Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: October 27-November 2, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: October 27-November 2, 2024

We’ve been practicing taking a Sabbath rest from Saturday evening until Sunday evening. Read more about that here. Because of this, I’ve found that I am not able to completely finish sharing about our Saturday because I turn off my computer and focus fully on family time and down time Saturday evening. So here’s a quick recap of last Saturday evening…

We had an early dinner then got all eight kids dressed up like Little House on the Prairie characters. We’ve been reading the books and watching the show, so they were so excited about this!

Kiya is kind of hidden in the above photo, so I took one of her individually so that you can see how much she looks like Laura Ingalls! :)

We had tickets to go to our local Boo at the Zoo that evening. It was a very well-organized and huge event! The kids loved it!

We walked through the zoo, trick-or-treating at various booths. Then we headed home for bed.

On Sunday morning, the kids were excited to wake up to donuts that Elias and Malorie had picked up for them.

As we got ready for church, Malorie taught Josie how to have a thumb war. :) :) :) I found it to be hilarious.

We’d made all of our Sunday Lunch food in the days leading up to Sunday so that we could Sabbath, so we simply warmed everything in crock pots and it worked great! We had made Smoked Chicken and Cream Cheese Corn, Friends who joined us for the meal brought Baked Beans, Mashed Potatoes, Veggies, and Salad. For dessert we sat and drank coffee with Peanut Butter Brownies. Everyone raved over these.

Truly, it was a delightful Sabbath feast. There were 23 of us gathered that day.

The kids watched a movie with Elias and Malorie that afternoon while Matt and I enjoyed Community Group time (where we continued to dig in together to learn more about what it to Sabbath). For dinner, I warmed up leftover Pizza from last week and made a Caesar salad.

On Monday morning, I made a quick quadruple batch of Homemade Chewy Granola Bars. The kids ate over half of them that morning with sliced pears.

After we dropped the four elementary kids off at school, the other four played and played outside until we had no choice but to go inside and get dressed in clean clothes for school.

We still had 15-minutes before the bus came so Acacia helped me crack open 20 eggs for Breakfast Sandwiches.

I finished putting together the sandwiches later that afternoon. I am amazed at how many of these Breakfast Sandwiches we go through at our house. They are so nice to have on hand.

Also worth sharing: A few days before this, our neighbor had brought over two big packages of buns that were leftover from an event at his workplace. People often think of us when there is extra food after an event that they don’t know what to do with. They know leftovers won’t go to waste here! We always say yes because I can always figure out a way to use whatever is given.

All that to say, I saw buns and my first thought was, “Ah, Breakfast Sandwiches.” And there you have it.

Dinner that night was a most amazing Beef Roast that I’d started about 5:30 that morning. I’d gotten the roast as a meat markdown last week, spending a little more per pound than I prefer to spend because I’ve been so hungry for beef roast. This did not disappoint. I’d put a bunch of carrots in with it, and their flavor was also incredible. I buttered and toasted rolls to go with our meal – very simple and very good.

Tuesday morning, Justus dropped off Little Sweetheart as he headed off to a meeting. She is always very entertained by all the action around here. As you can see below, she was having a lively conversation with two little mermaids.

After school that day, I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to the Food Distribution site where we serve on Tuesdays. Kiya handed out chicken to people as they came through the line and Keith got to help me hand out treats, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and glow sticks. Brayden worked in the kitchen to scrub out coolers as they emptied out at all of the stations throughout the room.

Back at home, Matt and Elias finished making dinner. I had cut up Sunday’s leftover Smoked Chicken to warm up and we had it with a pound of Noodles, two heads of Broccoli, and a jar of White Sauce (most of the kids like their noodles with only butter and salt. :)

Wednesday morning, I made several pans of Bacon for us to eat at breakfast time and to have on hand for other meals as needed. I scrambled 15 eggs for us to eat also.

I’d gotten an early start that morning so I also baked a batch of Cupcakes with Spinach for school lunches.

It was sprinkling that morning but Auggie didn’t understand why we couldn’t go outside and play. I finally took him out since it wasn’t too bad yet, which helped his scream-y disposition that morning. Here he is, on his little bike, looking up at the sky when the thunder rolled in. After that we headed back inside, ha.

It started pouring late that morning, just at the time Justus and Kelsey dropped off Little Sweetheart. The girls were fascinated and tried very hard to accidentally get wet even though they had been told to stay back out of the rain.

Eva dropped Arrow off for the afternoon, and we were pleased that the babies worked out their naptimes so that they didn’t both need the crib at the same time. When it was time to pick up kids from school – all the babies were awake, including Auggie. So while Matt went to pick up kids (in the rain), Malorie and I took care of Auggie, Little Sweetheart, and Arrow. This is Auggie leaning in to give Little Sweetheart a kiss.

This was mine and Arrow’s view from across the room as I had just finished giving Arrow a bottle. Malorie took Sweetheart out of her chair and Auggie decided to examine it. Better he clobber her chair than her, though, right?

Friends came and picked up Little Sweetheart to help out until Justus and Kelsey got back from a meeting. Eva arrived to get Arrow, then stayed to help through dinnertime. I had put Baked Potatoes in the Crock Pot that morning and Costco Meatballs into another crock pot with barbecue sauce. So dinner prep was easy that night as all I needed to do was steam some Peas and peel about 100 clementines. (The kids ate them faster than I could peel them – a good problem to have!)

Dinner is always lively and honestly, often a challenge as we try to train this many high-need kids to sit and eat. Notice the bottom right corner of this photo in which Keith would rather play with a stick (which isn’t allowed in the house, much less the dining table) than eat. Either way, having an extra adult around our table helped, and dinner that night was less dramatic than most. :)

It was still rainy that evening, so we gathered kids around the living room table for a fall craft after dinner.

I love that all of the kids enjoy doing these (cheap peel-and-stick craft kits from Hobby Lobby for the win!).

Then we told the kids that if they cooperated and got teeth brushed for bed, we could watch an episode of Little House on the Prairie before bed. They are LOVING any opportunity to watch this classic, so as much as eight kids could cooperate and get teeth brushed, they did. ;)

Thursday morning, I let the kids pick between Breakfast Sandwiches or Cereal since not all the kids like the same thing (shocker). I also got out a tub of yogurt that we finished off. Meanwhile, I had a lovely glass of this smoothie.

Mornings have been rough for our kindergarteners because it’s more fun to play than to get dressed. So on Wednesday I created a Morning Routine chart for them. We gave it a try on Thursday morning and Keith was VERY EXCITED. As much as he struggles with behaviors, he also really wants to “shine his light for Jesus.” Here he is, happily coloring in his “shining lights” after he completed the first two tasks. Who cares that his shirt is wrongs-side-out? He put it on. Check!

After we got the kids off to school, I started a huge pot of Chicken Broth.

Here’s the end result later after I blended in the carrots and onions and stirred them back into the broth. So good!

My dear friend Charlene came for the afternoon and we talked a mile a minute to get caught up. Little Sweetheart came too, and she enjoyed the girl talk.

For dinner that night, I pulled out all the odds and ends in the fridge. This practice is so helpful in preventing food waste! Everyone ate whatever leftovers sounded good, then we got all eight kids dressed (in layers) in their Little House on the Prairie clothes for trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.

If you’re familiar with the Little House on the Prairie show, when I say that Acacia running through our yard reminds me of Baby Carrie running through the prairie with her sisters – well. So sweet.

Our neighbors are wonderful, and the kids had so much fun. Matt and I appreciated getting to know some of our neighbors better that evening. And best yet, Malachi came over and walked around with us. Meanwhile, Elias and Malorie and one of our housemates stayed back home to greet Trick-or-Treaters who came to our house.

Friday morning, we made Oatmeal for breakfast before sending kids off to school. Matt and I then took the four youngest kids to Aldi and Costco.

At Aldi, we left the kids in the van with Matt while I ran in and got everything we needed as fast as I could. In my haste, I forgot to take a picture of my cart. Here are two of my three bags when we got home. :/

I picked up eight pounds of hamburger meat at Costco. So as I was putting all the groceries away, I started to brown it to get ahead.

We had plans to host a Pie Party for our neighborhood on Saturday, so I made two Easiest Chocolate Fudge Pies.

That afternoon, I also made 2 huge Lasagnas – one to bake on Sunday morning for our Sunday Lunch, and another for our freezer to enjoy with family over Thanksgiving weekend.

Dinner that night was our traditional French Fry Friday (aka Mom’s night off-ish) with Chicken Sandwiches, Fries, Pickles, Grapes, and Raspberries.

Saturday morning, I made a quick batch of Pumpkin Cheesecake Whip for breakfast.

I also made a double batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread, which made three big loaves. I froze one and saved two for our Sunday morning breakfast.

That afternoon, we hosted a big neighborhood Pie Party. This was our third get-together with people in our neighborhood. It was FANTASTIC. We had made simple invitations letting people know to bring a pie to share (or just show up) and to come enjoy time together.

People and pies started to arrive and they just kept coming.

There was a huge variety of pie that everyone freely sampled. Plus we had coffee, tea, or apple cider.

We got to know some neighbors that we’d never visited with before, kids ran in and out playing, people connected with each other – it was so, so, wonderful!

I realized afterward that I didn’t capture everyone in the photos. We later counted that 29 people came that afternoon, making 42 of us altogether. God is good.

As the afternoon wound down, I discovered three of our girls in our living room with our neighbor, Sarah, whom they adore. What a gift to have these community gatherings to make connections.

We started our Sabbath family time later that evening, which I’ll share more about next week!