It’s our Food and Fun: October 29-November 4 post!
Big Family Food and Fun: October 29-November 4, 2023
Sunday for lunch we had a pot of Chicken Taco Soup, using up the last of our smoked chicken from the week before. This soup is so easy to throw together when your meat is already cooked. Just dump everything in and go!
That evening, our friends Paula and Randy dropped off 10 lunches for Brayden and Kiya to take to school this week. (This is something new they started doing to help us and it is amazing!) They made five with turkey sandwiches and five with ham, and it looks like they had way too much fun labeling them. :) :) :)
Since I’d been sick, it had been quite a while since we’d gone to the store. We had no fresh produce, plus the kids needed an outing. So Matt, Malachi, and I took everyone to Wal-Mart Sunday evening so that we would have fruits and veggies to enjoy. Taking all seven kids to the store is always NUTS, but hey look at that. Now we have fruit.
Dinner that night was one of my favorite “cheater” meals. Orange Chicken from Sam’s with Caesar salad and rice.
Monday morning I got out Peanut Butter Snack Bars from the freezer for the kids to eat for breakfast. Everyone got to pick whatever fruit they wanted to go with it.
Our neighbor had heard that I’d been sick so she made us a pot of Chili for dinner Monday night. This was SO wonderful since my energy was still on the low side.
Tuesday morning I made some very ugly Pumpkin Muffins for breakfast. I think the melted coconut oil hardened back up and the cinnamon didn’t get stirred in well. BUT, they tasted good and got eaten so it was all ok.
I made these Smoothies to go with the muffins and put them into fun Halloween cups someone had given us.
That night I made a Taco Bar for dinner, seasoning the meat this way.
We had plenty of candy after enjoying two big events last week, so our kids had a lot of fun handing out candy to trick-or-treaters who came to our house that night. We had lots of kids stop by so it was great! Then Matt took our three oldest littles out to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. It was super cold that night so Malachi and I kept the littlest four at home.
Wednesday I made an Aldi run to get stocked back up on milk and yogurt. Here’s a list of groceries I regularly buy at Aldi. This particular day I got milk, whole milk yogurt, crackers, juice, baby food, fritos, fruit cups, granola, canned corn, canned soup, cream cheese, eggs, salad kits, grass-fed hamburger meat, and bananas. My total that day was: $239.
I got home just in time to make this 10-Minute Instant Pot Mac and Cheese for lunch. I made a double batch and it worked great!
We had leftover hotdogs in the fridge so for dinner that night I turned them into Lazy Dogs.
We ate them with kiwi, clementines, and cucumbers.
An unfortunate stomach bug had started traveling through our house – a terrible thing with 16 people living here! So for dinner on Thursday I kept our meal very mild – Baked Potatoes, steamed broccoli, and asparagus.
The weather had warmed up quite a bit, thankfully, so those who felt well enough played outside in the leaves after dinner. :)
Friday morning I used the rest of our homemade applesauce to make a huge batch of Applesauce Bread and Muffins.
After we got Brayden and Kiya to school, we got the other five ready and we loaded up for Costco. I dressed the girls in coordinating outfits – so cute!
Two carts and $410 worth of groceries later, we headed home to put it all away and to get Keith and Anna off to preschool.
I declared it to be French Fry Friday, so for dinner we ate Chicken Nuggets, Fries, Strawberries, and Raspberries.
Saturday morning we ate Applesauce Bread and fried potatoes that I made with Thursday’s leftover baked potatoes. I also took some time to make a triple batch of Snickerdoodle Bites to have on hand for snacks.
We went to our favorite Saturday morning Library Sensory-Friendly Storytime. Then after the regular program we stayed at the library to read books and play with their hands-on learning toys.
Late afternoon I could tell we needed to get ahead of some sibling struggles so I pulled Brayden in to help me made pizza for dinner. He was thrilled with this and at dinnertime, we gave him all the credit for “making dinner.” He was very proud. :)
We had picked up a watermelon at Costco the day before, hoping it would actually taste good in November. It wasn’t too bad! The weather was great so the kids had played outside a good part of the afternoon. Pizza, salad, and watermelon tasted pretty good to hungry kids (and their parents and big sibs).
And that was our week!