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Big Family Food and Fun: January 14-20, 2024

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 14-20, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: January 14-20, 2024

Last week was full of Snow Days, below zero temps, and a bit of going stir crazy while being cooped up day after day with so many littles. Church services on Sunday were canceled. By the day before, the roads were finally starting to be cleared out somewhat. So we decided to text some families to see who might be ready to venture out and make their way to our house for worship and fellowship.

Altogether, there were 28 of us gathered in our living room. It was so very beautiful to enjoy this time together. Kids played and were engaged at the same time. It was awesome.

I had made a roaster full of White Chicken Chili and Applesauce Muffins to share. Plus I put Saturday night’s leftover Spaghetti and baked it with cheese on top for an additional option for people to enjoy. I made 12 Sub Sandwiches with turkey, bacon, and cheese then toasted them and cut them in half. Friends who came brought Pigs in a Blanket, Cookies, Homemade Bread, Crackers, and we all had a wonderful feast!

Several families stuck around for a good part of the afternoon to visit and play games.

Monday the kids didn’t have school because of MLK Day. For breakfast, I baked several pans of bacon, fried leftover baked potatoes, and rewarmed leftover French Toast. I also made a blender full of these smoothies so our kids could be filled with veggies and fruit.

Mid-afternoon, Keith requested Breakfast Cookies. He was so excited to help me, and it was a great idea. So we made a double batch.

They turned out tasty, but for some reason all the cookies I’m making in this oven aren’t turning out pretty. I still feel like I’m getting used to my Castle oven. :)

Eva came over that morning to help with kids. Brayden and Kiya had fun playing games with her. And it was because she was there helping that Keith and I were able to make our Breakfast Cookies. :)

We warmed up leftover mac and cheese and Pizza Chicken Bake for lunch with sliced oranges and cucumbers.

That afternoon, Malachi finished packing and loading up all of his stuff. He and his cousin, Troy, have been making plans to rent an apartment together here in Lincoln. And Monday – cold as it was – was moving day. Snifffffff. I’m super happy for Malachi, just as I was when his three older boys left for college and got to venture out on their own. But I cried just the same, just as I did for his three older brothers. I just really, really like my kids. :)

And yes, he’s just moving across town so I’ll see him often. Which is why he chuckled at my tears.

Currently living at our house right now: Matt and me, Elias, Brayden, Kiya, Keith, Anna, Acacia, Josie, BabyBoy#11, plus three gals who rent our three third floor suites. We frequently have our adult kids coming and going plus lots of friends in and out. This Castle God gave us is such a blessing. :)

Back to our Food and Fun…

That afternoon, Justus and Kelsey came over and they, along with Eva, started doing some freezer cooking. By the end of the afternoon we’d made a huge bunch of Breakfast Sandwiches, Burritos, and four pans of Creamy Salsa Enchiladas.

For dinner that night, I baked our pan of Creamy Salsa Enchiladas and served it with canned fruit, fresh spinach, and buttered corn. We’d gotten a fun M&M Cookie Mix in a Jar for Christmas so we baked those for dessert.

Our kids were going a little bit nuts (Matt and I were fine though, hahaha) because of being copped up in the house for so many days. So we let the kids play in the bathtub until they got wrinkled that night, just because we needed some kind of indoor activity and change of pace. As we pulled them out and jammied them up for bed, Matt made popcorn for a bedtime snack.

Tuesday morning was guess what? Another snow day. We lazed around watching a show that morning, then ate some of the Breakfast Sandwiches that Justus had made the day before plus some of the Breakfast Cookies.

As a way to provide some structure and learning to our day after having SO MANY DAYS away from school, I decided that we would have a “Pretend Homeschool Day.” I pulled out activity books and put together Learning Packets for Brayden, Kiya, and Keith. They loved this!

They spent a full hour and a half on their packets, taking their jobs very seriously. I was thankful God had given me the inspiration to do this that morning.

While the “big kids” were doing their school work, Matt hung out with the littler ones. Magnatiles are the best.

Meanwhile, Kelsey had managed to slowly make the drive over to help us out, praise God. She had stopped at the store for us on her way, picking up much needed formula and milk – plus construction paper and balloons!

 

Just before lunch, I read a Magic School Bus book to the kids for a “science lesson.” After lunch, I found the episode that went along with this book on Netflix so they got to watch that and have fun learning more about the Human Body.

Lunch was leftovers, heated up by Kelsey. We all chose from Beanie Weanies, Taco Soup, and Ham and Potato Soup.

Keith helped me make dinner that night. He was so proud of how he poured the sauce on the chicken all by himself.

He also helped me make a double batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins. These made a great snack that afternoon plus a great addition to our dinner that night.

The temps were still ridiculously cold, but Kelsey bundled up with the kids and went outside anyway. It had been days and days since they’d been outside and they were needing the fresh air. Most of the kids only lasted a short time, but Brayden hung in there for about an hour. Phew1

Dinner that night was Barbecue Chicken, Green Beans, 10-Minute Mac and Cheese, and Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins.

It was a loud and crazy mealtime (louder and crazier than normal) because several of the kids had refused naps that day and were cranky. Matt had to go to our church building to help with a frozen pipe flooding mess. <— This has turned into quite an ordeal as the building now has a lot of damage.

A friend had come by for dinner, so she got to help with babies, bless her. Our three housemates helped with babies. Kelsey stayed to help with babies and helped me get them all to bed. It was a pretty crazy evening.

Oh! Also, my brother, Kevin, had come to town from Kansas to help his son Troy move into the apartment he is sharing with Malachi.

It was all good but wow was I happy to see bedtime roll around that night. :)

Wednesday we sent Kevin off and were able to get the kids to school. They were excited to go back! Acacia wanted to help me fold laundry and she actually did it. She was very proud of her work, as she should be!

I knew that this would be the warmest day of the week so during naptime I headed to Walmart and Costco for groceries.

Is it just me, or do we go through a lot of food every week? I’m not sure why this astounds me every single time I fill the back of our huge van with food. :)

I picked up as many of our kids’ WIC items at Walmart that I could that day. But BabyBoy#11 has been put on a special Toddler Formula since he isn’t eating solids yet. I am having a hard time finding it and will have to keep looking around town.

I got home from the store just as Matt was getting home with Brayden and Kiya from school. So they got to help bring in all the groceries. I’m excited to see that while our kids still need so much focused care, some of them are also becoming big helpers. We’re getting there!

I made four pounds worth of Hamburgers plus a big bag of Fries for dinner that night. Plus I cut up a watermelon I’d found at Costco. Watermelon in January? I’ve never bought one in the winter before. But Kiya had been hungry for watermelon and I wanted to surprise her. She was so excited!

I cut it all off the rind and we ate almost all of it with our dinner. Just before bedtime I caught these three stinkers up at the counter stuffing more of it into their mouths and GIGGLING. Oh, the giggling. I swiped the tray of melon away because it was getting destroyed and making a sticky mess. But I also captured this photo because they were still in a fit of giggles. :)

Thursday morning the kids had fun playing dress-up during BabyBoy#11’s naptime.

Josie helped me make Brownies for Elias’ birthday.

Malachi came over to give Elias his birthday gift and to take him out for coffee. :)

That afternoon, it started to snow again. Matt parked our van on the side of our house after picking the kids up from school because he needed to shovel our driveway. The snow had continued to fall so by the time he was ready to move it back to the driveway, the van got stuck. Well. There “just so happened” to be a tow truck driving by. The driver turned around and pulled Matt out, refusing to let Matt pay him anything. Amazing!

We all watched this “show” from our play room windows. :)

It was Elias’ birthday and we’d invited all of our kids to join us for dinner. With the snow falling yet again, some decided just to stay in for the night. But Asa and Eva were able to make their way over after the snow stopped. We’ll have another “official birthday dinner” a different night. But this night we had Elias’ choice of Fish Tacos with the works.

He had requested Frosted Brownies for dessert, and I filled the pan with 22 candles to challenge him to blow them all out in one breath.

Can he do it?

Yes, he can.

 

Friday is a bit of a blur as I tried to get caught up on laundry (4 loads, woot!) and reset for the weekend. Usually I make some sort of fun dinner on Fridays, but this time I decided we just needed to clean out the fridge. So we rewarmed the last of our White Chicken Chili and 10-Minute Mac and Cheese and that was that.

Asa stopped by with a couple of his buddies that we hadn’t seen for a while, so that was awesome. Elias had some friends over to hang out for his birthday, and that was also awesome. We put all the littles to bed after a long week, and that was the most awesome of all, ha. :)

Saturday morning for breakfast I made sausage and Peanut Butter Honey Puffs (the childhood favorite recipe I mentioned here). I’ll share my adapted recipe for these in a post soon. These are so good and our kids love them like I used to!

After breakfast, we prepped to host House Church on Sunday. With the pipe bursting and the subsequent flooding at our building, our elders and ministry staff worked extra hard to organize a Live Stream option and encouraged people to meet in homes to worship together. I haven’t made communion bread for years, but found a recipe online and it came together quickly.

Please take a moment to appreciate how un-uniformly I cut the pieces. Good grief, Laura. :)

Next, I got the kids involved in helping me pack a picnic for after church. There had been a scheduled “Picnic with Pals” with our Kids Ministry Group inviting us all to stay after worship and enjoy together. But with the building being unusable, the new meet up spot became one of our malls in town. Knowing we’d need to leave right after online worship to make it on time, we got our food packed and put into the fridge to grab and take with us.

I was feeling a bit like I needed a kitchen break, so for lunch we had Chicken Nuggets, Spinach with Dip, and Oranges.

Dinner that night was Hotdogs and Peas. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: August 27-September 2, 2023

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Our Big Family Food and Fun this week included weekend company, a birthday celebration, and a church party…

Big Family Food and Fun: August 27-September 2, 2023

Sunday morning as I was getting the three little girls dressed, they suddenly started to be twirly and dancy and huggy. I started snapping pictures and they started posing and I got so many cute and giggly photos!

Breakfast that morning – before they were dressed so that we didn’t destroy clean outfits – was leftover goodies I’d made last week: Banana Bread and Chewy Granola Bars.

We planned to stay at church for lunch that day, so I packed up grapes, nacho dip/chips, and brownies to share. (I also took a loaf of banana bread I’d made in hopes that our friend who just had a new baby might be there. She was there! New Baby is precious, and I stuck the loaf of bread into her stroller for her to take home and enjoy.)

Lunch that day was a crazy fun Parking Lot Party after church. There were 150+ who stuck around after church to eat, visit, and play.

We’d taken our Shaved Ice Machine and Elias filled cup after cup for everyone at the party. Take a look below at the precious baby in the yellow dress standing by her brother’s leg. She stood there for the longest time, just being with him while he worked. Josie sure does love her brother. :)

That evening we met up with friends at a park. I packed a picnic (cheese, crackers, mandarin oranges, pistachios, and juice) but only got one picture the entire night! We were having too much fun visiting and playing.

Monday morning we ate more of the same (I had made a HUGE batch of the granola bars), plus apples with this special cheese.

Lunch was leftover 3-Cheese Spaghetti. Dinner was a dish I’d made ahead of time here. I dumped it into the crock pot at lunch time, turned it on low, and it was bubbly at dinnertime. We ate it as a chip dip with watermelon.

Tuesday morning Brayden had tests at school so he informed me that he needed “good sleep and a good breakfast.” I made cheese eggs and sausage (while an unnamed toddler was tantruming on the floor – part of her typical morning routine as we try to help her learn to regulate her emotions).

I got out strawberries and Orange Muffins that I had frozen and thawed.

After we walked Brayden and Kiya to school, we came home and did some cleaning. Anna and Josie “helped” by getting a hand broom and dust pan. The effectively spread around everything I’d swept up and made me do the work twice. ;) But I love that they want to help and that they are learning.

Meanwhile, Matt was upstairs using a power sander in one of our third floor suites that we are getting ready to rent out.

Elias and Malachi helped me with the five littlest all morning since Matt was upstairs working. I actually got quite a bit done in the kitchen that morning since the two guys were chasing kids for me. I made these 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (multiplying the recipe x6) so that we can eat some now and have cookies in the freezer to use as needed later.

At lunchtime, I cleaned leftovers out of the fridge for all of us to eat. Unfortunately, I left the corn cooking too long and all the water steamed off so the bottoms got blackened. The kids were not impressed. ;)

I had to take BabyBoy#11 to a doctor appointment that afternoon, so before we left I put everything for this recipe into a crock pot (I even managed to plug it in AND turn it on. Go me.)

That evening I plated and bagged all the cookies I had made so now we have four bags of frozen 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies ready to pull out and use as needed.

Wednesday was a bit of a blur. But for dinner that night I made two griddles full of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with an air fryer full of French fries. I also made a bowl full of Strawberry Fluff which the kids loved.

After we got the kitchen cleaned up that night, we drove to the zoo and walked around the garden they feature just outside the zoo. We hadn’t had a chance to do that yet so it was extra special to do this just before bedtime.

Thursday morning after we walked Brayden and Kiya to school, we loaded up the youngest five kids and headed to Aldi. Phew, we filled two carts and that was just with children, ha. Somehow we managed to also put food into our carts, getting our Aldi favorites: whole milk yogurt, whole milk cottage cheese, whole milk, three varieties of bagels, hoagie buns, apple juice, pear cups in 100% juice, and three varieties of cheese slices.

I don’t always like to buy produce at Aldi, but they had really good prices that day and the quality looked better than usual. I bought bananas, cantaloupe, watermelon, pears, two varieties of organic apples, grapes, blueberries, and four bags of salad mixes. I also found a 5-pound roast for $1.99/pound so I grabbed it. Chips were on sale for $0.99/bag so I got six bags.

This is what it looks like when the Coppingers “run into Aldi for a few things.”

I ended August with a whopping $1,780 grocery spending total – more than I’ve ever spent that I can remember. I’d feel bad about it except that I don’t – not even a little bit. We went under budget for several months in a row before this month and we had a lot of extra food needs this month. God provides, we make the wisest choices that we can, and we feed a lot of people. Praise God for His provision!

—> This is the grocery budget number I shoot for, but as always, I realize that I may need to make adjustments and increase the number. Stay tuned. <—

It felt so good to have so much fresh fruit on hand again!

I snapped this photo of the third floor room Matt’s been working on all week. Here’s the floor, half-way finished. So gorgeous!

Thursday afternoon our sweet friends, Steven and Barbara, dropped off two lovely loaves of banana bread for us – all sliced and ready to eat!

It was Acacia’s birthday so I put 12 burgers on the grill plus 14 brats.

I made a birthday cake, poking holes into it and pouring pudding into the holes, then topping it with whipped cream. The only thing I made from scratch was the whipped cream. Boxed cake mix and pudding mix for the win this time. :)

She may have turned three, but she’s already mother hen to this baby chick as we try to help him gain strength to sit on his own.

Some of our big kids were able to join us for dinner so I set out a spread of brats and burgers, chips, and fruit.

She figured out how to blow out the candles. :)

Keith was so excited to hand Acacia her gift – a little purse I’d found on clearance for $3.00. She loved it and has been carrying it around everywhere!

Friday morning we enjoyed Ms. Barbara’s banana bread with yogurt and blueberries.

After we got the kids off to school, Matt and Elias headed to York to work and Malachi helped me take the kids to Costco. I didn’t need to shop, I just needed customer service as I had noticed that the last time I was there they rang up four cases of diapers when, in fact, I had only purchased three. Since it was a $45 discrepancy, I felt it was worth getting credit back. Thus, going to Costco became our morning outing. :)

The boys started to get restless so Malachi walked around with Keith and BabyBoy#11 while I got the bill figured out with Customer Service.

Then we had a special treat of Costco Pizza. It was mostly a mess (like, a 12-15 wet wipes to clean up the pizza sauce mess). But it was fun for everyone and $6 took care of that day’s lunch!

As we were loading everyone back into the cart to head out to the van, Little-Mama-Acacia started to rub BabyBoy#11’s back. Goodness, the sweetness.

That night Malachi threw Sam’s Orange Chicken into the air fryer, and I got out cold watermelon and two bags of salad mix from Aldi. It was easy and hit the spot!

When Matt and Elias arrived back at home, they had our former foster son, age 4, with them to spend the weekend. Everyone was overjoyed to be back together!

The kids played and played outside that evening. I thought they might need a little something to eat to fill their bellies before bed, so I took grapes and cheese outside. They all thought that was a good plan. :)

Some dear friends arrived Friday night to visit for the weekend! For breakfast on Saturday, I set out banana bread and muffins, yogurt, blueberries, bananas, and made sausage and tator tots. Brayden had requested hashbrowns but I was out so we decided that tator tots were the same thing. ;)

The kids asked to play cards that morning, and this was the result. Ugh.

We packed up a big picnic for lunch and headed out to the Splash Park for one last hoorah before it closed for the season.

I wasn’t sure I had enough lunch meat left in my packages, so I threw together a container of tuna salad real quickly.

I smoked two pork loin for dinner that evening and served them with green beans, watermelon, buttered and toasted hoagies leftover from lunch, and Cream Cheese Corn. Meals like these are my favorite!!

After dinner, we took our friends on a walk to our beloved Sunken Gardens. Aww, there’s our Kellie with her baby boy. We became friends with Kellie and Ben while they were students at YU. They spent a lot of time at our house during those days and became a part of our family. Now here they are with a baby of their own. It was amazing to have a weekend with them!

Here we are in September, heading from summer into fall. We’re going to soak up every last bit of nice weather while it’s here!

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Big Family Food and Fun: July 30-August 5, 2023

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What does our Big Family Food and Fun look like as July ends and August begins?

Before we dive into the week, here are a few more photos that Kelsey took during last week’s surprise birthday party. She was intentional about getting pictures with me in them, since I am usually taking the pictures and therefore not in them. :)

Friends kept showing up to surprise me all day long. Amazing!

The chip and dip buffet:

I had a hard time winding down that night! What a fantastic day!

Big Family Food and Fun: July 30-August 5, 2023

And now for the new week!

Sunday for lunch I tried Pizza Chicken in the crock pot (usually I make it in the oven). It sort of worked??!? I made 8-pounds of chicken thighs at once, so the middle chicken pieces didn’t get thoroughly cooked while we were at church. We ate what was ready and I finished cooking the under-done pieces in a skillet while we ate the rest. We had green beans, corn, bread/butter, and No-Bake Cookies with our Pizza Chicken.

Sunday evening we were invited to swim at our friends’ house and have dinner with them. We had THE BEST TIME!!!!

There were plenty of adults and teens to help with our littles so they got to have fun in the pool too. Then we ate a delicious feast of Sloppy Joes on homemade slider buns, baked beans, grapes, cucumbers, watermelon, salad, pickles, chips, and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats. We felt so spoiled!


Monday morning we enjoyed Pumpkin Bread and Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread – both made by friends who gifted them to us. So good!

Here’s how Josie felt about it her chocolate bread breakfast. ;)

We needed to go to the bank to both set up an account and to get some paperwork signed/notarized. So  we figured out a way to do it without taking seven babies into the bank, yikes! I packed grapes, animal crackers, and water or juice for everyone and we headed out.

First we stopped at a park to wear them out a little bit. Then we loaded them back into the van and headed to the bank where I stayed with them and handed out snacks while Matt went in to get our account set up. After wayyyyyy to long (it couldn’t be helped), Matt came out and stayed with the kids while I ran in to do my part. We are thankful that the bank people worked with us and that we could get this necessary business done!

Meanwhile, it was past lunchtime because the bank needs took much longer than we anticipated. So I texted Malachi to throw Chicken Strips into the air fryer so we’d have food right away when we got home. At 12:50, we finally made it back and gave them chicken and canned fruit while I warmed up peas to complete the meal. Naptime didn’t happen until almost 2:00 that day but we sure were thankful to finally have our bank account set up and paperwork taken care of!

Dinner that night was Breakfast – pancakes, scrambled cheese eggs, sausage, bacon, blueberries, and applesauce. This is one of our favorite meals! And having a griddle on my stove is INCREDIBLE. I cranked out a huge amount of pancakes in a very short amount of time. Amazing!

The weather was beautiful that evening so we took another walk to the Sunken Gardens before bedtime.

We finished the Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread on Tuesday morning, plus I got out our apple-peeler-corer-slicer and made apple spirals for the kids. (This is actually faster than slicing them and the kids love it!) They ate the apples with our favorite “caramel cheese” so breakfast seemed like a real treat!

Matt kept all the kids occupied outside of the kitchen after breakfast because after eating chocolate bread – I desperately needed to sweep and mop. Then we packed a lunch and headed to the zoo for our morning outing. I used the rest of our leftover smoked chicken from last week to make Chicken-Ranch-Spinach Melts.

We weren’t sure how this would work since these are hot sandwiches. But I packed our cold side dishes and drinks in one cooler with ice. Then I packed the hot sandwiches in a separate insulated lunch bag. I toasted the sandwiches in our air fryer at 10:30 and at noon when we ate at the park, the sandwiches were still hot. Amazing! Now we know!

Flamingos are our favorite. Watch the video here to learn why.

Each time we go to the zoo (we have a membership and we live six blocks away so we can go as often as we are able), we choose something different to “feature” for the kids so that every trip is special. This time it was the Dino Dig. We chose a table by the digging area so that the kids could play and then eat when they were ready. The hot sandwiches were a hit, plus we had applesauce, chips and salsa, and juice.

We headed home and put littles down for a nap then I headed to Costco. I underestimated how long my shopping would take – and how many carts I would fill. Phew. Every time I’m buying food or clothes I’m struck by the reality of how many kids I have. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, haha.

I needed many basics, plus I was getting items for our kids’ lunchboxes for first couple of weeks back to school. Plus I needed diapers, and the yogurt was on sale, and….

I was an hour later than planned getting home. Matt had fed the kids leftovers for dinner but it didn’t matter. They were screaming and extra needy anyway. We somehow unloaded all the groceries while holding very loud children.

All said and done, I spent $653 for Costco groceries and we are well stocked up, at least for a few days before we run out of fresh produce again. :)

Wednesday morning Matt and and Elias headed to York to work on our houses there. Malachi was my side-kick all day, helping me with littles. I had an at-home 9:00 meeting for our littlest kids. Then at 10:30 we decided that a fun morning outing would be McDonald’s Play Place. Malachi’s app told us that we could buy nuggets for a good deal so I told the kids that everyone would have a fun snack of 2 chicken nuggets each and that we’d play and come home and bake pizzas.

Good idea, Mom.

Except – do McDonald’s Play Places not exist anymore??? It’s a been a long time since I’ve looked for one. My phone told me there was a Play Place so we drove to that location. But in fact, there was no Play Place. Moving on to Plan B…

Malachi still grabbed nuggets, we handed everyone their tiny 2-nugget snack to eat in their car seats, and we headed to the Scheels to enjoy their Play Place. Phew.

Oh but did I mention that our wagon broke while we were in there?! Good grief.

The kids had a great time playing, Malachi grabbed himself some frisbee golf discs, and we headed home – much later than intended. Too late to bake pizzas before having screaming children who had become hangry.

Soooo, when we got home I told the kids to wash hands, get a drink of water, and meet me at the table for fun sliced apples. We scooped out peanut butter for them to eat with their apples, I found leftover pancakes to warm up with butter, and that was lunch. THEN IT WAS NAPTIME, thank you Jesus.

Oh wait. It was not naptime. I had missed the fact that the three little girls had been taking turns smearing their peanut butter in each others’ hair. Oh no they hadn’t. Oh yes they had. I took them to the sink at stuck their head under the water to clean their hair the best I could. And then it was naptime. Wet hair and all.

That afternoon I experienced something new…

Grocery Delivery

After yesterday’s crazy Costco shopping trip I decided to see how I could make grocery shopping easier to meet our family’s needs. So I put in an Aldi order and took advantage of a Free Delivery deal.

Having my groceries delivered to my door? AWESOME. But will I do it again? I’m not sure. Probably not??

While shopping, I noticed that Aldi’s online prices were all higher than in-store prices. This is the case for both pick-up and delivery. With the high volume of items I need to buy, it will not be worth it to pay the extra amount per every item. Anyone have experience with Aldi pick-up or delivery? Any tips for how to save? Or should I skip it and just shop in the store somehow each week?

Is it still only Wednesday?

Thank goodness for afternoon rest times. I enjoyed some down-time (sitting with my feet up  and uploading pictures of all of our food, hehe) then got ready for company. I was so excited about this because friends from York were coming for dinner. Kelsey happened to be free to join us and I’m not sure if you know this, but she is a professional watermelon-cutter-upper. That’s always her job when she comes. ;)

There were 22 of us for dinner that night and it was magical. We smoked two different kinds of brats and ate them with salad, watermelon, grapes, oranges, carrots, chips, No-Bake Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. (<— awww, I wrote this when Asa was only 15.) We enjoyed our visit so much!!

I was visiting with our guests, the bigger littles were playing outside with their kids and our neighbors, and it was getting close to bedtime. Kelsey grabbed the three little girls and gave them a bath to get the rest of the peanut butter out of their hair. Bless. Then Kelsey, along with guests Julie and Emma put them girls down for the night. This was such a precious scene as they said goodnight and headed to bed…

Thursday was my big birthday. :) Just like the day before, I had meetings all morning for our little ones (The Early Childhood Development team is highly involved with our kids ages 0-3 because they are all at high risk and need early intervention. We met with them frequently in York and now we are getting set up with our new team in Lincoln. Lots of meetings later, we are almost ready to roll!)

While I was in our living room filling out paperwork and answering questions, Matt and the kids made a picnic lunch for us. They made Chicken Salad and put it on croissants for sandwiches, plus packed applesauce and chips. I had splurged on Kirkland’s Organic Chocolate Milk for a special treat for picnics but none of the kids enjoyed them very much. A bummer, but now I know not to buy them again. :)

After we ate, the kids ran around the park and attempted to climb a tree.

After naps, they put together a special show for me for my birthday, hahaha.

Elias cooked and perfectly seasoned the shaved beef steak I had gotten in our Aldi delivery, then everyone else worked together to put together a buffet for Steak Nachos for my birthday dinner. All the Bigs were able to join so all 15 of us were together – just what I wanted for my birthday!

My nacho bowl was so delicious!! Cilantro, white queso, seasoned steak, corn, black beans, garden tomatoes, and chips. It was a perfect birthday meal.

Ah, but then there was cheesecake!!

After we ate, we headed outside to hang out.

Kelsey taught me how to play Cornhole. Super fun!

It was a great birthday!

Friday morning we ate cereal and bananas, then headed to a bookstore that was featuring a Reptile Storytime.

We ended up being there with several families from church which was a fun surprise! Most of our kids were brave enough to pet the snakes. :)

Since we were already out and about, we found a park that we hadn’t tried out yet and ate the rest of the Chicken Salad on croissants and No Bake Cookies with juice and clementines. But oooops. This park didn’t have bathrooms, which is a no-go with this many kids! We cut our picnic short and came home so that we could make a mess of food all over our kitchen floor. I mean, so that some of the kids could potty while we finished lunch in our kitchen. :)

For dinner that night I decided that I wanted NO DIRTY DISHES (or drama), so I threw a bunch of chicken nuggets into the air fryer and made these smoothies. Disposable plastic cups with fun straws for the win!

Malachi had made himself a pizza for lunch and the cardboard circle was still on the counter. So that became my fancy serving tray for the nuggets. Nice, eh? The kids ate outside while playing because the weather was wonderful.

Meanwhile, Justus had been coming back and forth all day working with our smoker to made his delicious ribs for some buddies that night. Brayden was his side-kick, which is good beyond what I can express. Our little kids need our bigger kids pouring into them like this. Thank you, God, for moving us to Lincoln so that we could be together in these ways. We all need this.

Acacia gave up on her straw and went all in, drinking her smoothie like a big girl.

Plan B again

If we’ve learned anything we’ve learned that we can make plans, but they almost always need to change.

Saturday morning we had plans to go to Walmart to get a few school supplies and some of our WIC items for the month, especially formula for BabyBoy#11. But, the roofers we’d been waiting on for over a month to come do repairs FINALLY came that morning. So Matt needed to spend time with them, pushing back our plans.

By 11am we were finally able to get out the door, and we decided we needed to work our plans out differently. I put together a snack of animal crackers, applesauce pouches, and cheese sticks and we made our way to the store. All the kids stayed in the the van with Matt and he handed out snacks while I ran into Walmart and hurried as fast as I could to get everything we needed. It wasn’t a very fun outing for the kids, but at least the necessary shopping got done.

I forgot to take any pictures, sorry! I got formula, cereal, juice, cheese, yogurt, frozen hashbrowns, spring mix, spinach, grapes, pears, bananas, strawberries, plus a few packs of glue sticks, crayons, and pencils. Matt and the kids were hanging in there in the van, bless. We unloaded groceries as fast as we could when we got home then quickly warmed up leftover brats and served them with watermelon before naptime.

We made fresh green beans from our friends’ garden that night plus corn on the cob. I put a bunch of Burritos from our freezer into the air fryer to heat up while the veggies cooked and that was dinner. (By the way, make these burritos to have on hand for nights you don’t feel like or have time for cooking. They are so great!)

This was my view of dinner from the corner of the room where I sat feeding BabyBoy#11.

We just have one more week before school starts. We are both excited and sad that summer break ends and a school year begins. When do your kids start their school year again?

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