Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: April 20-26, 2025 post!
We enjoy a Sabbath rest from Saturday evening through Sunday evening – so I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoons and miss posting some of these pictures. I’ll catch up on our last Saturday activities before launching into our new week!
Saturday, April 12
Saturday afternoon, I took some fruit outside for kids to snack on after they played.
Brayden and Kiya had been across the street helping our neighbor pull weeds and plant flowers. He walked the kids back over to our house and enjoyed some of the fruit with our kids.
For dinner that night, I made Spaghetti with Caesar Salad and Canned Pears.
We try to spend our Saturday evening meal focusing with our kids on how God was at work during the week. And we practice some of our Bible verses we are working to help our kids get these truths into their hearts.
Big Family Food and Fun: April 20-26, 2025
Sunday morning, we ate our traditional Breakfast Cookie Bars before getting ready for church.
We tried to gather our entire family together for an Easter photo. Ever tried to herd 7 cats??
Ah, there we go. Malachi was in Kansas City spending time with friends. Otherwise, we were all together and dressed in our finest. See how easy that was to get 18 people in one beautiful photo? Oy.
The Nabb family joined us for Easter Dinner that day, plus a couple of extra friends.
I had baked one of our $5 post-Christmas hams. The Nabbs brought Cheesy Potatoes and Roasted Vegies. I made Cream Cheese Corn, plus we both provided rolls.
The dessert section was beyond amazing with a great big No-Bake Cheesecake that I’d made the day before and delicious cookies that the Nabbs made and brought. After church, we’d been sent home with a dozen leftover donuts from the Welcome Center – just in case we didn’t have enough sugar to eat already. ;)
Between the Coppingers, the Nabbs, and extra friends there were 28 of us gathered for our Easter feast.
It was extra fun because the Nabb adult kids have long been friends with the Coppinger adult kids – so gathering all of them together was great! They also have younger kids to play with our younger kids, so being together with this family is an absolute delight. :)
Keith ate his few bites of food (he’d rather play instead of eat) and found himself on the floor entertaining Arrow for a few minutes.
After we ate together, all the adults hid Easter eggs throughout our house for all of the kids to find. We usually do this outside, but thanks to very cool temps and rain all day, we needed to settle for indoor fun this year.
Here they go, with buckets ready to fill!
We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with our friends, and it truly was glorious. I made four Frozen Pizzas for dinner that night, which is always a perfect way to end our Sabbath time and Easter celebration.
Monday morning, our kids were home from school so we gathered everyone up and took a walk to fill up our church’s Little Free Pantry. Auggie’s ABA technician joined us on our outing.
Before heading back home, we detoured so that we could play at a tiny park in our neighborhood.
Back at home, we made the last of a bag of Chicken Nuggets and a Salad for lunch, plus warmed up leftover Smoked Chicken and Mashed Potatoes.
Keith was my Special Helper of the day and he helped me put together a pan of Pizza Chicken Bake for dinner.
We ate our Pizza Chicken Bake that evening with Pasta and Green Beans.
Auggie’s evening ABA technician and therapist came for three hours, plus we had our Family Therapy team at our house working with us. While this is all GOOD, it’s also a bit hectic trying to keep up with it all. At one point, I had to take one of the girls in to potty, and caught this scene when I came back outside – kids and therapists with Matt while they talk through needs and challenges. As you can see, the therapy team works with us right where we are, and that night, we were outside climbing trees.
Elias and Malorie were playing catch outside, and Auggie (with his technician) went over to join. Brayden made his way over also. It was very sweet.
I sliced a loaf of Apple Bread for a snack before bed that night. I wish I could say that we all slept well that night after such a big day. But the truth is that after our big Family Therapy meetings on Mondays, I often struggle to settle in at night. My mind is going in too many directions, something to get ahead of with prayer, for sure.
Tuesday morning, I took Auggie to Speech Therapy. He had a great morning, cooperating and showing off new speech skills.
Little Sweetheart had arrived at our house by the time we got home and Auggie was happy to greet her!
Arrow came that afternoon, so it was a delightful day full of grandbabies!!
I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to our weekly Food Distribution site after school. Brayden was wearing a brand new shirt and I’d cautioned him about getting bleach/cleaner on it when scrubbing out coolers. He wisely found a solution: put on an apron. Good job, buddy! Ah, and then Keith needed one too. :)
With such a full week (and it was only Tuesday!) I had made a simple dinner for that night of Frozen Meatballs in the crock pot with barbecue sauce. Matt steamed Broccoli and that was our meal.
We put all the littles to bed at 8, but we’ve been letting Brayden, Kiya, and Keith stay up just a bit later to read, do art, or play Legos quietly in the boys’ room. Malachi joins them for Legos when he’s available, and it is the sweetest. The kids love it when he plays with them!
Wednesday morning was a great big day in which Malachi and I took Keith and Anna to Omaha for behavior evaluations. We had to get out the door early, so I just set out Mudballs and Bagels for the kids to grab for breakfast.
Keith’s appointment was first, and Anna sat in the waiting room hanging out with Malachi and a big basket of books and crafts the entire morning. Keith and I spent time with a doctor who observed him and asked us a bazillion questions.
Two and a half hours later, we found a park close-by so that kids who had been cooped up in small rooms for the entire morning could run out some energy. This turned out to be a skate park, and the kids had the BEST time running and running for 45 minutes. Did Keith completely ruin his pants by sliding down cement over and over? Yes, he did. But did his mom care? Naw. She wasn’t even surprised. She was just glad to see Keith doing his thing. ;)
Malachi and I visited and ate but the kids decided that playing was more fun than eating. (They ate their food later when we were back at the clinic.)
All afternoon, Keith hung out with Malachi in the waiting room while Anna spent time with the doctor and me for her evaluation.
By 3:30, my brain was completely overwhelmed from answering literally hundreds of questions all day and then from taking in a lot of new information. But we got answers we needed and have been praying for – praise God. These babies need all the resources they can get and our doctor was incredibly thorough and thoughtful about their diagnoses so she could feel good about where to point us.
Before heading home, we stopped and splurged on a special coffee drink. Malachi was an absolute rock star to make this day happen with/for us, so I wanted to treat him. And also, I wanted a treat after my big day too, ha.
Back at home, Matt was helping with homework, warming up leftovers, and handling Auggie’s ABA therapy needs for the evening. I didn’t get any pictures that day after our time in Omaha because I was too preoccupied with processing everything from our appointments and spending time with the kids I hadn’t been with all day.
Thursday I was so tired I could hardly put together a sentence. That afternoon, I went to Aldi to get milk and a few other items, and driving home I realized that being behind the wheel wasn’t really wise because of the state I was in. Back at home, I sat and rested for an hour before the kids came home from school.
For dinner, I simply made five boxes of Mac and Cheese to go with the last bit of leftover Ham from Sunday. The kids eat their mac and cheese with frozen peas.
Cooking this week was a low priority because of everything else going on. Were the kids fed and cared for though? Yes.
Brayden had his Spring Band Concert that evening. Auggie wasn’t feeling great so he stayed home with Malorie. We didn’t love that he was sick, but we were glad he wasn’t with us for that hour. As it turns out, trying to keep neurodivergent 6, 5, 4, and 3-year-olds sitting still and watching an elementary band concert is not super easy. Having a 2-year old with us might have put us over the edge. Bless. We survived the night. And what really mattered was that Brayden loved performing and was thrilled to have been a part of this. We are thrilled for him. :)
Friday morning I woke up feeling more refreshed. Matt and I had been able to process Keith’s and Anna’s evaluation appointments. We chose not to make any decisions yet about their therapy needs. There were too many decisions to be made and we needed time to settle in with all the information we’d been given.
I thawed and marinated several packages of Chicken Thighs so I could smoke them for our upcoming Sunday Lunch. Check out all those half-price stickers. I am so thankful to have found so many packages of chicken marked down. All of this cost less than $20! What a great way to feed so many people!
While the kids ate breakfast, I baked a pan of Stick of Butter Rice that morning, then turned it into Cheesy Beef and Rice for our dinner that night.
I had brought home some M&Ms from Food Distribution that week, so I used them to make Monster Cookies for Sunday Lunch dessert.
That evening, we enjoyed our Cheesy Beef and Rice with leftover broccoli or sliced cucumbers. I hadn’t made this casserole in a long time but 6-out-of-7 kids loved it so I need to add it to our rotation more often!
We’ve made arrangements for our neighbor to park her motorcycle in our back parking area. She’s so sweet with the kids and they get so excited when she pulls in to park. Today, she let all the kids take a turn trying on her helmet.
Keith is a tough one when it comes to food and eating. (Several of our kids are actually – just in different ways.) I was finally able to talk him into eating a carrot, which he did while examining the hole he had been digging. He determined that since he was eating a carrot by his hole, he was a farmer. :)
All that afternoon and evening, I smoked all the chicken I had thawed and then marinated to get it ready for Sunday so that all I had to do is rewarm it in crock pots.
Matt had a great idea to light up the fire pit. This is a rare treat, but the weather was perfect for it and the kids were very excited!
After a while, Auggie had enough of just sitting so he took off to ride his bike. Big Brother Brayden offered to go ride bikes with him – so sweet. :)
Saturday was a very full day:
- I was blessed to go to a Ladies’ Brunch at church. (Justus and Asa came over to our house with their babies to help Matt with our kids.)
- Elias and Malorie went to York for YU graduation.
- Malachi had a video shoot at UNL that morning, then went to York to hang with some of the YU graduates.
- Kelsey took me out for lunch – an incredibly rare treat!
- We had a bonus Family Therapy Session so that we could work on some of the specific needs for the kids we’d been discussing.
- We got ready for Sabbath and for hosting Sunday Lunch and Community Group.
I’ll share photos and details in my next post as I was too busy enjoying all of the above to document it this week!
