Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Big Family Food and Fun: July 23-29, 2023

by 6 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

This week was a hot one! We still had a lot of fun and we enjoyed a lot of great food. Here’s what our big family enjoyed and ate this week…

Big Family Food and Fun July 23-29

For Sunday’s lunch I followed this Crock Pot Pizza Casserole somewhat loosely. I dumped 16-ounces of dry pasta into each of my large crock pots. I cut pepperoni into one, and added cooked ground sausage to the other. I then added two cans of pizza sauce to each along with some salt and water. This was so fast and easy! The casseroles cooked while we were at church.

When we got home I sautéed sliced sweet peppers and made buttered corn for side dishes. We all sprinkled shredded cheese on our Pizza Pasta – super tasty!

We were blessed to have Justus and Kelsey, Eva, and three more friends join us for our meal that day.

For dessert I had baked a cake in the crock pot. I made a vanilla cake this time, but here’s how to bake a cake in a crock pot – so cool! After it cooled, I poked holes in the cake and dumped vanilla pudding into the holes. Then I Whipped Cream and spread it over the cake. It was fun and delicious! (I used a boxed pudding mix this time but here’s my Homemade Vanilla Pudding recipe that’s extra good.)

Sunday evening I pulled out leftover Burrito Filling and Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip that I’d made last week. I mixed them together, warmed it up, and served it with chips.

I was up super early (4:00) with BabyBoy#11 Monday morning so after getting him back to bed and enjoying a nice long “Coffee with Jesus” time I got some work done in the kitchen before any of the other littles got up. I started by making a triple batch of Snickerdoodle Bites.

I was hungry by 6:30 for my second breakfast, haha, so I made our not-so-famous Salad Smoothie to drink while I worked. :)

Then I washed out our Blendtec and made Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream for later.

Some of the kids were up by then and starting to get hungry so I made everyone Scrambled Egg Sandwiches.

Matt and I have decided that outings in the mornings are much better for everyone than trying to wrangle everyone around the house. But it was super hot this week. So we decided to take the kids to the Splash Park. For lunch, I warmed up leftover hotdogs from the fridge and cut them in half because there were only 7 dogs left.

I packed them in an insulated bag to keep them warm. Then in a separate bag I packed peach cups, chips and salsa, cucumbers, Snickerdoodle Bites, and juice.

Long live the Snickerdoodle Bites. Hahaha, here’s what they looked like when we got to the park and pulled them out to serve. Poor little warm, squished bites. We all got a good chuckle over how the heat didn’t let these hold their shape. Then I grabbed a spoon and served blobs to everyone. No harm no foul.

The splash park is the best. Everyone was super hungry after playing. Then after eating, they went back into the water for more play.

Last week I had browned several pounds of hamburger meat, so for dinner on Monday I used some of it to make Sloppy Joes. I sliced home grown squash and zucchini our friends had given us at church and sautéed it. SUCH A TREAT. I warmed up leftover green beans for the non-squash lovers to eat. Plus I got out pickles and mac salad to fill everyone’s bellies.

Then I surprised everyone with Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream that I had made earlier in the day. I scooped it out into small bowls and topped it with a few animal crackers. The kids thought it was soooo much fun! The cream treat by itself is super good (and low in sugar) – but the animal crackers with it made it extra good. The crunch maybe? Or maybe eating monkeys and hippos tastes better than any of us realized?

After dinner, we loaded everyone up and went to Scheels for an outing. Why did we go there? Two reasons:

  1. Air
  2. Conditioning

We needed an outing but phew, the heat. Scheels made for a perfect fun outing with its play area, aquarium, animal display, and $1 Ferris wheel! Only three of the littles were tall enough to go and two of the three had to ride with an adult. Rock, paper, scissors – Mom won. Or lost. No one is sure. (Neither Elias or Matt like heights so…)

Brave Brayden rode in a seat by himself.

Mom sat with Kiya and Keith. I think Matt captured this picture when I was screaming with glee. But my face looks like I’m about to eat my young.

It was truly a fantastic way to spend our evening. We spent $5 on some needed badminton birdies and $3.99 on the Ferris wheel for the four riders. Not too shabby for a not-quite-free night out! Oh, and then we walked over to Trader Joe’s since it was next door. I love this store but it’s pricier than other stores I have access to now since I need to buy such large quantities. So we just got lemons and mixed greens. I’ll likely not shop here much, but I will go back for stocking stuffers at Christmas time. :)

Tuesday morning Kelsey came over so that Matt could get some work done on the Castle. (It’s an amazing home for us, but it is over a hundred years old and does require some maintenance. Plus he’s getting some of our top floor bedrooms ready to rent out in the upcoming months. More on that later.)

Kelsey helped me take all the kids to a library for a fun Sparks Fly event (all about static electricity). It was shorter than we realized it would be and we wanted to keep the kids out of the house longer so Matt could work longer. So we ran back home and left the kids buckled and sitting in the van with Kelsey while I ran into the house and filled a picnic bag to take to the park.

I wasn’t even very sure what I grabbed until we unpacked the bag at the park, haha. It wasn’t too bad actually – we discovered cheese and crackers, avocado cups (found at Costco and Sam’s), applesauce pouches, juice boxes, and leftover Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream  with animal crackers.

We played until the heat got to us, then headed home for lots of drinks of water and then naps.

That night we loaded up and drove 30 minutes to Mahoney State Park to meet some York friends who were camping there all week. What a blast! They served us burgers, brats, and hotdogs with chips. We contributed grapes, mandarins, and juice pouches.

The kids made smores…

Watching Keith eat his was the best form of entertainment.

After we cleaned up the food, we loaded the girls in the wagon and all of us walked over to the marina to see the fish. It was a lovely visit with our friends – so lovely that I didn’t take many pictures. :)

We got home late and went to bed dirty. The next morning we had showers! Then three of our kids had appointments with their therapist. We had an early lunch then took the kids to play in the play area of one of the Lincoln malls before naptime. (Again, we were looking for an outing that involved air conditioning.) Lunch was leftovers with fresh green beans. <—our gardening friends are spoiling us and we love it!

Since we’d already eaten lunch, the only picnic food I packed to take to the mall was a bottle for BabyBoy#11. :)

We came home for naptime, and I headed out with my computer to work in the quiet for a couple of hours at Panera. Before coming home I ran to Aldi because as usual, we were low on fresh produce and milk. I also picked up some bagels and buns while I was there. Later I sent Elias to pick up meat on sale at a different store. My July Grocery Total: $1185 <— Surprisingly (barely) under budget as the month ends!

Dinner that night was BLT Wraps and clementines. I’d already mixed up the filling so Matt and Elias put together the wraps and fed everyone before I made it home. Meanwhile, Justus and Kelsey ran over to do a load of laundry and hadn’t eaten yet. I love impromptu get-togethers like this. I mixed up more BLT filling (the Costco bacon bits made it possible) so that everyone could have their fill.

Matt and I took the kids outside to play in the water after dinner while Kelsey cut up the watermelon I’d picked up. Good thing she did! Playing in the water made them hungry again so they ate an entire half of the melon!

(Not pictured: kids’ behavior issues during, before, and after all of our fun. I always share about the fun we have. You don’t want to see the fits. I don’t want to dwell on them here. But we sure do appreciate your prayers. Our kids’ needs are high, multiplied by the trauma they’ve experienced. It keeps us on our knees as we are constantly in prayer about how to love them through their hurt and work toward healing.)

Thursday morning we planned to go to a “Learn to Do Magic Tricks” Class at a library. Since we’d already be loaded into the van (it’s kind of a big deal), we decided to pack a picnic to take to the zoo afterward. Then we could eat and let the kids play in the water area there since it was so hot!

For breakfast, I offered bagels, strawberries, and blueberries. Kiya and Keith opted for the remaining smooshed  Snickerdoodle Bites. Keith used a spoon and mashed his like playdough before eating it. Whatever. :) Meanwhile, I made Turkey and Spinach Subs for our picnic lunch.

The magic tricks class was fun (but hectic with all of our littles). I’d forgotten our zoo pass so we ran home to get it and Elias hopped in to join us at the zoo. We enjoyed our subs with applesauce and water or juice.

Then we let the kids get soaked in the water area – the real reason we’d gone to the zoo that day!

We visited the spider monkeys before heading home for naps. These outings are awesome and fun, but let me tell you, by naptime Matt and I are WORN OUT. We usually have an iced coffee “date” at the beginning of naptime so that we can recover before getting work done and tackling the evening with the kids. :)

For dinner I had thawed three packages of chicken from the freezer: one of boneless thighs, one of boneless breasts, and one of drumsticks. I had marinated them in Italian dressing all afternoon, then we smoked them. We got out watermelon and tossed together one of the Aldi’s salad kits we’d bought last week. It all tasted amazing!

Friday morning we enjoyed Cheesy Scrambled eggs, sausage, and strawberries. I used some of the eggs and sausage to make to-go Breakfast Sandwiches for Matt and Elias who were headed to York for the day to work on our properties there.

Mid-morning, Keith discovered our Apple Peeler-Corer-Slicer so I washed it and showed the kids how it worked.

Apples taste so much better when you cut them this way!! This is how you go through five apples in five minutes. :) Hooray for Eva coming over to spend the morning with us so that I wasn’t on my own with eight kids. (Our former foster son, a 4-year-old half-sib to several of our kids, came to visit for the weekend!)

We decided to brave the heat to let the kids go play at the Splash Park again so I packed a meal for us to eat at a picnic table there for lunch. Our visiting Bonus Boy has a pretty limited list of foods he’ll eat so I made our meal based on what I knew he would enjoy. (This post shares ideas for what to feed picky kids, and #5 on that list details what he likes to eat.)

We ate Banana Bread and Butter sandwiches, yogurt, clementines, blueberries, cheese, and juice. (This was the Banana Bread that I’d baked in the crock pot a couple of weeks ago. I had frozen half of it so it was great to pull out and enjoy.)

Late in the afternoon before kids got up from naps, I made a double batch of No Bake Cookies. Why? Because it’s always nice to have goodies on hand to share with people who come over. And because I needed “kitchen therapy.” Praying and breathing while I’m cooking or baking always helps me find peace and calm when I’m feeling a bit out of sorts.

We warmed up leftover hamburgers for dinner and ate them outside with carrots and pickles. We survived the heat that night with water guns and our little splash pools.

Saturday morning we planned to meet friends at the Farmer’s Market but it started to rain heavily so we switched to Plan B and loaded up for the Children’s Museum instead. We have a year-long family pass so this was perfect.

The Surprise

Little did I know that Matt had been cooking up big plans for several weeks and that rain or not, he really just needed to get me out of the house for the morning. :) I thought it was odd that he didn’t want to make any lunch plans for the day, insisting that he and the kids should make lunch at home instead. “It’s good for them to take ownership in what we eat,” he said. “They’ll appreciate your work more this way.”

Ok. But???

We had our Bonus Boy with us so we took all eight kids to the Children’s Museum. Phew. Overall it went well. And look at this sweet picture. They are SO RARELY all easily managed but here we are heading back to our van after playing all morning:

We arrived back home to a HOUSE FULL OF PEOPLE. What had my husband been up to??

Well. Next week I’m turning the big 5.0. So he surprised me a few days early with a sweet party to celebrate. It was everything incredible and I can’t get over it!!

Throughout the afternoon, people kept showing up!!! Every time I turned around, someone else was at the door with a hug, with flowers, with a balloon, or with a card. Truly, what a precious, lovely surprise. I feel so very loved. Matt and the bigs are so amazing to do this for me.

Eva and Kelsey had helped arrange for people to bring dips, then “we” supplied the chips, crackers, and drinks. It was a meal of many of my favorite foods.

Ah, there he is. The guy who pulled this off in the midst of our huge move.

One of the best surprises?? Malachi had been at church camp for two weeks and away for work the week before that. We have missed him!!! I wasn’t expecting him to be home until later in the afternoon. But there he was, after getting up early to drive three hours back to be on time for my surprise. My sweet Malachi.

All said and done, there were 62 of us celebrating together that day. 62!!!!! Many hadn’t seen the Castle yet so we gave lots of tours. This provided much opportunity for us to all praise God together for the gift He gave us when He provided us with this home.

Old friends met new friends. York met Lincoln. I’m still marveling about the beauty of it all.

The party ended at 1:00 but with all the people continuing to come and go, we didn’t say our final goodbyes until after 5:00. That’s when Matt and I realized that we’d hardly eaten all day and we were starving, hahaha.

We cut up the leftover smoked chicken from Thursday and Kelsey made a Caesar salad kit. We tossed it together, got out watermelon, and chowed down.

What a fantastic week!

Now, to be clear, I’m still 49. I won’t be 50 until next week, so I’m going to hold on to my 40’s for four more days, hehehe. Meh, whatever. Looks like the 50’s are going to be pretty great!!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

I Won’t Always Have Toothpaste on My Pants

by 3 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Why do I have toothpaste on my pants? Why wouldn’t I?

We are currently caring for seven kids ages nine and under. Often, we have an eighth kiddo along for the ride. He and our 4-year-old, Keith, are like twins as they are only 6 weeks apart in age. Once a few weeks ago, the two of them were actually sitting still together and I took a picture to prove that it can actually happen.

Their stillness only lasted a few seconds, then they were off and running again. Meanwhile:

I could share picture after picture of our little ones, but in summary:

  • There are a lot of kids
  • The kids are always busy
  • Someone is almost always screaming
  • Our house is always a mess

And that’s why we aren’t surprised that I got toothpaste on my pants.

It happened on a day that we’d been having issues with the four-year-old “twins” getting out the toothpaste and squirting it everywhere – the bottom of the sink, their bedroom floor, I suppose we could say – anywhere except for a toothbrush.

No matter what we did to discipline them, they would go back to the toothpaste. Throw that into the mix along with our 7 and 9-year-olds acting out because of trauma, our 3-year-old’s super frequent emotional melt-downs, our then 1-year-old always wanting to be held, and our 5-month old acting like a normal 5-month-old in which he enjoyed regular feedings, bouncing, snuggles, and diaper changes. Did I mention the poop that got all over the outside of the toilet because someone didn’t make it in time?

And that’s why we aren’t surprised that I got toothpaste on my pants.

I should actually be glad it was toothpaste and not poop.

After we got four out of eight kids down for afternoon naps that day, I plopped down to sit by Matt for a second and proclaimed, “At least we know that I won’t always have toothpaste on my pants. They’ll grow through this someday…”

But then I sighed and followed up my first thoughts with these, “Of course, then they’ll all be dealing with much bigger issues in their pre-teen and teen years. Then we’ll be wishing that we were only dealing with toothpaste.”

Mom sheds a big fat tear.

Here are Laura’s takeaways from the toothpaste situation:

1. The kids really will not all be babies forever.

We will get through these days. Today they are 9, 7, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, and 6-months. There are so many babies all at once that I’ve stopped wondering why I can’t speak a sentence correctly. Most of the time it feels like we live in a circus and a zoo all wrapped up in one. And we are coated in toothpaste and poop. But in just a few years, these babes will all wipe their own bottoms, dress themselves, buckle themselves, and load the dishwasher, praise Jesus hallelujah amen.

2. These kids will all be teenagers at the same time.

Today’s hard will get easier, but then it will get harder again in a different way. I choke on my air when I think about what it might be like. But then I have to remember to do this…

3. Do not look past today.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. Every season in life has incredible joys and extreme challenges. We can appreciate them simultaneously, and we can learn more every day about how to trust the God who is walking ahead of us and carrying us through.

How do we do this?

There is no other way but to stand firm in God’s power and truth. I don’t mean that in a trite “it’s what all the good Christians are doing” sort of way. I’m talking about not letting the enemy keep us in a fetal position and instead STANDING UP in His power and strength. We put on His armor, and we STAND.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:10-18

How do I care for all these littles and walk through big, hard things with my bigs too? How do I feed them three meals a day in the meantime? And how in the world am I going to get this house packed by the time we close on our house?

I am tempted to lay down in defeat, but the Holy Spirit nudges me to do what I know to do: STAND UP.

In Him, we are strong, solid, and victorious. We stand firm in this Truth. Be encouraged by this short video —>

 

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Big Family Food and Fun: July 16-22, 2023

by 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Ready for our Big Family Food and Fun post for this week?

Big Family Food and Fun July 16-22, 2023

Our week began with a big birthday meal for Eva on Sunday. She requested Lasagna and no one complained. :)

Her parents and a dear friend joined us (it’s so fun to do life with them in Lincoln too!).

That evening we got to join many of the youth and families from church at a swimming pool for a big event. Before heading out we ate a quick meal of chicken nuggets, fries, strawberries, and carrots.

Keeping everyone alive at the pool is a full time effort, so I got no pictures of our fun. :) Everyone was starving when we got home so we devoured two frozen pizzas before bed. (I had baked them before we left and I was so glad I did!)

The kids had been requesting “Eggs in a Nest” for breakfast so that’s what we enjoyed on Monday morning.

I FINALLY made Matt’s Father’s Day Cobbler. The question remains: did I make it a month late – or 11 months early? I feel like I’m ahead for Father’s Day 2024. Heh?

While the little girls were eating breakfast that morning I blended up this smoothie for Matt and me. When the blender was running, the girls all started laughing hysterically for some reason, which was incredibly fun and made up for at least three tantrums each.

At lunchtime, we loaded up and took advantage of our zoo membership. It was this day that I discovered this “salad in a bag for a picnic” trick. With our salad, we ate applesauce, avocado cups, cheese, sliced meat, crackers, and juice boxes.

That night we warmed up leftover Lasagna and corn and cooked fresh green beans friends from church had given us. NOTHING beats fresh green beans!

Tuesday morning Matt and Elias headed to York to work on our house there. I sent them with Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwiches and bottles of juice.

The rest of us ate eggs (we went through 15 that morning), sausage patties, plus an entire container of yogurt.

I browned 5-pounds of hamburger meat that morning so I could make Burritos. But I scooped out about a pound of cooked meat and mixed it with corn, beans, and white queso from the fridge. It heated in our small crock pot for a couple hours while Kelsey and I took the kids to the library for a fun “Magic” Show.

The magic show was super fun! It was rainy that morning so this was a perfect outing for us that day.

That afternoon I got hungry for these Peanut Butter Flourless Brownies. These can be great or these can be dry. The key is to pull them out of the oven before they seem to be done. I actually only baked these for 10-minutes and it worked great!

Keith agreed by eating three of these and licking his plate!

I made these Frozen Yogurt Cups, except that I used this Smoothie recipe so that I could “hide” spinach in there. The color turned out….special.

And then, since the four littlest were still sleeping, I used the rest of the hamburger meat I’d cooked earlier in the day plus a pan of this Stick of Butter Rice I’d made to make a huge batch of Burritos for the freezer. We’ll enjoy these on busy days, or I’ll pass them on to others who need them. (Fun Fact: I’ve stopped putting butter in my Stick of Butter Rice as a way to save money. The recipe minus the butter is still delicious and well, butter can be up to almost $1/stick now so….)

I had thawed 4 packages of our favorite tortillas from Azure Standard. So we ended up with 32 Burritos!

Matt and Elias were still in York working on our house so Justus came over after work to help me feed the kids dinner. I browned up some sliced ham, Justus made mac and cheese, then we gave the kids the frozen smoothie cups and flourless brownies. They thought we were sooooo silly for giving them “desserts” with their dinner. Little do they know that they got lots of nourishment in these treats!

We ate outside (of course), and boy did those smoothie cups melt everywhere. They are pretty messy. Tasty, but messy. I won’t make them like this very often. :)

After dinner, Justus played Walnut Baseball in the yard with the kids. It was the best! What is Walnut Baseball, you ask? It’s where you pick up all the walnuts off the ground that fell off of the walnut tree, and you use them as baseballs.

Bases loaded. The three-year-old up to bat. It was intense. 

Wednesday morning for breakfast Anna helped me make a triple batch of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Treats. We ate them with bananas. (These bars firm up after they sit a while. But if you serve it right after making them, you have to serve it in bowls with spoons.)

Matt and I loaded up the kids after breakfast to go to Library Story Hour. Today was Butterfly Day, featuring the Hungry Caterpillar book. So sweet and fun!

Apparently it was National Hotdog Day. So obviously, lunch had to be hotdogs. Pineapple Fluff Salad sounded good so we ate that as a side dish along with a jar of pickles.

I am astounded by how quickly we accumulate recycling items. Matt emptied this container into our recycle dumpster two days ago but here it was overflowing again. (We eat a lot I guess.)

The Lincoln Zoo stays open until 8pm on Wednesdays so we decided to have dinner there that night. I made a big container of Tuna Salad, which we ate with crackers. We also enjoyed Havarti cheese with crackers, mandarin orange cups, and juice pouches.

And check it out! Since we’d enjoyed Butterfly Day at the library that morning, we made a point to enjoy the Butterfly Garden at the zoo after we ate our dinner.

 

Thursday we needed milk and a few other items so we decided that our morning outing would be a family trip to Aldi. Oy. I braced myself for the craziness of it, and grabbed not one but two quarters for carts. :)

Acacia and Josie held hands on the way there. I LOVE IT when they are sweet together like this.

Matt had the cart full of babes and I had one for food.

We spent $135 on chicken thighs, ground sausage, milk, yogurt, cream cheese, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, salad kits, juice, and buns. I was so glad I checked for sales on meat because their boneless skinless chicken thighs were just $1.99/pound. Amazing and well below my price point! I bought five packages.

By the time we checked out, loaded up, and made it home it was far past lunchtime. Thankfully I had blended up this Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip before we left so we got it out of the fridge and ate it with tortilla chips before naptime.

That evening was incredibly special as dear friends from York came to visit. We made this grilled chicken with baked potatoes in the crock pot, watermelon, green beans, and these gluten free, dairy free Banana Muffins. <— I hadn’t made those muffins in a very long time but wanted to accommodate our friends’ food sensitivity needs. I thought they were only sort-of good, ha. I’m not sure what our guests thought. But our six littles ate them like they were magic muffins. We started the night with 24 muffins and ended the night with only 2. So yay for that!

After eating, all the kids discovered that they could fit inside our dining room cabinets. :) We took a walk together to the Sunken Gardens, then came home and enjoyed popsicles. The night was perfect. Their visit and hugs were just what we all needed.

Friday morning Matt and Elias went to York to work all day so Eva came over to help me. I had a meeting with a case worker, so Eva entertained the girls by making a Sister Sandwich in our playroom.

A friend and her baby joined us all for lunch so I opened up some salad kits from Aldi and cut up last night’s leftover grilled chicken to toss in.

Dinner that night was a bit crazy because Matt and Elias hadn’t made it home yet and I was on my own with all seven kids. I was quickly scrambling eggs and frying last night’s leftover baked potatoes when someone who shall remain nameless got mad and threw a pound of strawberries on the floor. She very unhappily picked them back up.

We survived the evening and were very happy to see Daddy and Elias get home soon after we ate.

 

Saturday after a quick breakfast of yogurt, berries, and Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Treats Matt and I decided to check out Pioneers Park Nature Center with the kids. I made Ham and Spinach wraps to take with us.

And I packed sliced cheese, mandarin oranges, tomatoes, raisins, pistachios, and juice. Plus a Spindrift for Mom. ;) Meanwhile, I was thawing a ten pound chunk of meat to use later in the day.

Pioneers Park was soooooo much fun. We saw bison, walked some trails, explored the Herb Garden, and experienced hands-on learning inside the Chet Ager Building. I had read that the park had a place for kids to dig, so Keith took his excavator and carried it around the entire time, hahaha.

We found a shady spot to eat our lunch.

Then the kids used the buckets, cups, and the beloved excavator to dig in the sand. (I’m not sure that this is the digging area the park website was talking about, but it worked!)

Everyone was dirty, sweaty, and tired on our drive home. But here these two are again, holding hands and singing as we traveled.

Remember the 10-pound hunk of meat I was thawing? I turned a bunch of it into Burgers for dinner, then browned the rest of it to have on hand for meals like this. Our across-the-street neighbor, John, was outside gardening so I hollered over to see if he’d like a hamburger and he came and joined us. It was awesome!

It’s going to be extra hot in the upcoming days so we picked up two little pools for the kids to splash around in. They enjoyed these after eating their burgers.

They got in and out so many times that the water turned disgusting and made bath time a bigger ordeal than it already usually is. OY. Worth the effort? 100%. :)

P.S. July’s grocery spending total so far is $1069 with one week left to go. Can I say within our budget this month? We’ll find out. :)

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Ways to Fix Your Hair: A Fun Offer for You!

by Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Perhaps you get in “hair ruts” like I do? Ponytail on Monday. Also on Friday. And everyday in between. Meh. There are people to love on and care for so hair is usually the least of my worries. But it is fun to discover other ways to fix your hair!

Flexi Clips and Hair Bands are just as easy as Pony Tails. Huh.

I’ve shared my love of Flexi Clips with you for years. They are fantastic. Easy. Pretty. Classy. Cute.

Then I got me some daughters-in-law and get to share the love with them. Here’s Asa’s lovely wife Eva, sporting her Flexi Clips:

I don’t have photos of Justus’ wife Kelsey wearing hers but after I gave her a Flexi Clip and she used it for a few day she was like, “I didn’t think much of it at first but wow that Flexi Clip is GREAT!”

Yes. SO true. There’s so much you can do with one Flexi Clip. Oh, and the Lilla Rose head bands? Well, those are what I pull out when I still want to wear a pony tail but I want to get a bit more fancy, ha. I’ll put one on and people are like, “Oh Laura, you look so pretty.” And I’m like, “Thanks, I didn’t have time to shower again. The Lilla Rose headband makes it look like I actually did something for myself.” (<—words I don’t actually say out loud. Usually.)

If you haven’t discovered the joy of Lilla Rose hair products, specifically the Flexi-Clips and Headbands, this is the perfect time to get yourself set up with some. There is a up to 80% off sale going on with their Christmas in July sale AND you can stack that discount with an additional 10% off coupon: LAURA10.

(*The only deals that cannot be combined with the ‘LAURA10 ‘coupon code are the $1-$5 deals and the $5 Sport special. So choose one or the other for those!)

Have fun looking into this:

If you head to the Lilla Rose site you’ll see lot of designs and options plus see easy ways to style your hair. What’s amazing is that right now EVERYTHING is 25% off (and then you can get an extra 10% off with the code LAURA10). Some items are even 40%, 60%, or 80% off. Very cool!

Here’s the quick summary:

Stack the Savings during Lilla Rose’s awesome Christmas in July Sale:

25% off Sitewide
40% off Daily Deals
60% off Select Items
80% off Select Items the more you spend

FREE SHIPPING on orders of $40 or more <— BONUS!!

Coupon code ‘LAURA10’ to save an additional 10%

Sale ends at midnight, Wednesday, July 26, and the most popular items will sell out fast. :)

See all the great offers here. Have fun!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Take a Salad for a Family Picnic

by 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Who takes a salad for a family picnic?! We do. When you go out for as many picnics as we do, you start to get creative. :)

Now that we are living in Lincoln, we’ve been taking our seven little kids out for almost daily “adventures.” The weather has been beautiful and the outings are sooooo good for our kids’ mental health (and for mine, actually). Plus this has been a good way to help us all become familiar with our new surroundings.

So many family picnics

I’m telling you, we pack food a lot for our crew to eat while we’re out. They love it, it’s not hard to do, and the best part: THERE ARE NO DISHES TO WASH AFTERWARD.

We live a few blocks from the zoo, so we bought a membership and go there for an hour or two whenever we can. Here’s our picnic last week: meat, cheese, applesauce, carrots, crackers, and juice. We had lunch with the giraffes.

Another day Eva, Kelsey, and I took the kids to a splash park and enjoyed sandwiches, chips (wow, what an actual normal picnic), mandarin oranges, and juice.

One Saturday we took the kids to “Discovery Day” at a UNL campus where they featured all kinds of science-based, hands-on learning booths for the kids. We enjoyed doing experiments at many booths before sitting down under a tree to eat nuts, cheese sticks, and fruit.

A couple weeks ago Eva and I took the kids to play at a huge park all morning, then ate hotdogs that I’d heated and “bunned” ahead of time for us to eat at lunchtime.

And yes, we also enjoy a lot of picnics in our backyard. This one was pizza and fruit. But it all tastes better outside. :)

Other picnic ideas we’ve enjoyed:

  • Quesadillas
  • Hamburgers
  • Chicken Sandwiches
  • Burritos
  • Summer Sausage
  • Tortilla Roll-Ups

How to Take a Salad for a Family Picnic

So now let’s talk about salad.

This idea came to me as I was quickly searching my refrigerators to see what I could throw together for my kids to eat at the zoo this week. I had already grabbed some sliced meat and cheese, but we needed a veggie that could easily be transported and eaten at a picnic table. I was out of carrots, but aha! There was a Salad Kit I’d bought for Elias sitting in my veggie drawer. We could make that work at the zoo!

(This is the photo I sent Elias from Aldi asking if he wanted me to get it for him. And then I bought it for him. And then we ate it without him. Sorry Elias. I’ll get you a new one.)

I threw the kit into a gallon-sized ziploc bag along with avocado cups for our toddlers, applesauce cups and muffins for everyone, and juice boxes. We got to the zoo just in time to sit down for a Baby Cheetah “show.” We settled everyone in with an applesauce cup and spoon, then I dumped the salad kit into my ziploc bag.

I added all the extras included in the kit, closed up the ziploc, and shook it up. This took 5 minutes and it was brilliant! (I did wish I had scissors. That would have made the process only take only 4 minutes.)

I then dumped salad out for Brayden, Keith, Kiya, Matt, and me, handed out forks, and we learned about baby cheetahs while we chomped on salad. Truly, this idea is genius.

These kits are around $3 at Aldi, which is a GREAT PRICE for a lunch on the go. Plus they have several varieties to choose from. I will definitely be grabbing more next time I’m shopping so that I’ll have these on hand for outings as needed!

Meanwhile, Acacia ate her avocado cup with a spoon. She loves those!

Want to make your own salad to take along on a picnic? Here are some great recipes:

How about fruit salad?

Ever tried taking salad for a family picnic?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Big Family Food and Fun: July 9-15, 2023

by 8 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Ready for Food and Fun: July 9-15? We are on week three of Castle living. Each day we make a little bit more progress as we settle in. Of course, each day we make lots of messes, eat lots of food, and throw lots of tantrums so unpacking boxes is a bit of a challenge between dealing with normal day needs. :) We’ll get there!

Unrelated to food (unless we’re talking about formula), suddenly none of his clothes fit this little chunkers. (BabyBoy#11, not Matt. Matt’s clothes still fit.) Good thing I found some clearance items this week!

I’d say we ate pretty well this week as we have been well cared for by others and I am getting settled into our new kitchen. Every day I tell Matt, “I LOVE this kitchen!” Hopefully he doesn’t get tired of hearing it. Truly, it is an amazing kitchen and I’m so thankful God gifted it to us.

(This was the real estate photo.
The kitchen is no longer this clean because we live here and make food here.
But pretend that it is still this shiny.)

Food and Fun July 9-15

Sunday morning we sliced the Sourdough Pumpkin Bread our friend Barbara had made for us and enjoyed it with grapes before loading the kids into the van for church.

Before we left I had put potatoes into the crock pot for a Bake Potato Bar for lunch. When we got home, I realized that I had only set the crock pot to “low” instead of “high” so the potatoes were still not done. Oops. SO, I switched our lunch plan with our dinner plan and we warmed up more of Barbara’s food! What a gift that she had taken care of us so well!

We enjoyed her Turkey Alfredo, finishing off the first pan and half of the second. YUM.

That evening, we had our baked potatoes with bacon, cheese, peas, sour cream, and butter.

Monday morning I realized our need for quick-to-grab foods so I stirred together these No-Bake Cookie Cups. They are made with just a little bit of honey so they’re perfect for breakfast or snacks.

The rest of the day was borderline nuts. (What else is new?!) We had foster care specialists come in the morning to tour our home and approve it for foster care. We warmed up leftovers for lunch, then took the kids on a walk to the Sunken Gardens before naptime.

That afternoon, BabyBoy#11 had a well-baby check up with his new doctor. I filled out tons of paperwork to get all of our kids in the system and to authorize their medical records to be transferred over. Then we ran to Costco because it was close by. I rushed through grabbing a few essentials because Matt’s truck was in the shop and we needed to pick it up by 5:30.

I got home and we threw all of the kids into the van with a snack to hold them over (which it did not). We picked up Matt’s truck and went into Sam’s because it was two minutes away. Elias was with us, thankfully, so we had three adults with seven (hungry) littles in Sam’s. This was not my most relaxing shopping hour, ha. We filled two carts with more essentials. Meanwhile Keith screamed through half of the store because I wouldn’t buy him boots that he didn’t need. Oy.

We grabbed the beautiful $5 Rotisserie Chicken on our way out of the store, got home and tore it off the bone to quickly feed everyone before bed. Zero out of ten, do not recommend executing a plan like this in the future. But that chicken sure did taste good.

There was a mess of chicken skin, bones, smashed grapes, and apple cores all over the dining room when we were done and we managed to get the kids in bed – only thirty minutes late.

The good news is that I am now stocked up on groceries again, woohoo! I spent $216 on food at Sam’s and $286 at Costco. I’ve been avoiding the stores in an effort to use up what we have, and I’m so thankful for the savings as we’ve had other moving expenses. Making meals and snacks will be much easier now!

The next morning Matt and Elias needed to leave early to get to York for a meeting and to work on our house there. So I made them Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwiches for the road. We had a lot of strawberries that I’d picked up over the weekend so I made another batch of this Cheesecake Parfait to enjoy with them.

Then Kiya got up and the kids finished off the No-Bake Cookie Cups I’d made the day before.

Kelsey and Eva arrived to help me manage the kids all morning since Matt and Elias were going to be gone all day. (Malachi is gone for three weeks for work and church camp.) We decided to take the kids to the splash park I packed a loaf of bread worth of turkey sandwiches, juice boxes, and mandarin orange cups to eat there.

The kids LOVED this outing and took great naps when we got back. When everyone got up, I was on my own with all seven kids so dinner consisted of air fried Orange Chicken (boxed, from Sam’s), rice, and broccoli. OH WAIT. I burned the broccoli. So our veggie turned into spinach dipped in ranch. OH WAIT. Kiya eats her spinach with ketchup. Hey, whatever gets the nutrients in, I say.

Wednesday morning we ate yogurt with granola for breakfast before heading to our “new library” to check out story hour.

Silly as it sounds, when we got there and the story hour lady was soooo nice, it made me teary-eyed. We had loved story hour in York and I miss it already. I miss a lot about York and it’s all starting to hit me. So I cried a bit through Llama Llama Red Pajama. Tired much, Laura? :)

See Kelsey there? She had picked up a 2-year-old buddy to help out a friend
and they were at the library when we got there!

We came home and warmed up leftover Turkey Alfredo and made quesadillas with the leftover Rotisserie chicken from Monday.

I also sliced apples with this cheese, which is SO GOOD. Unless you don’t like it, and then it’s not so good. But most of us think it’s SO GOOD.

I had a lot of spinach in the fridge, and there’s only one solution to dealing with that: Make a cake. Obviously. I knew my kids would love the treat, and they were only fascinated that I could bake a cake in a crock pot. They didn’t care about the spinach. Big score!

That afternoon during naps, Kiya and I had a “date” at Aldi to pick up everything I hadn’t gotten at Sam’s and Costco. Highlights: whole milk yogurt, salad kits, protein snacks for Elias, cheese and meat trays for picnics, juice, and whole milk cottage cheese. Also macaroni salad because I have been hungry for it but didn’t need a Costco-sized container. :)

I spent $115 at Aldi that day, bringing our July total up to $884 so far. (Keep in mind that our four youngest kids are on WIC so that provides us with around $210 in food – a huge blessing. You can see what WIC provided for us this month in this post. Plus lovely people have showered us with food blessings since we arrived in Lincoln.)

My plan was to smoke Pork Loin for dinner, but wow I am learning that I need to budget my time differently now that we are in a city. Driving places takes longer, but also just getting out the door to go shopping takes longer because I’m not organized enough yet to efficiently find my purse and shoes. One day at a time.

Anyway, by the time we got home, there was no way I was going to start smoking pork loin. Matt had the smoker going so we quickly threw on Smoked Sausage I’d gotten at Sam’s. While that cooked, Elias put together the Caesar salad kits, I steamed corn on the cob, frosted the crock pot cake, and worked really hard to open the container of mac salad. ;)

We were so hungry and this feast tasted so good!! With cake for dessert – woohoo!

Inspired by my Crock Pot Cake, I decided the next morning to use the big bunch of brown bananas in my kitchen to try baking this Banana Bread recipe in the crock pot. It worked well enough that I’ll write a post about it so you can try too if you’d like to bake without heating up your oven!

While it was “baking” I cut two cantaloupe, a watermelon, and two pounds of strawberries to have in the fridge for easy side dishes.

Matt was working on fixing one of our air conditioners all morning (always fun when things break right after you move in). But we were able to all steal way late morning to have lunch at the zoo. We are amazed that we can “walk to the zoo for lunch” whenever we want! It’s just a few blocks away and we have a year family pass. Lunch with tigers and pandas. YES!

That evening our next door neighbors joined us in our backyard for dinner. They have been so good to welcome us and help with various needs. Our kids and their kids are becoming great friends and spending time together that evening was fantastic. We smoked three of the Pork Loin that I’d gotten BOGO last week and enjoyed it with green beans, banana bread, plus watermelon and mac and cheese brought by our neighbors.

Lunch on Friday was delicious soup Barbara had made plus Matt made grilled cheese sandwiches and set out pears.

Elias baked frozen pizzas that night and we enjoyed them with cold melon outside.

Matt spent time cleaning our smoker while the kids and I picked up sticks so the guys could mow. Afterward, the kids all lined up like this and started singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” It was kind of amazing because it is so rare that all the kids cooperate and play together like that. I had to document it! :)

The next morning we ate a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and yogurt before heading to the Farmer’s Market to meet friends.

I also made a double batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies because our friends were coming over for lunch after the Farmer’s Market. It was fun to bake cookies for the first time in my “new” oven!

Lunch with our friends was a Nacho Bar with chips, taco meat, white queso, salsa, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, corn, black beans, and avocado.

That afternoon I put together a huge Lasagna for our Sunday lunch so that we could celebrate Eva’s birthday together. We pulled out leftover to clean out the fridge at dinnertime, gave all the kids baths (no easy task), and cleaned the kitchen.

Hope your new week is off to a great start!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Settling into the Coppinger Castle: Phase 1

by 11 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

I wanted to give you an update now that we’ve been in our Castle for two weeks. WOW, has this been a busy 14 days!

Settling into the Coppinger Castle: Phase 1

How many phases will there be? Who knows? At this point I feel like we will never completely be finished unpacking, simply because we have so many little ones with needs more important that me finding my jeans. Thus, while our bedroom looks a bit better than this, we still have bags of clothes we’re ignoring and will ignore for a while. Priorities, man.

Settling In, Day 1

The day we closed on our house and got the keys, we left our seven littles in York with sitters so that we could get as much done as possible without children underfoot. Elias and Malachi were with us and Justus, Kelsey, and Eva joined us as they could.

We knew the previous owner of our home would be leaving behind some beds, dressers, end tables, and linens. The house had been a Bed and Breakfast, after all. However, we ended up getting much more than we had agreed to. Our first-day-to-do-list quickly got overruled when we realized that almost every room in our huge house was full of stuff that we’d need to pack and find a home for.

DEEP BREATH.

We had seven hours before we needed to head back to be with our littles, so we all worked feverishly to clean out our new place. Kelsey and I started in the kitchen (of course), clearing out cabinets so we could get it set up the way we needed. Then Elias, Malachi, and I headed to the laundry room (which is going to be awesome, by the way). The linens we’d inherited filled no less than 18 enormous black bags. I stopped counting after that. :) I filled bags; the boys lugged them upstairs and out to Goodwill.

Then we continued through every room, gathering items we didn’t need for our family. We put them all in our entry way and slowly but surely, Elias and Malachi got those donated as well. (Two weeks later, this is still a work in progress.)

We left the house in a mess and headed back to York for our final night in our home there.

Settling In: Day 2

We got up that morning and loaded cribs and mattresses for the kids plus as many boxes as we could stuff into our van. I got no pictures of this as I was a bit emotional leaving our York house for the last time.

Once we got to the Castle, the kids ran around exploring and I felt incredibly nervous trying to keep track of everyone. ;) This home is 7712 square feet, which is amazing and wonderful! But it’s easy to get lost if you’re unfamiliar with the layout – or if you’re a two-year-old. Oy.

I had no idea Kelsey got this picture of me walking through the house with Acacia and Josie. :)

Then Eva sent me these. :)

Matt got the babies’ cribs set up while Elias and Malachi went to Wendy’s with a gift card and picked up lunch for all of us.

The kitchen looked something like this, and we somehow managed to get the final crib up the stairs.

We got the four littlest down for naps then Matt, Elias, Malachi, and Brayden drove back to York to pick up a UHaul and load it with lots of people from our community there helping.

Meanwhile, Kiya, Keith, and I unpacked and started to figure out an organizational system for our pantry.

Eva, Asa, Justus, and Kelsey came that evening to help while the other guys were in York loading our truck. We got the littles to bed but the other guys didn’t get back with the truck until after 10pm. What a day!

Settling In, Day 3

We kept everyone alive that morning and afternoon. That’s about all I remember. ;) Eva snapped this sweet photo of Josie in what was to become our Play Room.

We ordered pizza that night for our moving crew and they worked like crazy to unload our UHaul for us.

While the guys unloaded and I gave instructions to everyone as to where to put boxes, Eva, Kelsey, and their friend Chelsea took all seven littles on a long walk and then to explore the Sunken Gardens which is amazing and just a few blocks from our house! It was great to have the kids out from underfoot while we unloaded the truck.

That night we were all exhausted and sore. The living room, library, play room, and beyond were all filled with stuff and I went to bed grateful but overwhelmed.

Settling In, Day 4 and Beyond

Every day we keep getting more packed and taken out of the house (from the stuff that got left behind). And we get more and more of our items unpacked and put away.

 

One day we realized that BabyBoy#11 was wearing his shirt inside-out, evidence that his parents are very, very tired.

Our bedrooms are all on the second floor and the landing looked like this up until four days ago when I finally decided to work on finding its items a home.

Upon opening up the linen cabinet and drawers in that hallway, I discovered, guess what? MORE LINENS. Say it isn’t so.

Settling In, Day 14

So here we are. There are no pictures on the walls yet because that’s a lower priority right now. Plus I can’t find a hammer.

But look at this beautiful side of our living room! It’s coming together just they way I had envisioned with a “Coffee Hospitality Area” for people to gather and visit or play games.

The other side looks like this, with lots of cozy seating (and pillows for kids to throw on the floor 40 times a day).

The Play Room looked like this for 5 minutes after Eva got it organized. Then the kids played in it and made a sweet mess. But all is well – it’s a play room after all!

During the next few weeks, I’ll share more photos of our settling-in process. I’ll probably devote an entire post to our kitchen and pantry, sound good?

We are extremely thankful for God’s gift of this home, our “Castle.” It is everything we need and then some. He is faithful.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Big Family Food and Fun: July 2-8, 2023

by 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

We are slowly but surely getting settled in at our Castle. We are amazed at and grateful for the care people are showing us here!

Our moving truck got unloaded last Friday, leaving every room of our house looking something like this:

Picture toddlers climbing over that and rearranging boxes as I try to sort and organize. That’s been interesting – but as I share our Food and Fun photos of this week, take note at all God is providing for us so that we can survive these crazy days!

Food and Fun – July 2-8

My friend Cindy, whom I’ve known for a few years but rarely get to spend time with, came by on Saturday with two of her girls. They brought us this huge box of cherries!!!! She and her girls helped me unpack and clean and play with kids for several hours. How lovely that we will all live in the same town and are able to do life together now. :)

Sunday morning I cooked two pounds of meat from my freezer so we could have a quick meal of tacos when we got home from church. This felt so normal!! Which felt so good in the middle of everything that is not normal right now.

Someone at church gave us these beauties from their garden as we were leaving. What a gift!

Sam’s is a mile from church, so Matt gave all the kids a snack while Elias and I ran into the store to grab a few essentials for our 4th of July celebration plus fresh produce we needed. We grabbed hotdogs and buns, guacamole, queso, grapes, greens, apples, bananas, nectarines, sweet peppers, and strawberries. Oh, and Spindrift drinks were on sale – Elias’ and my fav sparkling water! ;) We got home and ate our tacos then got littles down for naps.

That evening I made a plate full of small turkey sandwiches and took them outside for a picnic with pickles, watermelon, and cheese.

I had a package of English muffins in the freezer, so I made scrambled egg sandwiches for breakfast the next day. I was itching to make something (my kitchen is amazing, who cares if it wasn’t fully unpacked yet?!). So I blended up our favorite Cheesecake Parfait recipe to enjoy with our strawberries.

Mid-morning was already very hot so we enjoyed popsicles to help us cool off.

Lunchtime got super exciting because we got word that our custom-built dining room table was on its way!! I had thawed chicken legs to smoke for our meal because Asa and Eva were planning to join us for the day. Plus I’d sliced up all the squash we’d been given to stir fry and enjoy with our chicken.

Our table was built by Sola Woodshed Designs, friends of ours whom I’d messaged several weeks ago to see if they’d want to tackle my huge table project. :) They did a marvelous job and joined us for lunch too. Check out this beauty of a table!! Even better is the people all around the table…

I asked for a 12-feet long farmhouse table, not fancy, just big. :) I requested long benches for seeing instead of chairs so we could fit more people around our table. It’s perfect! We went with four 6-feet benches instead of two 12-feet long benches. It’s amazing.

After such a full morning and a big lunch, we made frozen pizza for dinner.

That evening, more neighbors stopped by to welcome us to the neighborhood and they came with four pounds of strawberries for us. Perfect!

Tuesday’s breakfast was peanut butter honey toast with bananas and yogurt.

Our fridge looked so delicious, full of cherries, nectarines, and strawberries!

Tuesday afternoon, friends stopped by for a visit and they brought several boxes of food – a gift from the Helping Hands ministry at church. This was all so perfect so that we had easy foods to throw out as snacks and side dishes.

Our 4th of July celebration day was as busy as the other days have been with more unpacking and sorting. But that night we put hotdogs on our smoker and had a feast with Asa and Eva joining us. (Justus and Kelsey have been in Montana visiting her family.)

I snapped this photo of our oldest with our youngest. THIS is why we moved to Lincoln.

While were were outside celebrating, our friend Rebecca stopped by with food that her mom, Barbara, had made for us. They have been so intentional about helping us settle in, and it is remarkable. They had taken the turkey we had in our freezer so they could roast it for us. AMAZING and so very helpful. The delicious cooked bird was delivered along with a big bag of banana pancakes, prepared salad, a bag of kid-sized apples, baby carrots with homemade ranch dip, and a bag of ready-to-eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This was so thoughtful and has been so helpful!

Our girls dug right into the pancakes the next morning!

Matt and I decided that the kids needed an outing so we packed everyone into strollers and headed out to explore our new surroundings. We made our way to our closest library to check it out!

Everyone had good naps (or rest times) that afternoon, then we warmed up the turkey Barbara had made us along with green beans, strawberries and cream, and salad.

The next morning, Matt and Brayden headed to York to do some work on our house there. I packed them a feast to get them through their day.

While they were gone, Eva and I took the other six on a long walk to play at a park. We enjoyed capri suns with raisins and veggie straws mid-morning.

I’d warmed up leftover 4th of July hotdogs before we left and they were still hot at lunchtime. We ate them before heading home!

That night I made Turkey Cheese Melts with more of Barbara’s turkey. We ate them with fries and watermelon.

Friday morning we took the kids to visit another library all morning. We came home and made pancakes and eggs.

A dear friend sent us a gift of flamingo paper goods and a Dominos gift card from Arkansas, so we enjoyed a fun pizza meal that night!

Saturday morning, Anna and I made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins before everyone else slept. It was my first time baking anything and it was so nice!

We went to “Discovery Days” that morning on the UNL campus where the kids enjoyed fun science activities at each booth. We took a snacky lunch to enjoy late morning before coming home in time for naps.

While the kids were napping and resting, I went to the grocery store for the first time since moving. Our three littlest girls plus Baby Boy#11 are all on WIC, so I focused on getting all of those qualifying items.

While I was there, I took advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free pork loin sale. Plus I picked up a few other things we needed. Out of pocket I paid $78.

 

Before leaving for the store, I had put this Taco Pasta in the crock pot for dinner. Justus and Kelsey were on their way home from Montana so I told them to stop by for dinner if they wanted. Then I texted Asa to come (Eva was out of town). Asa invited our friends Seth and Corrie. Malachi’s friend Max came over. Elias’ friend Emma came to see the house and accepted our invite to stay and eat.

There ended up being 18 of us, all at the last minute. I LOVE THIS. The Taco Pasta turned out great, and we pulled out lots of sides to round out the meal: watermelon, black beans, corn, cherries, veggie tray, chips and guac, brownies, and rice krispie treat. Our table was full and it was fantastic.

Stay tuned for lots of pictures of what the past week and a half have looked like for us as we settle in!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Simple Salmon Burgers – $1.00 Meal!

by Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Do you need a change from regular sandwiches? I made these Simple Salmon Burgers for my family a few weeks ago and they were a huge hit!

Canned salmon is something I always have on hand but almost never use. It’s one of those things that is great to have in the pantry as a backup meal option – yet I forget to actually use it. Silly!

Recently I was challenging myself to use up food we had in an effort to save money so I pulled out two cans of salmon to make Salmon Patties. As I was cooking, I decided that the kids might eat them better in the form of a sandwich. So I spread mayo on hamburger buns, added the cooked salmon patties, and they were a hit!

Here’s a quick picture I snapped on my phone after I’d taken round one of the sandwiches out to the kids to eat. It was a beautiful day so they were enjoying lunch on the porch! Playing outside makes them extra hungry, so I hurried to finish another batch of burgers!

You can add cheese, pickles, extra lemon juice, sliced tomatoes, lettuce, guacomole – whatever you would like – to your sandwiches. I love how mild these taste, so even those of you who aren’t huge fans of fish may still enjoy these as a great meal option!

Simple Salmon BurgersYum

Simple Salmon Burgers
 
Save Print
Author:
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 14-ounces canned salmon
  • 1 egg
  • ½ cup bread crumbs or crushed cornflakes
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • oil for cooking (I use palm shortening or coconut oil)
  • Buns and your favorite condiments
Instructions
  1. In a bowl, mix together salmon, egg, bread crumbs and lemon juice.
  2. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet.
  3. Spoon balls of the salmon mixture into the oil, flatten and cook for about five minutes, turning once.
  4. When the salmon patties are golden brown, serve them on burger buns.

How great is it that you can make these Salmon Burgers for such a low cost! Serve them with fresh fruit and raw veggies and your meal is nourishing and delicious.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Feeding 11 People During Move Week

by 6 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

It was move week for the Coppinger crew and we.are.tired. We still ate well, thanks to so many loving people!

I can’t wait to sit down and write details about how our move is going. What an amazing house God gave us!!! We can’t get over this, our Castle. This place is going to be amazing for our family and for hospitality. What a gift.

Feeding 11 People

The first few days of last week as we finished packing in York, my goal was to clean leftovers out of the fridge. One of our “fancy” meals included leftover spaghetti and chicken salad in croissants.

Monday night, my niece Kailey brought us a Tator Tot casserole. It was so sweet of her and we all devoured it!

We were blessed on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings with meals from friends also: a meal of Lasagna and a meal from our local Mexican restaurant. So much was going on that I forgot to take pictures!

Just before loading day, I asked our egg-supplying friend if we could get 10 dozen for the road. :) I didn’t want to worry about getting eggs for a while.

The day we closed on our new place, we left all seven littles in York with sitters so that we could get into the Castle and get started with moving furniture. When we left York, I buckled four gallon jars of Homemade Vanilla into toddler car seats. They arrived in their new home safe and sound. :)

Justus and Kelsey brought barbecue pork to the house that day for all of us to eat for lunch. It was perfect.

The next morning, we loaded more belongings and headed to Lincoln with all of the littles. PHEW. They have been exploring the Castle, and are a bit confused about life in general, poor dears. Slowly but surely they are settling in. Eva and Kelsey have been a huge help keeping them occupied while the guys load and unload and move furniture. We’ve been cleaning out the house (a lot of items were left behind) and unpacking our things as much as possible whenever the kids are occupied.

My kitchen is starting to come together now, but on Thursday morning it looked like this. Crib in the doorway? Why not?

Say it isn’t so!! I found this in one of my refrigerators as I was cleaning it out, hahahaha. :) :) :) :) :)

We had been gifted a Wendy’s gift card and I’d saved it for our first day at the Castle. Elias and Malachi brought back bags of food for our lunch.

Some dear friends brought a Nacho feast for our dinner that night. We were starving, it was delicious, and we finished it all that night. :)

As our friends set down our Nacho fixings, they kept bringing in more and more food. Casseroles, homemade sourdough waffles, applesauce – it was incredible!

We enjoyed the waffles for breakfast Friday morning.

We had their Egg Bake for lunch Friday.

Why yes, we did eat the entire pan in one sitting.

That night, we hosted our first gathering at the Castle. ;) We picked up 8 large pizzas as a crew gathered to unload our U-Haul truck.

We were so thankful for the help unloading!

Saturday morning I scrambled 15 eggs on my amazing “new” stove. We ate them with berries, yogurt, and bread.

For lunch that day we warmed up Pesto Pasta that was included in our big food gift from our friends on Thursday night.

Awwww, it is, in fact, my first Castle Smoothie. :)

We are so excited about our new neighbors. Everyone we’ve met so far is kind, loving, and welcoming. Some sent cookies (no picture because they are gone, hehe!) and another brought these lemon meringue cupcakes. So sweet! We look forward to settling a bit so we can really get to know them all better.

I’ll share more as I have time. It’s been intense; it’s been good. We are so grateful.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!