing around Influenza A.

0/10, do not recommend.

We had a big family birthday dinner planned for Elias on Saturday, but alas, our gathering was quite small because our older kids didn’t want to risk coming over and exposing themselves or their babies, of course. (Hopefully we can have a make-up birthday dinner together later after everyone is well.)

Malachi and his friend Andrew had already been at the Castle with us all weekend, so that made our evening more special.

Elias’ birthday dinner request was Fish Tacos. For this, I simply buy frozen Crusted Tilapia from Costco because it’s so good and so easy. I also made Hamburger Taco Meat for those in our group who don’t like fish. To complete the buffet, I made or set out Rice, Black Beans, Corn, White Queso, Spinach, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Sour Cream, Salsa, Guacamole, Shredded Cheese, and Tortillas and Corn Chips. It was soooo delicious.

Elias’ dessert choice (that none of us were hungry for after such a big dinner) was Brownies with Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream and Hot Fudge Sauce.

After our feast, I stirred some of the leftovers together to make Burrito Casserole to eat later in the week.

And that is what I will now call: My Last Supper. Because…

Big Family Food and Fun: January 19-25, 2025

Sunday morning, Influenza took me down.

I laid on the couch with a very sick Brayden, a very sick Josie, and a very sick Auggie while Matt worked overtime taking care of all of us.

Those who were well and felt like eating enjoyed the plate of Breakfast Cookie Bars I’d made for our Sabbath morning breakfast.

We all stayed home from church that morning and watched the live stream. Justus preached that morning and I was so thankful we had a way to watch. There was a celebration potluck after church that day that I’d already prepped for, so I sent our food with our housemate as he headed to church that morning. I’d made Baked Beans, Cream Cheese Corn, and Chocolate Fudge Pie. Plus I sent some bags of popcorn our neighbor had given us and a package of rolls.

From Sunday through Friday, I was completely down. Matt took care of everything, which was no easy task with this many littles and half of them very sick. I tried to hang out on the main floor to at least be somewhat helpful, but mostly my body just wanted to sleep. Tuesday morning, Acacia went down. Look at that sweet little fever face.

What did everyone eat during these days? Well, our friend Cindy brought over a big pot of Chicken Soup on Sunday night. Plus, she brought food others handed to her after Sunday’s church potluck so we had lots of prepped food to warm up.

Meanwhile, we continued to get texts from many people checking in on us, asking how they could help. Had we not already had a fridge full of food, we would have been well fed because of all the offers. Those of us who were sick really didn’t feel like eating so we weren’t going through food very fast.

Mid-week, Eva dropped off an Egg Casserole for us to warm up as needed. This was perfect for breakfast!

She also dropped off Yogurt, Granola, and Berries, which our kids love. Kiya somehow escaped catching this virus, so one morning I asked her to set out all the yogurt and granola for people to choose from. She took this picture and of course, it was set up super fancy. :)

By the end of the week, we started running low on leftovers. Elias baked us frozen pizza Thursday evening. And Malorie made us dinner on Friday.

Appetites were coming back, so the kids gobbled these up!

As of Saturday morning, fevers are gone and we are in recovery mode. We are diffusing oils to cleanse our house. I’m trying to eat and gain strength. Pray for Matt as he recovers from the stress of holding down this fort with so many sick kids and a very sick wife. The guy is exhausted.

Hopefully next week I’ll have a healthy, normal post to share!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025 post!

Before I share about our new week, I’ll fill you in on the last part of our day Saturday, January 11th. (We enjoy a Sabbath rest beginning Saturday evenings so I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoon instead of adding these to our weekly post.)

Elias and Malorie have started a tradition of taking our birthday kids out for a special treat as a gift for their big day. With all the sickness we had after Christmas, they had not yet been able to take Brayden out. So on this particular Saturday afternoon, they made it happen. Their idea was perfect since he loves music: they took him to the Guitar Center where he tried out various instruments. Then they treated him to a milkshake at a restaurant next door. He loved this!

Back at home, we were prepping to celebrate Anna’s 5th birthday. She requested Chicken Nuggets, Fries, Avocado and Chips, and sliced fruit for her birthday. (I’m telling you, she was very specific about wanting all the fruit – sliced. It was very sweet.)

All the kids were able to join us except for Malachi who had been invited to go on a last minute video shoot in California. We missed him!

Anna chose this cake “with sprinkles” and I baked it in a sheet pan. Did she request that her cake be filled with spinach? No. Well, that was just a bonus. It’s how we make cake now. :)

The three little faces in this picture are the sweetest. Thank you, God, that we are chosen to be their family.

After dinner, we gathered in the living room for present time. The great thing about gifts for 5-year-olds is that you can pick up a Scratch Art Princess book at Aldi for $5 and the birthday girl will think it is the best thing ever – because for her, it is.

Does all of this feel very “Sabbath-y” to you? Hmmm. The evening was certainly not calm, quiet, or particularly restful. But the more we learn about what it means to Sabbath, we are understanding that especially in this season in our lives, taking a “day off” doesn’t mean “do nothing.”

We are learning that Sabbath allows us to take a break from the normal days’ needs, to enjoy community, to delight in every bite of food we take, and to really take in what is going on around us. Our Saturday evenings and Sundays give us all of this and we are grateful to experience it.

Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025

Sunday morning, we enjoyed Breakfast Cookies turned into bars. This has become a standard Sabbath Sunday breakfast for us because I can make them during the week and freeze them. I’ve actually been doubling the recipe (you’re so surprised that I do this) and freezing them on two plates to give us two Sunday breakfasts for one amount of effort.

The day before, I had made Beanie Weanies to share at a Kids’ Ministry Potluck and Game Time after church. So I warmed those while we ate breakfast plus got out Grapes and the rest of Anna’s Cake to take with us.

After church, families with kids shared a meal together.

Then the games came out. Have you ever played Happy Salmon? It’s so fantastic (and LOUD). But wait. Have you ever played Happy Salmon with Brayden?? This kid loves to yell, so Happy Salmon is HIS GAME. Come to think of it, you probably heard him playing from wherever you live. Now you know what that noise was on Sunday afternoon. :) It was kind of awesome.

Meanwhile, look at all these darlings playing board games together.

That afternoon, Matt and I got to enjoy our Community Group with three other couples. We had taken a break from meeting during the holidays so being together again on this day was extra sweet. We turned on a movie for the kids, then we grown-ups met around our table with coffee and carrot cake, sharing life and prayer needs. We’ve been going through Practicing the Way together – diving deep into what it looks like to be more like Jesus and do what He did.

Dinner that night was Leftovers and Salad. I gave the kids a weird snack of Muffins and Salami for a snack before bed. Did they think it was weird though? No, they just chomped it down.

Monday morning we used some overripe bananas to make a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins.

Mid-morning, I baked a pan of Stick of Butter Rice to use with our dinner that night. And for the record, I need to change the name of that rice because I’ve stopped putting butter in it, haha. All the other ingredients (salt, minced onion, and chicken broth) give this rice amazing flavor, and butter has gotten very expensive. So Butterless Stick of Butter Rice is what I make now, what can I say?!

I used the cooked rice to make a version of Tator Tot Casserole: this recipe but with rice instead of green beans. I served Broccoli and Corn on the side.

Brayden has been wanting to take Mac and Cheese for his school lunch so I walked him through making it that evening to rewarm on Tuesday morning. Kiya got in on the project too so that she could also take some.

Tuesday morning for breakfast, everyone chose between Breakfast Sandwiches and Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins. I also got out yogurt to help fill everyone up.

After getting the elementary kids off to school, I made a double recipe of Breakfast Cookies and baked them into bars.

Since I already had the oven on, I also made Crustless Cheesecake. I love having these in the fridge so that I can grab one when I need a filling snack.

Later, I cut the Breakfast Cookies into bars and froze them on two plates to pull out the next two Sundays for easy Sabbath breakfasts. The Crustless Cheesecakes went into the fridge for snacks this week.

As I prepped for dinner, I experimented with a variety of Chili Mac – using leftover Chili from the fridge stirred into leftover Mac and Cheese from the fridge. This is one of the big ways I save money on food –  using up leftovers, turning them into a new meal to make them more exciting. (For the record though, the little kids did not love this meal. So I won’t do this again. But at least we ate up some leftovers!)

That afternoon, I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to hand out food at our our weekly Food Distribution site. Kiya and I ran our stations at a food table while the boys washed coolers as they got emptied out.

Afterward, I vacuumed while the kids mostly played at a chalkboard. But I love that the other grown-up volunteers know that they can ask my kids to help them with jobs during clean up time. Here, all three of them were lugging boxes out to the recycle bin. (Keith is behind Brayden – I missed getting him in this frame.)

Back at home, Matt had made Caesar salad and was feeding kids. They all ate this, but didn’t have seconds so our snack that night included bread or crackers with peanut butter to fill them up.

Wednesday morning, we enjoyed some of the breads and bagels we’d brought home from Food Distribution. There’s always a lot of bread up for grabs there, and we are thankful for this gift. This time, we had Cinnamon Swirl Bagels and Blueberry Bread – very fun!

We also brought home some almost-expired spinach from Food Distribution that I needed to use up quickly. I made a batch of chocolate Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eaters and added a huge wad of spinach to the blender.

Then, instead of turning the batter into muffins, I baked it in a loaf pan. I love that it has both pumpkin and spinach in it! (Adding chocolate chips would have made it taste even better.)

Mid-morning, we loaded up the youngest four kids and went to the Children’s Museum to play. Look how big they are, hanging up their coats all by themselves…

There are three levels at this museum, and we typically stay on the main floor or go to the basement. This time, we spent our whole morning on the top level discovering new favorites!

We got home in time to eat Avocado Cups with Chips before the bus came to pick up the girls for preschool.

Arrow came to hang out with us this afternoon. His sweetness is overwhelming. Goodness, that face.

Dinner that night was leftover Tator Tot Casserole plus a few other leftovers we pulled out of the fridge.

Malachi had returned from California and came over to catch us up on his adventures. He grabbed a bite of dinner with us, then took kids on rides throughout the house.

Thursday morning the kids ate Yogurt with Granola for breakfast – a super easy meal. After we got the older three to school, I left Acacia and Josie behind with Matt while I took Anna and Auggie with me to Walmart.

Taking only two kids to the store? Sort of easy. But only having one cart? Yikes. We barely made it work. :)

Back at home, Justus had dropped off Little Sweetheart. I got home and we got all the groceries carried in and put away, got the little girls off to preschool, put Auggie down for a nap, sent Matt off to a meeting, and then I had some Little Sweetheart snuggle time!

For dinner that night, I made two pans of Pizza Chicken Bake. We had been given a been given a box of Instant Mashed Potatoes so I made these for a side dish. (Why do they not taste great and pretty much not actually taste like potatoes?). I also steamed Green Beans and toasted some Buttered Rolls.

At the last minute, we texted our neighbors Coleman and Sarah to come eat with us. During the warm months, we often hang out with them at their garage and the kids LOVE this. So we’d been missing them as we’ve all been cooped up inside. It was so great to catch up with them during dinner.

Friday morning, I let the kids chose cold cereal for breakfast so that I could focus on other food projects I wanted to get done. Kiya was completely ready for school by 7:45 (we don’t need to leave the house until 8:40), so I asked her to crack 20 eggs into a pan to bake for Breakfast Sandwiches.

Meanwhile, I browned a pound of hamburger meat and made a quadruple batch of Simple No-Bake Granola Bites.

Mid-morning, I cut the baked eggs into 20 pieces. (I always put shredded cheese on the eggs as soon as they come out of the oven, so it melts and is ready for sandwiches.) Then I put a frozen sausage patty on each of 20 buns, along with a square of egg/cheese to complete the Breakfast Sandwiches.

I bagged the sandwiches up individually for an easy-to-grab breakfast option for the grown-ups who take breakfast and lunch to work. Then I put several into the fridge and the rest into a freezer bag to be frozen and pulled out as needed.

Next, I stirred the cooked hamburger meat into a casserole dish with tomato soup, corn, and last night’s leftover green beans. I spread the leftover mashed potatoes over the mixture, then topped it with cheese. This was my way of using up leftovers to make our dinner of Shepherd’s Pie for that night!

This turned out SO GOOD. The kids ate it well, and I’m so glad I was reminded of this meal idea that I’d forgotten about. We will definitely make Shepherd’s Pie again. As an added bonus, it’s an entire meal in one pan. So easy!

There was to be a potluck on Sunday after church, so on Saturday morning, I prepped our dishes to take and share. I made a crock pot with Baked Beans and another with Cream Cheese Corn. I had a Chocolate Fudge Pie in the freezer so I pulled that out to take.

It was Elias’ birthday so that morning, I also prepped for his family birthday dinner. He requested Fish Tacos and I made Taco Meat from hamburger, too, for those who didn’t like fish.

He asked for a Brownie Sundae Bar for dessert. So I pulled Brownies from the freezer that I’d made a while back, plus made a quick batch of Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.

We ate leftovers for lunch in an effort to clean out the fridge, plus did some much-needed cleaning.

I put away my computer in the early afternoon as we headed into our time of Sabbath rest. I’ll share about Elias’ birthday dinner next week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 5-11, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 5-11, 2025 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: January 5-11, 2025

WHAT A WEEK.

On Saturday afternoon, we learned that church was canceled on Sunday because of snow and ice. So I froze the Shredded BBQ Chicken I’d made on Friday for our Sunday Lunch and will use it on a future Sunday.

We had our regularly scheduled special Sabbath Supper on Saturday evening – Biscuits, Sausage Gravy, Sausage Patties, Scrambled Cheesy Eggs, and Hashbrowns.

The new week got off to a rough start. We’d had a few kids go down with a stomach bug last week, but it was short and only a few were hit. OR SO WE THOUGHT.

I went down with it on Saturday night, more kids got sick after that, and by the time all was said and done, all seven kids ended up with it, plus Elias and me. Whichever adult was healthy at the time helped with the care of the kids.

Anyway, all that to say, I didn’t cook anything until Tuesday of this week. And I only took a couple pictures from my spot on the couch on Monday.

With appetites being low, the adults in the house made do with leftovers, prepped food from the freezer, or sandwich fixings while I was sick. We survived, and feeling good always feels so good after not feeling good, right?

Back to School

The kids’ first day back to school was Monday, so we got Brayden, Kiya, and Keith out the door. The other four kids played in the living room most of the morning. Notice Josie trying on Keith’s Christmas skates.

Hmm, skating is harder than it looks.

Anna somehow got a blue dot on her nose. She didn’t believe me so I took a picture to prove it to her.

After school that afternoon, Keith stayed outside to play. From my warm spot in the living room where I was resting, I had fun watching him delight in the snow.

Snow angel baby:

Brayden wanted to warm up dinner that night, so we pulled out more odds and ends from the fridge for those who had an appetite.

Tuesday morning I felt like a human again and wanted to get nourishment into myself. I made a blender full of this smoothie and it tasted very good. Yes, for real. :)

Did I try to make up for lost time in the kitchen on Tuesday morning? And did I perhaps overdo it a little bit? Yes, and yes. But cooking and getting caught up felt good after being sick. :)

Matt actually fell asleep on the couch for part of the morning, which made me concerned that he was getting sick too. But no. Poor guy was EXHAUSTED from taking care of all of us. While he slept, the littlest kids played and kept coming into the kitchen for snacks. Ah, their appetites were returning!

I browned two pounds of hamburger meat that I’d thawed over the weekend. I don’t even remember what I was planning to make, but I knew it needed to be cooked so I got it done.

I also baked several sheets of bacon and baked a pan of eggs to put together Breakfast Sandwiches. With the young adults in the house heading back to work and needing to pack breakfasts, lunches, or both, they ALL appreciate having these sandwiches on hand. Brayden, Kiya, Keith, Matt, and I really like them too.

14 Breakfast Sandwiches won’t go far, but that’s all the buns I had on hand, so 14 sandwiches is what I made.

I turned the browned hamburger meat that I’d just made into The Easiest Chili, then I put that into the fridge for a meal later this week.

Kiya was home from school after becoming sick the day before, and Keith had gotten sick at bedtime Monday, so while they felt pretty good on Tuesday, we tried to give them calm activities. It was sweet to watch them dig into our containers of Legos together – something we are just now pulling out for them after stashing them away for many years after our big boys had finished playing with them.

That afternoon, I baked a double batch of Bran Muffins to use up some bran cereal before it got stale. These really hit the spot as an afternoon snack for everyone whose appetites were coming back!

For dinner that night, I warmed up the small Pork Loin I’d made last week and had planned to serve on Sunday. I baked some frozen Mac and Cheese we’d been given at food distribution last week, plus made Buttered Peas. (Some of our kids prefer frozen peas stirred into their mac and cheese.)

That evening I made a triple batch of Peanut Butter Honey Puffs for upcoming snack needs. As of this day, most appetites were back and in FULL FORCE. I hadn’t been to the store in a long while, which was just fine because we had plenty of food to work with. I just needed to spend time that day prepping snacks with the ingredients we had on hand. Ending the day with Peanut Butter Honey Puffs and Bran Muffins ready to grab and feed kids felt really good.

Wednesday morning was uneventful, then Arrow came to visit for the afternoon!

He helped me make Gatorade – something I’ve wanted to try with the kids for a long time. Having so many recover from illness pushed me to do it. I was reminded about how easy it was!

This batch didn’t turn out very pretty because of the variety of juice I used. A darker red juice would have been nicer I think.

Three of the kids gave it a try later and two out of three liked it. :)

When Auggie got up from his nap, he laid down by Arrow for some guy talk.

I had made a pan of Stick of Butter Rice earlier in the day to go with our dinner that night.


I turned the rice into Taco Rice Skillet, plus sliced oranges, warmed up some corn, and got out fresh spinach.

Thursday morning, I used up some almost-expired milk to make Warm Vanilla Soother. Some of the kids also wanted a toasted bagel so I made a few of those too. And Keith? He opened the container of Peanut Butter Honey Puffs and ate four of them for his breakfast.

After we got the three elementary kids to school, we loaded up the youngest four to go grocery shopping. The kids stayed in the van with Matt while I quickly ran through Aldi to get our favorites.

Then we headed to Costco, grabbed two carts, handed out snacks, and picked up a huge amount of food (plus diapers and a couple items of clothes we found on sale).

Back at home, Matt unloaded the van while I worked to get groceries put away. It makes me soooo happy to have so many fruit and vegetable options to feed us during the upcoming days.

Acacia and Josie shared a banana before the preschool bus came.

Then we got Auggie down for his nap and Justus dropped off Little Sweetheart for the afternoon!

When the kids got home from school, they decided they wanted to play outside. So they dug out their snow suits and boots and got their gear on. I was grateful that almost all of them can dress themselves now – a huge change even from last year when putting all of this on them would be a huge amount of effort.

It had been days and days since they’d played outside so even though it was cold, we could see that they were loving life in the snowy mud.

Brayden attempted sledding down a slope in our front yard and it worked!

When they came back in, they were very ready to eat! I’d put The Easiest Chili that I’d made earlier in the week into a crock pot to heat up all afternoon, which was a perfect meal after playing in the snow. We washed two containers of Raspberries and one of Blackberries that we’d gotten at Costco that day to go with our meal.

After dinner, the kids played in the living room while I did dishes.

Then we attempted to play a game for the entire evening. The little ones are finally, sort of, almost able to play games and we are trying so hard to fill everyone’s time productively to help them all stay regulated. This night we played a variety of Picture Charades, with Daddy working to keep the “audience” on the couch and with Mommy coaching each “actor” on how to get the audience to guess what picture was on their card. This game actually worked pretty well and the kids had fun. Phew!

The thing about meals and snacks

I am trying something new with our routine, which might sound obvious, but with this many little kids who have so many extra needs, just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean it works for us. :/ Some of our kids have food insecurity resulting from their past trauma and as they’ve gotten older, their challenges have gotten louder and heavier.

Mealtime has been basic mayhem as we’re working to train the kids to be at peace at the table while they trust us to care for their needs. Those with food trauma are often fighting us and melting down – begging for specific food, then refusing to eat the food – ugh.

At the end of every day, I have felt like all I did was attempt to feed kids and ultimately fight major battles over food.

ANYWAY – I’ve been restructuring our evenings, starting our Dinnertime around 4:45 when they are all home from school and hungry. They can eat or not eat, but the food is there. There are choices to accommodate pickiness and to give them the sense of control that they need. And then, around 5:45, dinner is over and we are moving on (my mental health needs this rule).

Not to worry though – we assure them that there’s a bedtime snack coming at 7:00. So if they get hungry before that, they can wait, but know that they will be fed again before bed.

This tiny change for the kids has been a huge help to me so that I can streamline our kitchen/food needs and take pressure off of myself to constantly be thinking of what to offer each child (that they may or may not eat without a fight).

On Wednesday night, at our new 7:00 bedtime snack time I stood at the kitchen making little Peanut Butter Cracker Sandwiches to hand out to kids before they headed upstairs for bed. On Thursday, I buttered and warmed up muffin halves for them to eat along with a third of a banana each. (Poor Acacia had bitten her tongue right before I snapped this picture.)

None of this may feel profound, but for me it is. Matt and I are constantly trying to figure out what systems, responses, and methods help our kids the most. This has proven to be quite difficult with so many kids and so many different needs – and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but Matt and I are quite outnumbered. ;)

Back to our week…

On Friday morning, Auggie’s early development special education teacher came to spend time working with him. Look how sunny it was!

For dinner that night, we had a random assortment of leftovers – BBQ Pork Loin and Noodles – plus Brayden made a Caesar salad and heated Tater Tots in the air fryer.

For an evening activity, we had the MOST FUN. I’d been seeing ideas online for a Sensory Input Obstacle Course, which engages the kids’ brains in a way that so many of our kids need. As I set this up, all seven of the kids followed me around, wondering what in the world I was doing putting tape down on the floor throughout the house. (Watching the set up might have been as fun for them as the execution.)

I showed them the specifics of what they were supposed to do throughout each section, helped them understand that this wasn’t a race (yikes), and told them to be extra careful around littles and on the stairs (yikes again).

They jumped, they balanced, they marched, they focused – they did so great.

The littlest kids didn’t understand all of the specifics, but that didn’t matter because they had fun trying.

Even Auggie got in on it.

I think they went around and around and up and down throughout the course for 45 entire minutes. They got hot and sweaty, and guess what? THERE WAS NO SCREAMING during that entire time. Thank you, Lord.

We all met up in the dining room with water bottles for bedtime snack time where Matt was making popcorn in our cool popcorn maker. They chugged water and ate about three clementines each, ha, along with their popcorn. Food tastes really good after you’ve worked hard.

The kids slept well, and we woke on on Saturday ready to celebrate Anna’s 5th birthday! Oof, it was a very rough behavior morning for a couple of the kids, but we were able to get everyone ready and out the door to go to our favorite Sensory-Friendly Library Story Time. It’s been months since we were able to go to this and it was a very helpful place to be to get all of the kids regulated again. After the story time, the librarian brought out all the fun sensory toys.

Back at home, Anna helped me finish her birthday cake. Before leaving for the library, I had baked her requested Chocolate Cake. She wanted chocolate frosting and sprinkles!

For Anna’s birthday lunch, we made seven boxes of Mac and Cheese and 14 hotdogs, then sprinkled frozen peas into the kids’ mac and cheese, plus we had grapes on the side,

I used an additional 14 hotdogs to make Beanie Weanies for a potluck at church the next day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying time with Arrow while Asa and Eva were doing a video shoot, then we celebrated Anna’s birthday that evening. We also headed into our time of Sabbath rest.

And that was our week!

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How I Keep our Big Family Grocery Budget Low

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This is how I keep our big family grocery budget low…

Perhaps when you see our large grocery budget number, you don’t see it as a low number. It’s all relative, right? It is large for a regular-sized family. But for our big family? I think we do a pretty good job of keeping it as low as we can.

So first: Who are we feeding?

  • Right now there are 12 people living in our house. But in a few weeks, we’ll be back up to 13 people living in our house – 6 adults, 7 kids. (Our household number fluctuates depending on who is living on our third floor or which of our adult children are living here.)
  • Some of the adults in our house grab fast food (on their own dime) from time to time, but in general, we are feeding all 13 people three meals a day.
  • All the adults who work outside the home, plus our school-age kids, pack lunches for work/school.
  • We have extras at our house for meals frequently. We love getting together with our adult children when we can. Our biggest meal is usually our Sunday Lunch in which we often have around 30 people here including our adult kids plus friends from church. Sometimes people bring food to add to our feast on these days.

Aww, a look at our beloved 19:

We are so grateful to live close to Asa, Eva, and Arrow and Justus, Kelsey, and Little Sweetheart!

What is my projected grocery budget for 2025?

Our budget for 2024 was $1,400/month. You can see the total numbers here sharing what each month looked like. You might notice if you divide my total 2024 spending amount by 12 months that I actually averaged a bit lower per-month amount than I budgeted.

As I look ahead to 2025, I’m looking at how it worked to maintain that budget plus I’m considering these…

  • Anna will age out of the WIC program (her benefits gave us about $50/month worth of food).
  • Malachi will move back in at the end of January (yay!) so we’re adding one more adult, putting us back up at 13 household members. So with these two changes:

I still plan to keep our grocery budget at $1,400/month right now and see how long that works for us.

I will make adjustments during the year if this doesn’t work or if it is causing stress. Our energy and mental space needs to be used to care for our family and others – not for crunching numbers and worrying over nickels and dimes.

How I Keep our Big Family Grocery Budget Low

I’ve been thinking about all that is working for me as I try to stick to a healthy grocery budget for our household and I came up with a lot of details to share!

After settling into our new Lincoln home and finding my way with new-to-me grocery stores and a new shopping system that works for our needs, this is what I’ve found that works to feed 13 of us with a $1,400/month budget.

1. I always look for meat markdowns.

Buying discounted meat is probably what saves our family the most money on groceries. I settled on this price point for meat, and I am determined to almost never go over. See the exception here.

But with this in mind, I have found that if I look for meat that has been marked down for quick sale – specifically at Aldi, Walmart, or Sam’s – I can almost always buy meat for our family marked down to $2.50/pound or less. This is even less than my price point, and the savings are huge!

These yellow stickers are my favorite! And I’ve found that if I shop in the mornings, that’s when there are the most yellow stickers as the stores clear out their packages of meat that are nearing the “best by” date. I grab them up and freeze them to use as needed. HUGE SAVINGS.

The best mark down I’ve found: for two years in a row, we’ve scored $0.50/pound ham after Christmas. We fill our freezers. One ham goes a long way, even for a large family!

Every once in a while, other stores in town (that I don’t frequent regularly) will offer a big meat sale. If the deals are good, I find it worth it to make an extra stop to take advantage.

2. We shop in bulk.

Having a Sam’s or Costco membership may not pay for itself for some families. But for us? The savings are big and very worth it. I now know which items are priced best at Sam’s, which are best at Costco, and which are better at other stores. Buying large quantities of many of our staples cuts down our cost and is also helpful for my planning needs. It takes a lot of mental pressure off my brain if I know that I have twelve of something in my pantry ready to grab as needed.

It usually takes two carts to get everything we need at Costco or Sam’s each month.

3. I have learned what items are cheapest at which stores.

After living in Lincoln for a year-and-a-half, I’ve learned which prices are best at which store for the products we use and need. My favorite places to shop are Sam’s, Costco, and Aldi with a little Walmart thrown in for those awesome meat markdowns!

Typically, I keep running lists on my phone of what I need at each store. I shop once each week, but go to a different store each time. So usually we hit Costco and Sam’s just once in a month, Aldi twice and Walmart twice. This works well for our budget and plans!

4. We eat as many fruits and veggies as we can.

People don’t believe me when I say that fruits and veggies save money because everyone thinks “healthy food is expensive.” I disagree when it comes to fruits and veggies. Where we shop, apples, bananas, carrots, pears, grapes, fresh spinach, mixed greens, and potatoes are all consistently low in price per pound. Frozen fruits and veggies cost the same all year round. And we buy everything else in season when their prices are the lowest and featured in a sale.

Kids need something to hold them over until lunch? Here’s an apple:

Also, I’ve found that it’s easiest to feed a large crowd of people (which for us is 13 to 30 or more people per meal) when I set out the main dish and a variety of fruit and/or veggie side dish options. This stretches the meal to feed a lot of people, plus offers variety, gives people choices, and overall saves money.

5. I say yes to offers of free food that would otherwise go to waste.

Say what? Well, we stand out as a large family with “a lot of mouths to feed.” Therefore, people often think of us when there is extra food that will get thrown away after an event at church or at people’s places of work. Our neighbor is often stopping by with something from his work’s break room that is perfectly good to eat but is about to get tossed because no one wants it. “Wait! I’ll take it to the Coppingers!” says he, and he does.

After a potluck or church event? People hand us leftovers. “Here, use this for your next Sunday lunch,” they’ll say. Or, “Will your family eat this? We hate to throw it away.” YEP. We say yes to most offers like this because we don’t like food going in the trash and because I can make a meal with just about anything if I get creative.

In addition, we bring home food from the Food Distribution site where we volunteer each week. All the food there is donated by grocery stores and restaurants if it is an item close to its expiration date or otherwise unable to be sold. This food is going to be thrown away if not given to the community! I can’t tell you how grateful we are that Lincoln has the FoodNet program to cut down on food waste and to provide for the community instead.

Typically each week at the location where we serve, over 100 families go through the line to get food. We, as volunteers, get to pick out some of the food too if there is enough. And at the end of the hour when all of the clients have gone through the line, if there is anything left, volunteers can go through the line again.

We bring home a random assortment of food each week – sometimes just a little and sometimes several bags worth. I usually need to find ways to use up this food or freeze it pretty quickly because it’s food that is on its last leg. But it was free and it’s fun and it didn’t go into a grocery store dumpster.

Worth noting: sometimes I say yes to food handouts even if I know our family won’t eat it because I know people who will eat it. We regularly buy extra or stockpile food we’ve been given to take to our church’s Little Free Pantry. It’s so good for our kids to be a part of the ministry of caring for others and loving people in our neighborhood. Almost every time we are at the pantry filling it up, we meet up with someone who is coming there to check for food to use for their next meal. It’s amazing and we love visiting with these new friends.

6. WIC

Our three youngest kids qualify for WIC through their adoption subsidy (and will until they turn five). This gives them fresh produce, cheese, eggs, milk, rice/pasta/bread, and beans and totals around $150/month in benefits. This is a lovely resource we are thankful to enjoy for our kids.

7. I only buy organic if it fits into the budget.

I used to overthink this and feel guilty. But God has taken this guilt away though because He’s taught me that loving people is much more important than obsessing over food.

Yes, I want to take good care of our bodies. I absolutely try to fill us all with nourishing foods every day. But my focus is more on meeting our kids’ emotional needs than worrying over an organic label on our food.

We also want to continue to fill our home and tables with dear friends who join us for meals frequently. We want to feed our guests well, but spending extra to be sure everything is organic would not work for our budget. I won’t trade an organic label for inviting people into our home to share our food.

I’m thankful that many organic foods DON’T cost more – like apples, spinach, mixed greens, salsa, pasta sauce, and carrots. I get them regularly and other organic items if I can. But if I buy pears that aren’t organic, I’m no longer worried. We’re still eating pears. Pears are healthy. God takes care of the rest.

8. We always eat at home or pack food if we’re on the road.

Buying restaurant food is not an option for us right now, and we are very ok with that. ( Think eating out would double our grocery budget. Plus can you imagine taking this many high-need kids into a restaurant? Phew.)

Instead, we’ve found all kinds of other ways to make food fun, to offer all of us treats, and to even pretend we are having fast food. (Bulk bags of chicken nuggets and fries from Costco are crazy cheap compared to feeding 13 people at Wendy’s – and they taste better too.)

I’ve found so many ways to make food prep simple that I never feel like I want to order take-out. If I ever need a night off from cooking (which, of course, I do), we bake Costco frozen pizzas. They are super cheap compared to ordering pizza and we love how they taste.

Costco or Sam’s $5 Rotisserie Chicken is also a great fast food option that goes a long way!

Exception to never eating out: There are a few times each year that we find ourselves on the road with the need to stop and get a bunch of McDonald’s nuggets or something like this. We aren’t legalistic about not eating out. We just choose not to most of the time and enjoy coming up with all kinds of other fun options to eat or pack instead!

9. We eat leftovers.

I mentioned above that we don’t like it when food goes to waste. Therefore, we put all of our leftovers from meals into our fridge to warm up another time. Matt and I are stay at home /work from home parents, and we almost always warm up leftovers for our lunch. Elias often packs leftovers to take to work for lunch. And whenever our fridge starts to get over full, instead of cooking something new, we have a meal in which we pull out all the leftovers and warm them up for people to help themselves to whatever sounds good.

I’ve also found creative ways to turn leftover food into a brand new meal: like turning a Taco Bar into a casserole or a bunch of burritos for the freezer, taking leftover ham to make Ham and Potato Casserole or Breakfast Casserole. It’s pretty easy to turn leftovers into something new.

10. I make good use of our freezers.

If there’s a good sale (or a good deal on meat, as if I haven’t talked about that enough, ha), I stock up and fill the freezer. If I’m making one casserole or batch of muffins, I often make two or three while I’m at it to get more meals prepped for the same amount of work. I put the extras into the freezer for a convenient fast food another day. Frozen casseroles/muffins/breads also give me the option of providing others with meals if I find out of a need – a sick friend, a new mama, or a hurting friend.

11. I use credit for Azure Standard purchases.

This is only worth a tiny mention as it doesn’t affect our budget much. But I do accrue a small amount of referral credit to Azure Standard when any of you sign up for an account and/or take advantage of what Azure has to offer. About twice a year, the credit number adds up to enough for me to put in an order that is mostly covered by the credit. Their food is great and some of it I can only find through Azure, so these are the items I stock up on when I can!

Our grocery spending for 2025

Stay tuned for our weekly posts to see what we’re eating and who we’re feeding. And watch for our monthly posts sharing what we buy and how much we spend. We’ll see if our monthly $1,400/month budget holds!

What are the best ways you’ve found to save money at the grocery stores where you live?

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2025 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2024

I stop working on Saturdays in the afternoon so that we can move into our special time of Sabbath rest that we’ve chosen to practice for our family. Therefore, each week when I begin these posts, I start by backing up to share what the last part of our Saturday looked like. :)

Last Saturday was amazing because we asked some friends to come help with our seven littles so that Matt and I could spend time with all of our adult kids for a few hours. We all met up at Justus and Kelsey’s house, had a Secret Santa gift exchange, ate a super delicious meal courtesy of Famous Dave’s (Justus and Kelsey had gift cards!), then played games for four hours!!

We laughed so hard and had so much fun. Phew, we needed this.

Back at home, we walked into this scene with our kids having the time of their lives with Ms. Kathi and Ms. Terra. The other kids were hanging with Mr. Matt and since the weather was beautiful that day, they’d all been playing outside most of the time we were gone. Our three caregivers rocked it for us and we are sooooo grateful for the gift they gave us that day.

That morning before we headed to Justus and Kelsey’s, I’d put a Melt-in-your-Mouth Beef Roast into a crock pot to cook for our dinner. Kiya had helped me scrub potatoes and we filled another crock pot so we could make these mashed potatoes to go with our roast. When we got home, I realized I’d forgotten to add the carrots I planned to throw in with the roast. So I quickly made peas while Terra mashed the potatoes for us. We got hungry kids fed, bathed, and tucked in for the night after an awesome day!

Sunday was Brayden and Auggie’s birthday! Brayden chose all the meals for the day. (When Auggie gets older, we’ll have to figure out meal choices having two birthday kids in one day!)

We had Scrambled Cheesy Eggs and Hashbrown Patties for breakfast.

Brayden wanted Lasagna for his birthday lunch, and we had some of our normal Sunday crowd join us after church. Friends brought a Pasta Bake and Oranges to help complete our meal. We made Caesar Salad and Corn, plus Oreo Brownies for the birthday dessert.

There were 29 of us gathered that day.

It was fun to celebrate Brayden during this time! Meanwhile, Auggie was having a lovely birthday nap. :)

Two stick candles side by side make an 11, right? ;)

The weather was sunny and gorgeous! Our friend Mandy stopped by and many of us headed out to take a walk together to fill up our church’s Little Free Pantry. It’s just a few blocks from our house.

Back at home, Auggie woke up and shared a hug with his Birthday Bro.

Brayden wanted to make his birthday dinner for the family: Orange Chicken and Onion Rings.

I got out cucumbers and carrots to offer a veggie with dinner. Brayden did a great job!

Then it was Auggie’s turn to blow out candles. He’s the big 2 now!

Elias and Malorie had to run to Walmart and asked if I needed anything. You guys? I am a sucker for these cheap hams. I’d gotten four of them on clearance for a $1.00/pound last week. But just in case, I asked them to look and see if by chance they’d been marked down any more to $0.50/pound.

Sure enough! There was an entire case of them. I asked them to get four for me, then I worked to create freezer space!

See how hard this is to resist??

Present time! Auggie was pretty excited about his magnetic toy set.

Brayden started playing school right away with his new Dry Erase Board. What a great day!

Monday morning, I made a blender full of smoothie for Matt and me. The kids ate yogurt and granola, plus Banana Bread.

I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen that morning getting ready for company to come. I had chicken bones in the freezer that I’d saved after a Rotisserie Chicken purchase. I used the bones to make Chicken Broth for soup, knowing we’d need it for a big crowd we’d be feeding on Wednesday.

I also put several pounds of boneless chicken thighs into a crock pot with two jars of salsa. I planned to have it ready to turn into Taco Soup.

I also cleaned out one of our dishwashers and was so happy to see this top rack. This is what our dishwasher looks like after a big Sunday Lunch. We eat, we visit, we drink coffee and have dessert together – it’s such a beautiful time. I love a dishwasher full of coffee mugs to remind me of our awesome time of fellowship.

Late in the afternoon, I blended the onions and carrots that had cooked with the chicken bones and stirred the veggies back into the broth. This makes it so rich and extra nourishing.

I shredded the chicken and put it into the fridge with the broth to be ready to make a huge amount of soup on Wednesday!

For dinner that night, I put one of our $5 hams into our large roaster to cook. This created the easiest, cheapest meal on earth. The ham was delicious, and we ate it with leftover mashed potatoes and veggies from the fridge. I also cut up two pineapple, which really hit the spot! (By the way, the spiral cut hams we get so cheap are coated in a brown sugar glaze which we don’t love so I rinse it off before cooking it.)

Tuesday morning we spent time cleaning and making beds as we prepped for our friends to come hang out with us and spend the night. We LOVE it when the Brocks come to visit! They also have a large family (there are eight of them!) and our kids all get along well. They arrived just before lunch and we had the goal to eat quickly then play games all afternoon!

Lunch for our large families was a simple spread of Summer Sausage, Cheese, Crackers, Chips, Dips, Veggies, Fruit, and Zucchini Bread and Banana Bread that the Brocks brought.

I love it when our table is full of Coppingers and Brocks, but the sweetest scene is….

THIS. Their little girls and our little girls like to sit together in these special seats. Meal time is crazy and loud at our house, but when the Brocks are here, everyone is calm and grounded (at least for a time).

We played games all afternoon, then Brayden, Kiya, Keith and I took two from the Brock family to help hand out food and clean at  our weekly Food Distribution site.

This particular week, there were fewer volunteers available, fewer clients who came through the line, but extra food to hand out because of the holiday. Our kids worked very hard and very well and we were so proud of them. Putting our kids in situations like this where they serve is sooooooo beneficial in so many ways.

Brayden wanted to take a picture of Keith scrubbing a cooler. And do you see those strawberries above? Clients who came through the line took as many as they wanted, but at the end of our give away time, there were still many flats worth of berries and they needed to be eaten or frozen right away. We brought home many, many pounds of strawberries that day, and then we all promptly ate many, many pounds of berries as soon as we got home. What a great treat – free strawberries to feed our collective 13 kids!

After everyone ate their fill of berries, we ate our actual dinner: Hawaiian Chicken, two pans of Stick of Butter Rice, Steamed Green Beans, and Rolls.

We had invited our friend, Breck, to join us for dinner because she knows the Brocks too. It was such a great time of visiting before everyone moved into playing more games as we rang in the new year. (Some of us rang in the new year by going to bed before midnight, ehem.)

Wednesday morning we celebrated the first day of the year by eating 28 Eggs and lots of Bacon. (The Brocks had brought six dozen eggs from their chickens!)  The plate of bacon you see below was just a small portion of what we baked as people ate it as fast as it came out of the oven. We finished off all the strawberries we’d brought home the night before from the food distribution plus we ate more of the Zucchini Bread and Banana Bread the Brocks had baked and brought with them.

Kids played and played all morning while the grown ups visited and worked in the kitchen to prep for a huge lunch.

We had invited all of our older kids to come for lunch so that they could catch up with the Brocks, plus we invited another family to come join as they have great connections with the Brocks too. Altogether, there were 30 of us, and it was a great time of visiting and feasting.

We went through at least three pots of coffee that day. Lunch was a huge roaster full of Spicy Ham and Potato Soup, two crock pots full of Chicken Taco Soup, and a big assortment of anything else we could set out to fill everyone up: rolls and croissants, fritos, sliced oranges, carrots and cucumbers, crackers, and cheese.

Take note of Elias wearing Malorie’s shower cap. :) He was doing an oil treatment on his scalp and wasn’t shy about walking around like this most of the day. It was hard to take him seriously, but somehow we managed to have real conversations and play games with his crazy-headed self.

We filled our dining room table.

And spilled over into the living room. Meals and times like these are truly awesome.

The rest of the day was spent playing more games together. In fact, the Brocks intended to head home mid-afternoon but by the time our third game ended, we realized we needed to give them a bite to eat for dinner so that they wouldn’t have to stop and feed all their kids on the way home. So we pulled out all kinds of random leftovers (I forgot to get a picture), rewarmed soup, and got them filled up before sending them on their way. What an amazing visit!

Thursday morning we decided it was a pajama day. We also had a refrigerator that looked like this, so I declared it to be a Leftover Day for all three meals. (I had Lasagna and Soup in our pantry fridge also.)

As I was clearing out food for kids to pick what they wanted for lunch, I pulled out the spinach that was expiring and turned it into these Cupcakes. I find it amazing how much spinach I can manage to stuff into my blender to make these. What a great way to eat greens. ;)

Later in the afternoon, I looked up “ways to use cottage cheese” because I had quite a bit in my fridge that needed to be used. I found a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and the girls and I gave it a try!

I used all whole wheat flour instead of some of the white that the recipe called for. They turned out pretty tasty. I froze most of them for an upcoming Sunday Lunch. And check out the awesome three-tier cooking rack Malorie got me for Christmas!

Bedtime at our house is quite the hectic situation, with so many littles struggling with behaviors or needing attention. Matt put on Acacia’s leg brace and read to the three little girls while I wrestled with Auggie then read to the three older littles. By the time I got into the little girls’ room to tuck them in, Josie and Acacia were already fast asleep. I soaked in their sweetness for a moment.

Friday morning we had a lot of prep work to do so that we could be ready for what we thought would be a full weekend. I put a Pork Loin into a crock pot to cook for Sunday’s lunch. I also put several pounds of boneless chicken thighs into our large roaster with barbecue sauce to shred for Sunday as another meat option. Here’s what it all looked like later in the day when it was finished.

Mid-morning, we loaded up all the kids to burn off energy in the indoor play area at the Zoo. I packed snacks because even though they ate all morning and would eat all afternoon, we need to eat also while we’re out and about.

We came home and finished up a jar full of Ham and Potato Soup leftovers.

Friends came for dinner that night, so I made 9 Pizzas from crusts I had in the freezer. We ate our pizza with Caesar Salad.

One of the reasons we’d arranged for dinner with friends is because they had some toys to hand down that their kids were finished with. A tool set and work bench? Keith was in heaven!

And check out this amazing play kitchen they brought. The little girls got lost in there while we grown ups visited, and Auggie even played for quite a while. Such a cool kitchen!

Saturday we had a meeting out of town, but had some sick kids which changed a lot of our plans. We ate leftovers for all of our meals and tried to catch up on some laundry. And that was our week!

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