Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: April 21-27, 2024 post!
Big Family Food and Fun: April 21-27, 2024
Sunday morning was a bit less intense compared to the past few weeks. Instead of having to pack an entire lunch for our family to eat after church and before Keith’s soccer game, we were planning to enjoy a potluck lunch with our church family. My only responsibility was to take Frosted Brownies, which I had baked and frozen last week.
So while feeding all the kids breakfast, I put BabyBoy#11 into one of our kitchen sinks for his “bath.” A couple of the kids had fun helping me.
We loved spending extra time with so many friends after church while we ate.
Then we loaded up and headed to Keith’s soccer game. I had packed apples and pistachios to snack on at the game because even though we had just eaten lunch, we seem to always still need snacks. ;)
I tried to capture a picture of Keith’s fan club as we all trailed out after the game. We are quite a parade.
I had put a a Pork Roast into a crock pot early that morning for our dinner that night. But it was still not quite done at mealtime. So I left it to continue cooking and pulled out leftovers to fill our bellies.
It was a boring and no-veggie dinner of leftover Smoked Chicken, Mac and Cheese, and Toasted Sourdough Bread.
I had made some Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream that afternoon so we all enjoyed it with graham crackers as a treat after dinner.
Monday morning for breakfast I scrambled eggs and the kids made toast for themselves to go with their eggs.
It was a warm day so the girls were so happy to put on new summer-y outfits!
I attempted to take Anna to Food Distribution where Keith and I go on Monday mornings. Once Keith starts Kindergarten next year, Anna will be my Food Distribution sidekick. I instructed Keith to show her how it’s done and he did – sort of. They got pretty distracted by toy donations in the room where we were working, oy.
I just had the two of them for the rest of that morning because Matt and Elias had taken the three youngest kids to York for the day to spend time with our friend Nancy. So I spent my time and energy working extra on some of Keith and Anna’s behavior needs. And I taught them both to help me load the dishwasher.
After school, Kiya set up a nail salon on our back steps. :)
We had lots of visits from friends that afternoon/evening as our dear friend Phyllis came to see us. She showers us with love when she comes and our time with her is such a gift.
Then friends Charlene and Samantha came for the evening. Once our girls discovered Samantha’s purse, it was all over. Thank you, Sam, for letting them use up ALL YOUR LOTION AND CHAPSTICK. All of it. Gone. Plus dental floss. Bless.
I was so busy enjoying friends that evening that I didn’t cook or take pictures of what I didn’t cook. ;)
I asked Elias to throw in four frozen pizzas for us, which he did, and here’s what that looked like at the end of the night:
Tuesday, Matt and I made a plan to run to a couple of stores and then go to a park before heading home. I packed lunch, knowing that we would need to eat through all of these plans.
We had some lunchmeat that needed to be eaten up so I put it on buns with cheese and melted them in our air fryer just before we left for our outing.
Matt stayed in the van with our littles while I ran into Walmart for inner tubes so he could fix bike tires later that day. While in the store, I couldn’t not run over to see if there were any food mark-downs, right? Woo – marked down pizzas!
And a beef roast for $3.08/pound!
Our time at the park was windy! But it was a good outing for the kids so that we could get their energy out.
We dropped Acacia and Josie off at Ms. Kathi’s on our way home for their special time with her that day. Then we got home and put away groceries we’d picked up that afternoon. Here’s what I got at Aldi:
Keith and Anna didn’t have school that day. Anna was excited to help me load the dishwasher, seeing as she’d been taught how the day before and was now an expert.
Keith played in the dirt all afternoon and came in with a mustache.
Justus, Kelsey, and Kelsey’s mom, Nicole, came for dinner that night! Brayden, Kiya, and I had just arrived back from helping at the Food Distribution but I had all the food in crock pots or ready to rewarm on the stove. We had Sunday night’s Pork Roast, Crock Pot Baked Potatoes, Corn, Green Beans, Rolls, and Strawberries with Whipped Cream.
We don’t get to see Nicole very often so it’s a huge treat that she is in town!
Wednesday morning, I made French Toast and Bacon. I also blended up a smoothie full of greens for Matt and me.
It is worth a mention that I do very well keeping children alive. But plants? Not so much. (Water perked these back up, thankfully.)
While the plants were suffering and dehydrated, I also failed to pull the last of our bacon out of the oven at the right time. I decided to make as much bacon as possible that morning to get ahead. But then I forgot about these pans when I went upstairs to get myself dressed and ready for the day.
Can’t win ’em all.
Matt and Elias spent the day in York working again and they took the youngest three kids to our friend Emma’s for the day. They loved this!
That night for dinner I grilled some Pork Steak I’d picked up on the cheap a few weeks ago.
They turned out amazing! We ate them with strawberries and salad.
Thursday morning I let Brayden and Kiya toast their own bagels or toast in the air fryer (they consider this a huge privilege). We ate them with applesauce or bananas.
Matt needed some items at Menards so he dropped three kids and me at Sam’s while he took the other two kids across the parking lot to Menards to do his shopping. My main goal was to get fruits and veggies because we go through them so quickly. Beyond spinach, spring mix, broccoli, oranges, salad kits, and grapes, I picked up some kleenex, plastic containers, barbecue sauce, pickles, heavy whipping cream, almond butter, hot dogs, milk, eggs, and fig bars.
We dropped Acacia and Josie off at Josalyn’s where they spent some time painting. :)
Late afternoon I handed everyone a box or two of kleenex from the case we’d bought at Sam’s that day and we all paraded up the stairs to put them on our storage shelf.
Kiya is quite the organizer, so she helped everyone put their box in its place.
We had to be at the kids’ school that evening for a special Preschool Family Open House so for an early dinner I baked the Walmart pizzas that I’d picked up earlier in the week.
Keith and Anna were so excited to introduce us to all their friends. Brayden was excited too because he has had the privilege of helping in a preschool classroom a few mornings recently. He felt like a celebrity when he walked in and was swarmed by little ones who were happy to see him!
There were activities set up at tables for us to enjoy.
Of course Anna found the flamingos at the photo booth!
Friday the kids didn’t have school so I made a huge batch of pancakes with sausage.
I was planning to make these Chocolate Cupcakes (with spinach) but discovered that I didn’t have any chocolate cake mixes. Not to worry – I just added a little bit of cocoa powder to the yellow cake mix to cover up the green spinach. :) While I was using greens, I made another batch of these smoothies for Matt and me.
Mid morning I packed up a lunch for us to take on our outing for the day. It was rainy and wet outside so we decided to take everyone to the indoor mall play place to get energy out. For lunch I packed Cheese, Salami, Crackers, Grapes, and the Cupcakes with a container of frosting to surprise the kids.
The mall play area was a big hit!
At lunchtime we took all eight kids (our Bonus Boy was with us again this weekend) to potty and wash hands. Then we sat in the Food Court and handed out the lunch we’d packed. It was both sweet and crazy. :)
Back at home, there were tornado sirens off and on all afternoon, which was a bit nerve-wracking for some of our kids. As many of you heard, there ended up being a lot of tornado-action here in Lincoln and in Omaha and surrounding areas. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who emailed to check in on us. Thankfully, we are all safe and sound.
Because of the craziness of the afternoon, we stayed in that night and warmed up leftovers for dinner. Kiya was excited to be our food-warmer-upper. :)
While Kiya was working on dinner, I used Sunday’s leftover Pork Roast to get ahead for future meals. I put together a huge pan of Party Potatoes with Pork Roast. Then I turned the rest of the meat into sandwiches like this. All of the adults in our house love having individually wrapped sandwiches on hand to grab and go for work needs.
Saturday morning we had No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites. (I had intended to make No-Bake Snickerdoodle Bites but realized too late that I didn’t add cinnamon. So I switched to chocolate chip and no one complained!)
While the kids played outside, I prepped our Sunday lunch. We were going to have a fun Sundaes on Sunday event with church friends right after worship service and everyone was to bring their lunch. I made two loaves of bread worth of Uncrustables to take with us. Then I used the crusts to make Easy Bread Pudding for our Sunday breakfast.
I headed outside so Matt could come in and get something done. I discovered that Brayden and Kiya were across the street with our neighbor, John. He is a plant and flower expert and they were helping him and learning as they went. This is so good for them!
Then John came over and started teaching our girls about the weeds in our yard that look like flowers. Note how Acacia has her arms around Josie and Anna. She is such a little mama. :)
The weather was decent so we decided to load up the eight kids and go to the zoo for a few hours. I grabbed a random assortment of whatever was easiest to grab for us to eat for lunch an snacks while we were there.
After we finished eating, the kids lined up on a wall to watch a Porcupine lesson being taught in the exhibit area.
We headed over to look at other animals and were stopped by a Peacock with all its feathers spread wide. Amazing!
We played in the sand area for quite a while before loading up for home. We had a huge afternoon/evening with people stopping by for visits including overnight guests. Our friend Malorie has turned into Elias’ girlfriend Malorie. :) :) :) She graduated from college that day and her family came to spend the evening and night with us. It was a wonderful time getting to know each other better!
For dinner I made a meal similar to this one with Smoked Chicken Legs, Caesar Salad, Corn, Baked Beans, and Rolls.
We got a bunch of dirty, tired kids through the bath and that was our week!
