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Big Family Food and Fun: March 9-15, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: March 9-15, 2025 post!

First, the tail end of last week…

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!

We were prepping for an extra fun Sunday Lunch time in which we were having a breakfast themed meal! Brayden, Kiya, and Anna were excited to help me bake on Saturday afternoon. We got out cake mixes and cans of pumpkin to make this super simple recipe. Are they cupcakes or are they muffins? The answer is yes. They are a treat and perfect to go with a brunch!

They turned out fun and made a nice display!

We also made a batch of these Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins, and made them in our mini muffin pan.

Dinner that night was a simple meal of Spaghetti with Corn and Spinach. Then we spent the evening having special prayer time as we reflected on our week.

Big Family Food and Fun: March 9-15, 2025

While Sunday Lunches are BIG, you may notice that our Sunday breakfast and dinner have become routine – the exact same every single week. This has been a perfect way for me to streamline and save brain energy (and more fully enjoy Sunday Lunches). Plus the kids love our breakfast and dinner choice, so that’s helpful too (no food fights during these meals, yay!). Because we are trying to Sabbath during this time, having Breakfast Cookie Bars made ahead and in the freezer for Sunday mornings is perfect and easy.

Note that Sabbath for us doesn’t mean curl up in a blanket and do nothing for hours. This isn’t possible during this season of our lives. For us, Sabbath has become a full day’s break from routine work. We use paper plates, I make food ahead of time, I don’t do laundry, and I don’t think about upcoming needs. We choose to be in the moment during this 24-hour period of time.

We enjoy community – the best part of our Sabbath rest. We worship together at church and visit all morning, connecting with our church family and meeting visitors. Our older kids and many friends come to enjoy lunch with us at our house. Then at 2:00, Matt and I send the kids downstairs to watch a movie with a big brother while we have Community Group in the afternoon – a group of four couples loving on each other and sharpening each other in the Word.

By the end of Sunday, I’m both tired and so, so refreshed by the goodness God has brought through delighting in community. This has been an amazing practice that we hope to continue forever.

Sunday Lunch

So back to Sunday. I had in mind that we’d all enjoy a breakfast-themed meal. I made Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, Egg and Hashbrown Casserole and lots of Muffins. Friends brought Grapes and Berries, Coffeecake, Pastry, and “Baby Jesus in a Blanket” (you might know them as pigs-in-a-blanket but my friend taught me their real name because that’s what they have at Christmastime and I’ll never call them anything else from here on out).

It was an incredible feast! This meal far surpassed my vision for what it could be, and we were all delighted as we enjoyed eating together. We’ve learned that DELIGHT is a big part of Sabbath – fully enjoying every bite of food, savoring a sweet treat with coffee, enjoying wonderful conversation.

I didn’t get great pictures of everyone around our tables (as in, I did get some pictures but I caught some people with mouths open and they wouldn’t appreciate me posting them here, ha). But both our dining and living room tables were full and precious – with 28 of us gathered and sharing life.

Dinner that night was our regularly scheduled Sunday night Frozen Pizza.

We ate and played outside all that evening as the weather was absolutely gorgeous! Matt, Keith, and Malachi were kicking a ball in the yard. Then Keith ran off to play with a neighbor while Auggie got in on the action.

Josie was so excited to discover day lilies poking up out of the ground! Fresh green growth after a long, cold winter – We are all excited for this!

To end our day, we loaded up four bags of food and headed for a walk to fill one of our neighborhood Little Free Pantry boxes.

Monday morning we ate Yogurt with Granola then dug out some short sleeved shirts and shorts because the temps were supposed to be warm! We packed a picnic (tortillas, meat, cheese, and spinach for wraps plus apples, clementines, applesauce and Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins. Then we loaded up and headed to the zoo.

Eva and Arrow met us there – Arrow’s first zoo experience!

We watched a special Cheetah run and listened and learned more about Cheetahs.

As is our zoo tradition, I packed a bag of apples because the minute we walk into the zoo, everyone is somehow starving. Several kids chomped on an apple while we sat at the Cheetah presentation – even Auggie!

We continued on, seeing the animals along the chosen path of the day. Then we stopped to feel some animal furs. Arrow wasn’t sure what to think, but he reached out and gave it a try too. (His hat though!!)

The zoo was pretty packed that day, but at lunchtime we found a picnic table right by the Dino Dig – the best sandbox ever.

The kids played and played, getting soaked in sand and sunshine. Bath night after days like this are the best. Bring on the bathtub sludge!

We went home to get Auggie a nap and the rest of the kids continued to play outside all afternoon. Eva had told us that Chick-fil-a was offering free kids meals that day with purchase of an adult meal. Matt and I went back and forth and couldn’t decide if the free meal was really worth the effort, ha. There’s a reason we don’t take our kids to restaurants. Well, many reasons, but managing this many at an eating establishment is something special.

In case you’re wondering, we decided to go for it. It was spring break after all, and we wanted the kids to make fun memories.

They actually did very well and even got to enjoy the play area for a little while. How many trips did I take to the potty with little girls? I lost track. Also, how many napkins did we go through? Eh.

Everyone slept well that night!!! Tuesday morning, I made a big pan of Rice Krispie Peanut Butter Bars for breakfast.

Six kids stayed behind with Matt while I took Auggie to his Tuesday Speech Therapy appointment. He surprised us both by saying “bubble!” It was a good session. :)

When I got home, everyone was trying to play outside but it was still too chilly. So several of the kids joined me to make two loaves of Apple Bread with some bruised apples.

At lunchtime, I seasoned some hamburger meat I had in the fridge to feed everyone Tacos. Then the temps were warm enough that everyone could play outside all afternoon.

Before I left to take kids to  our weekly Food Distribution site, I fired up our smoker for the first time this season! I made our favorite marinated Smoked Chicken and put it in a crock pot to stay warm until dinner time.

Anna was privileged to go with us to Food Distribution this time. (Matt was going to be home without help, so we decided that if I took Anna and he was at home with the youngest three kids, it would be manageable.) She did great and the big kids were eager to teach her how to do the volunteer work.

Back at home, we devoured our Smoked Chicken with Steamed Broccoli, then the kids played outside again until bedtime. This is one of my favorite times of the year – when the weather gets nicer and the kids want to be outside for hours. Why did I not get any pictures of this fun? I guess because we were all enjoying the fun and I wasn’t in picture mode. :)

Wednesday morning, I put a Roast in the crock pot at 6:00am so it could slow cook all day. Later, I put potatoes in another crock pot for Mashed Potatoes. And I made a blender full of “salad” for Matt and me.

After breakfast, we loaded up all the kids and met Eva and Arrow at Morrill Hall, a museum on the UNL campus. Brayden and Kiya had been before, but this was a new outing for the rest of us.

It wasn’t super easy wrangling three preschoolers and a toddler through the museum, but we managed to find some fun play areas that kids of all ages could enjoy.

I spy two Coppinger astronauts.

Arrow and I were pretty fascinated by this cool water shaping table.

Back at home later, we ate leftovers for lunch, then played outside all afternoon with a brief run to Hy-Vee to grab our WIC pick up order.

Elias and Malorie had gone to Texas to visit her family for a few days. We excitedly welcomed them back and the kids helped unload Malorie’s car.

Meanwhile, Auggie has been having the time of his life outside in this nice weather. His two favorite things to do are ride this little bike and push a little stroller. He goes back and forth from bike to stroller. Now that we have a diagnosis for him, it has been very interesting to watch his behaviors with a more clear understanding about they way his brain processes. We still have much to learn.

And who is this?? Malorie brought some Star Wars costumes for the kids that her brother was happy to pass down. I truly wasn’t sure which little girl this was coming around the corner!

Aha! It’s Sissy (Acacia). :)

I finished up dinner by shredding the Roast in the crock pot and mashing the potatoes. We were expecting guests to arrive at this point in the evening, so I got out extra plates. A mom and two teenage sons had arranged to stay with us for a few days while they were in the area for a Homeschool Speech/Debate Tournament. We were so glad to meet and host them – such a delightful family. We ate together, got to know each other, then got everyone settled in for the night.

Thursday morning, we headed to the Children’s Museum for a morning outing. Eva and Arrow met us there, then Kelsey and Little Sweetheart plus Kelsey’s mom, Nicole came too. SO MUCH FUN!

Nicole and I have been friends since college so it’s always extra fun to see her when she visits!

Kelsey and Eva took their babies to the “Ages 3 and Under” room so that Arrow and Little Sweetheart could talk about their plans for the day. I love doing life with our kids in Lincoln!!

We ate apples and pears on our way home, then warmed up chicken and ate spinach for lunch.

Auggie napped, everyone else played outside, and I baked some Crustless Cheesecakes to have on hand for snacks.

We were taking full advantage of the gorgeous weather that day, so Matt loaded up everyone’s bikes into our van and I loaded up a picnic. We all, including Elias and Malorie, headed over to our favorite park that has running/walking/baking trails, a skateboard area, basketball court, playground, and disc golf. Our kids love this park!

Kids played, Elias took a jog, Malorie walked, kids biked and ran – we all soaked up Vitamin D. This kind of outing is my favorite! OH! And a long time reader, Suzy, was at the park that day too. She recognized us from our photos so we got to meet and chat!

I’d packed Mini Corn Dogs, Carrots, Peppers, Apples, Clementines, and Chips for dinner so kids ate as they got hungry.

Then we drove over to Freddy’s to finally use some free ice cream coupons we’d been given back in October during a Zoo event. This was a perfect Spring Break treat to enjoy after playing hard all day!

We took the ice cream home to enjoy because taking all the kids back into a restaurant like we’d done a few days prior did not sound like a wise choice. Plus, the ice cream cups were huge and we wanted to portion it out better at home. Nobody needed to eat THAT MUCH ICE CREAM in one sitting. :)

Friday morning, I let the kids eat cereal for breakfast so that I could focus my kitchen attention on prepping for our upcoming Sunday lunch. I had also reconnected with a friend from York who had also moved to Lincoln – and she had a baby this week. We arranged for us to take a meal to her family that night.

Some of the kids helped me make a quadruple batch of Brownies.

I got some chicken marinating for the smoker later. And I made two pots of Baked beans – one for our Sunday lunch, and the other to take to our friend that night. Last but not least, we got some mini Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins out of the freezer to take the the park.

We loaded up the kids and headed to a park to meet up with family for a fun birthday celebration for Little Sweetheart. Justus and Kelsey brought two Rotisserie Chickens for lunch, Eva brought Strawberries, and we contributed the Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins. What a sweet celebration for such a sweet girl.

Back at home, I had been smoking a Pork Loin for Sunday lunch, and added the marinated chicken to the smoker. Once this round was finished, more chicken went onto the smoker to cook. My plan was to take some of the chicken to our friends for their night’s dinner and to save the rest to be rewarmed for Sunday lunch.

Late afternoon, I packed up Smoked Chicken, Party Potatoes, Baked Beans, Green Beans, Rolls, and Brownies and headed out to deliver them to my friend. I got to hold/feed her newborn – oh so sweet!

Meanwhile, Elias had asked to make dinner that night. He started out on the smoker (yes, our smoker got a workout that day!) with a big pan full of Smoked Queso that he’d put together. Around 4:00, a storm rolled in and we decided we better move everything inside. So he transferred his dip into a glass dish and finished it off in the oven. He and Malorie and Matt had started to feed the kids while I was delivering dinner to our friends, and they were chowing down. This was such a good, fun Friday evening meal!

I was hosting an Adoptive Moms Support Group that evening, so as my friends were arriving, Elias and Malorie helped Matt get kids to bed. Bonus Buddy was here visiting for the weekend and to say that everyone was WOUND UP would be an understatement.

Saturday morning we got ready and headed to our favorite Sensory Library Storytime.

We played in the main library area for a while after story time. They had a new Construction Zone set up, which of course was Keith’s favorite!

We came home and ate leftovers for lunch, plus made Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins to have on hand for snacks.

We put Auggie down for a nap, then handed Elias and Malorie the baby monitor to listen for him while we took the other kids to the Children’s Museum for a couple of hours.

Back at home, we cleaned a little and moved forward into our Sabbath. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 23-March 1, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 23-March 1, 2025 post!

Before I launch into this week’s Food and Fun, I’ll backtrack to share the tail end of last week. :)

Our family all gathered on Saturday evening to celebrate Justus’ birthday (a week late, thanks to illnesses). Justus requested Italian Cream Cheese Chicken and Butterscotch Bars and we were all excited about this meal!

There were 19 of us, and the meal was simple and good.

Being altogether was the best.

And that was our Saturday evening!

Big Family Food and Fun: February 23-March 1, 2025

We enjoyed our traditional Breakfast Cookie Bars on Sunday morning before church.

Last week, I had made a big pan full of Taco Rice Skillet, so I rewarmed it at a low oven temp for our Sunday Lunch gathering. I also warmed White Queso in my smallest crock pot, cooked Corn on the stove, plus got out tortillas, chips, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, and cheese. Friends who joined us that day brought Shredded Pork and Fresh Fruit. It was such a delicious feast!

HAVE I TOLD YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE SUNDAY LUNCHES?? (I love Sunday Lunches.)

There were 29 of us gathered to share our meal and share life together.

After such frigid days, we were all so invigorated by sunshine and warmer temps. All of our kids played outside (and got muddy but we didn’t care). It was so sweet to see the kids enjoying their time together. Meanwhile, we grown-ups got to encourage and support each other as we visited inside.

Matt and I enjoyed Community Group time later that afternoon (a small group of us who meet regularly to focus on what scripture says about Jesus’ life and how we can be more like Him). Elias and Malorie watched a movie with our kids during that time so that we could have uninterrupted adult sharpening time.

I baked four Frozen Pizzas for dinner that night for an easy way to end our full day.

Malorie came into the kitchen that evening to conduct some experiments for her online college classes. A small crowd gathered to participate.

Oh wait. A large crowd gathered. I’m not sure what Malorie would have done had she not had all this help to collect her data.

Monday was a very big day for our family. I had to get out the door early with Auggie, so I served a simple breakfast of Yogurt, Granola, and Berries for Parfaits before school.

An Auggie Update

Auggie and I drove to Omaha that morning for a follow-up visit to Children’s Developmental Pediatrics. This boy has gone to specialist after specialist during his two years of life as we seek answers and help to better meet his extra needs. Children’s Hospital has been everything wonderful for us, referring us to every doctor we’ve needed and never giving up or brushing off our concerns.

They’ve given him Feeding Therapy so that he could learn to eat. They’re giving him Speech Therapy so that he can learn to talk. And on this day, after yet another very thorough appointment, the Developmental Pediatrics team finally landed on a diagnosis for him: Autism Spectrum Disorder with Global Developmental Delay.

Yes, I cried when the doctor said the words. But they were tears of relief to finally have answers. We need this so that we can move forward to get more of the help he needs!

What a big, big morning for this precious little boy.

The day wasn’t over yet.

Matt and I spend the afternoon processing Auggie’s appointment and diagnosis and talking through next steps. We also worked on preparing for our evening. God had led us to a Christian Therapy Team – an answer to SO MANY PRAYERS as we’ve sought help for our kids. Monday night they were to come into our home for the first time to meet everyone and as we launch into participating in their Family Mending program.

To make this happen, I had dinner ready at 4:30 that afternoon: Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans. We tried to get everyone fed and into the living room by therapy time at 5:45.

Emotions were running HIGH for our kids that night – and they all either acted super squirrely or super naughty during our meeting. We actually appreciated that the therapy team could see some of their behaviors – because so often, our kids mask their true needs/struggles around others.

This night was just the beginning of many hours of therapy, homework, and guidance from the Therapy Team. I’ll share more as I learn more. It’s all a lot to process, but we welcome it so that we can help our family be all that God has planned for us to be.

Bedtime Snack

Somewhere in the afternoon, I’d taken several bruised apples (thanks to a kid who dropped an entire bag of them) and turned them into Applesauce Bread. We sliced a loaf to eat after the therapist team left, and tried to get all the hyped up kids calmed down for sleep that night. Phew, what a day.

Tuesday morning, I sliced the remaining loaf of Applesauce Bread for breakfast, plus got out Bagels for those who wanted that instead. I scrambled a dozen eggs and rationed them so everyone could have some.

Meanwhile, Anna was propping clementines into the small space between the countertop and the cabinet. ;)

Auggie and I headed off to Speech Therapy that morning. He was less cooperative than he typically is – likely because he was wary after his big Developmental Pediatric appointment the day before? By the end of the session, he’d finally warmed back up to spending time with Miss Marissa.

Little Sweetheart had joined the crew at home with Matt so when Auggie and I got home, I grabbed her up. She enjoyed many little bites of Lolli’s Applesauce Bread. :)

If Auggie could vacuum all day (and turn the switch on and off over and over), he’d be pretty pleased.

My niece was driving through Lincoln that afternoon on her way home from visiting family. She stopped by so we could meet her sweet new baby.

Eva and Arrow stopped by to say hi also. We got some cousin pictures, but my favorite, by far, is this one in which Arrow decided to try and take a bite out of his cousin to see if he was as sweet as he appeared to be.

Aww, here’s Pop having some Arrow playtime.

After school, I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to hand out food at our weekly Food Distribution site. There was a lot of food to hand out that day and a huge crowd that went through the line. The kids did great!

Back at home, Matt had fed the kids an entire pan of Burritos that I’d made with Sunday’s leftovers. He was working on this second pan of remaining pan of rice/meat mixture as we continued to put burritos together to feed kids. This meal was a hit, for sure!

We’d brought home several packages of buns from Tuesday’s Food Distribution, plus a very big and exciting bonus: EGGS. At the end of the evening after we’d handed out food to over 100 families, no one had taken a bag of pre-cooked eggs that had been donated by a restaurant. (Items are set on tables and clients can choose from a variety that we set out. The cooked/frozen eggs didn’t look very appetizing, I guess?)

We were blessed to bring them home, so on Wednesday morning, I set out the buns with the eggs along with sausage patties, ham, and cheese so everyone could build a Breakfast Sandwich.

Then, I used what was leftover to put together more Breakfast Sandwiches for the fridge and freezer for grab-and-go breakfasts. I was so shocked by how many eggs were in that bag! I got 22 sandwiches prepped for our freezer!

My friend, Charlene, came to visit that afternoon and we had a wonderful time catching up! That evening after homework, Brayden wanted to help make dinner. He cooked hamburger meat and added sauce. Then he put together two bags of salad.

I boiled noodles and warmed up leftover corn. Then we enjoyed a Spaghetti Dinner.

We all headed out for a short walk around the neighborhood so that we could take advantage of the nice weather before it got dark. Afterward, we came in and worked on our Family Therapy Homework. Our assignment/goal this week is to work together to establish Family Expectations (rules) so that everyone is on the same page and very clear on what behaviors are accepted. We are couching all of it in scripture so that we can emphasize that all we do is a reflection of Jesus’ love for us.

Thursday morning, I put a Melt-in-Your-Mouth Beef Roast with Carrots into the crock pot to slow cook all day.

I had a lot of fresh greens in the fridge, so I made a batch of Chocolate Cupcakes with Spinach, using 1/3 pound of spinach – which is a lot. Can you see how these are tinted green before they are baked?

But after they are baked, they look like regular chocolate cupcakes!

Mid-morning, we took the four littlest kids to a Sensory Storytime at a bookstore.

Eva and Arrow met us there, and Auggie went straight over for a hug.

The rest of the kids followed him to gather around one of their dear sisters-in-law and their favorite nephew. :)

When we got home, I made a double batch of Angela’s Egg-Free Banana Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies for our breakfast the next morning.

That afternoon, I spent time with Little Sweetheart while putting together an activity to help us continue to work through our Family Therapy Homework. Matt and I decided that a theme verse for the basis of the “Family Expectations” page that our therapist team asked us to put together is 1 John 3:16. If we can all recognize how much our Father loves us, we will move forward in love for others. I created this simple poster plus wrote the word LOVED on cards for the kids to put together as we met together that night.

Then, I cut the poster into puzzle pieces so that even the littlest kids could participate in our discussion time.

When the kids got home from school and finished homework, we enjoyed our Melt-in-Your-Mouth Beef Roast and Carrots. I buttered and toasted some rolls to help fill the kids’ bellies.

Later, we sat in the living room, talking through our L-O-V-E-D cards, which had scriptures to go with each letter. This was a loud event, not one that was calm and precious like one would hope. But it went as well as it could go, I think, with this many high need kids of such young ages. Brayden, Kiya, and Keith are at least catching on to what we are trying to teach.

Friday morning, we finally got to eat the Angela’s Egg-Free Banana Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies I’d made. The kids were so glad to finally dig into them!

After the elementary kids headed off to school, I spent time in the kitchen prepping ahead. I made a huge Lasagna plus a regular-sized one for our upcoming Sunday Lunch.

Meanwhile, I baked 14 pans worth of bacon to finish off a box I had in the fridge. Now we have lots of prepped bacon in the fridge for breakfasts or sandwiches.

Matt had taken most of the littles outside for a walk while I finished my work in the kitchen. Then Anna and I (plus Little Sweetheart, who had been dropped off somewhere in there) headed out to join them.

I took the girls inside to fix their hair before the preschool bus came for them. I asked Acacia to watch Little Sweetheart and keep her safe while I fixed Josie’s hair. Acacia took her job very seriously.

That afternoon, I headed out and got a haircut – which felt like a lovely treat. Then I went to Panera to have some quiet, alone work time. See those wrappers on the table? Yes, indeed, I had packed a couple of special chocolates in my computer bag to enjoy with my coffee.

Eva texted that day to share that she needed to use up some potatoes and cream, so she’d made a pot of this Potato Soup. YUM. I’ve been making this version of Ham and Potato Soup all winter, and kind of forgot about my original Potato Soup recipe. Now I’m hungry for the original and need to make it before the weather gets too warm…

I’m so thankful the moments of quiet I was able to snag that afternoon, because as soon as 4:00 hit, it was incredibly intense for Matt and me as we managed the evening. Two of our kids had appointments with their therapist right after school (this was good, but also a lot for them as they processed some hard memories throughout the rest of the night). Meanwhile, everyone was hungry at 4:30. Auggie had a very scream-y day/evening and we couldn’t figure out why. The three little girls were exhausted from their week and couldn’t regulate their emotions. Dinner, simple as it was, felt chaotic. (We made Orange Chicken with Sliced Pears and a Salad.)

To end our evening, we attempted to continue with our Family Therapy Homework. We reviewed our L-O-V-E-D cards, reminding them about how much God loves them and delights in them. Then we worked together to put together the scripture puzzle I’d created the day before. We practiced learning 1 John 3:16, reminding them that because they are so loved, they can live confidently in that love and therefore, love others – in our home and out of our home.

Saturday morning we ate Cereal for breakfast, plus I made a double batch of Peanut Butter Honey Puffs.

We took the kids to Library Sensory Storytime where they got to listen, play, sing, and dance.

We got back home to enjoy a crowd of Malachi’s friends who were gathering to spend the weekend together. These buys have been friends since they were all little boys. :)

Thanks, Allan, for being such a good sport and reading a book to Malachi’s little sister. :)

Lunch that day was an assortment of random leftovers. But I also made a big package of hotdogs to stretch our meal since we had several extra guys joining us.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning, giving kids their baths, and getting our home ready for our time of Sabbath rest. I’ll share more about our Saturday next week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025 post!

Before launching into the week’s food and fun, I’ll share the tail end of last week’s fun. We were home relaxing for Sabbath that evening, enjoying fun treats and family time.

Dinner that night was Fish Sandwiches – or just Fish Sticks for those who didn’t want a bun. We went through an entire Costco-sized bag of sticks, reminding me that almost everyone in our household likes these and it makes an easy meal that is different from our norm. Mental note: add fish sticks to the upcoming Costco list…

Our Sabbath dinner also featured special sparkling water and the kids’ choice of a dessert. We practiced memorizing scripture while we ate and talked through what these verses mean in our lives.

Big Family Food and Fun: February 16-22, 2025

Sunday morning, we ate what has become our traditional, effortless Sabbath Sunday morning breakfast: Breakfast Cookie Bars that I’d made ahead and frozen.

We had a lovely group join us at lunchtime, with 25 of us around the table that day.

We had asked one of the families to please pick up Rotisserie Chicken from Sam’s on their way here, which they were happy to do (plus they brought their traditional Doritos that the kids all love). So our meal that day was three Rotisserie Chickens with Homemade Bread and Butter, Green Beans, Potato Salad, and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. It was all so simple and so good, and a wonderful time of fellowship.

Ms. Megan had brought a Color Wonder kit so many of the kids joined her around the living room table before and after lunch to color. :)

Later that afternoon, we loaded our family up for a Kid Event at the Mall. Our friend Caitlyn had been at our house for lunch and joined us on our outing. Malachi hopped in too, plus our friend/housemate, Kermit. It was great to have so many adult helpers!

The kids got free books, water bottles, games, and bubbles. They got to golf and play instruments.

We had decided to make the most of this outing since we had braved the cold to get to the mall. So when the event ended, we headed over to the play area (as did many of the other families with kids at the event – so it was packed!).

Malachi needed some new business-casual clothes for his work, so while the kids played, some of us went next door into H&M to shop. We scored some great deals from their clearance racks! And Anna made a new friend…

I had packed us a picnic dinner – something we haven’t been able to do all winter long. But this was a great opportunity to enjoy a winter picnic, so we headed to the food court tables and had Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwiches, Salami, Cheese Sticks, Apples, Applesauce, and Carrots.

As we were finishing up our meal, Matt bought an order of fries for everyone to have a small surprise treat before we headed home.

There was no school on Monday or Tuesday of this week (pre-scheduled days off). It snowed all morning and part of the afternoon so we just hung out in the house, trying to keep kids busy.

Brayden and Keith became occupied with Legos for two entire hours, creating the beginnings of a Lego City!

Breakfast and Lunch that day was an assortment of leftovers as we finished up tidbits of Breakfast Cookie Bars, Chili, and Noodles throughout the morning/afternoon.

I made a pot of broth that morning with the leftover chicken bones from the three Rotisserie Chickens the day before. For dinner that night, I used the broth to make Simple Chicken Noodle Soup.

Tuesday was another scheduled day off from school. (With the weather being what it was, likely the kids would have had a snow day anyway!) I made Blender Pancakes for our breakfast that morning.

Being cooped up in the house for the second day in a row was starting to affect everyone. So we tried to keep the kids busy with activities. They’d been listening to “Wavin’ Flag” on Alexa quite a bit, so I looked up the back story to talk through the origin of the song with them. Then we got out supplies to make flags. Was it the most exciting idea I’ve ever come up with? Nope. But did it kill twenty minutes of our day? Yep. So it was a win.

Hahaha, Acacia’s enthusiasm… :)

Brayden was excited to help me make lunch, so he cut up Beef Smoked Sausages to cook.

While the rest of our lunch was cooking, the girls helped me make Breakfast Cookie Bars for upcoming Sabbath Sunday breakfasts.

Lunch was a very exciting offering of Sausages, Mac and Cheese, and Peas.

Mmm, the Breakfast Cookie Bars turned out just right this time.

Matt played a game with Brayden and Kiya that afternoon…

Then our friend, Cindy, and two of her kids came to hang out. This was such a blessing for our evening as our kids love playing with her kids and Cindy poured love into our family the entire time she was here. Brayden and Kiya helped her make little Pigs in a Blanket to go with our dinner.

We enjoyed a fun meal of Chicken Nuggets/Strips, Pigs in a Blanket, Fries, Fruit, and Salad.

Wednesday turned out to be a Snow/Cold Day off from school. Anna helped me make a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins that morning.

Did she get to lick a spatula after we got the batter mixed up?

And had Josie made her way into the kitchen and needed a spatula to lick also?

The Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins turned out great and helped us get through the day as everyone needed something to munch on.

At lunchtime. Acacia helped me prepare leftovers. I was determined to clean out the fridge so we got out jars of pickles to finish off along with our lunch. She felt it was necessary to open the jars with the rubber gripper.

It was a big day for some of the adult Coppingers! Matt, the four older boys, and Malorie had bought tickets to go to KC to watch Messi play. The weather postponed the game, and yet Wednesday’s rescheduled game was still going to be played in freezing cold temps. Did they decide to still go? Yes, they did. Did they realize they were a bit crazy for all of this? Also, yes. Did Arrow fully support their choices??

Everyone gathered at the Castle and we sent off the heavily bundled up soccer fans (Matt, Asa, Justus, Elias, Malorie, Malachi, plus two friends from Lincoln who hopped in). Eva, Kelsey, Arrow, and Little Sweetheart stayed back at the Castle with me to help with kids throughout the afternoon/evening. Eva read lots of books to the littles. At one point I think she had six kids piled around her, but they scattered before I could get a picture of them all.

Kelsey played several games at the table.

We needed something active to do (it day three in a row of not leaving the house, oy!). So I told the kids that if they cleaned up the living room and play room, we’d be able to set up an Obstacle Course like I had done a few weeks ago. Auggie got a turn with the vacuum. :)

Eva captured this shot of me explaining the obstacle course to the kids. It started at the bottom of one set of stairs, went all the way through the living room and playroom, up the other set of stairs, and back. Phew.

It involved masking tape and sour cream lids (fancy!). The kids wound their way around the house over and over.

Meanwhile, Eva and Kelsey took advantage of the kids being occupied to put their babies in the high chairs to feed them. Look at Lolli’s grandbabies eating like big kids. :) :) :)

Knowing the day would be full, I’d put Spicy Ham and Potato Soup in a crock pot that morning. At dinnertime, we served it up – so easy.

I had kind of been dreading the day that Matt and so many other adults would be heading out of town, leaving us behind with kids. But wow was it great having Eva and Kelsey and their babies here! I truly enjoyed the day with them and am so thankful for the gals our boys have chosen. OUR DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW ARE AMAZING!

MEANWHILE, in Kansas City at the game, Messi scored a goal right in front of our crew. AND, while cheering, several of our peeps made it on television. A couple of friends watching the game from home realized, “Hey, that’s the Coppingers!” so they got screen shots and sent them to our boys. It is so much fun to have this shot of Asa, Justus, Elias, and Malorie! For the record, after this moment, everyone determined that it had, in fact, been worth it to drive all the way there and freeze half-way-to-death to be a part of this moment.

Thursday was – guess what? – another Snow/Cold Day off from school. The weather promised to warm up over the weekend, but meanwhile, the temps were still dangerously cold. So, while we considered leaving the house to keep us all from going stir-crazy, we just didn’t want to endure the misery of the cold. So we hunkered down at home, trying to maintain peace while we played.

I’d pulled out a pan of Chicken Cheeseballs from the freezer that I’d made a few weeks ago, so we baked them for lunch. I also made two tortilla packages worth of Quesadillas and opened three cans of fruit for our meal.

After lunch, I baked two pans of rice and browned 2.5 pounds of hamburger meat.

I stirred all of the rice and cooked meat into a large pan and turned it into a form of Taco Rice Skillet for our upcoming Sunday Lunch.

That afternoon, I pulled kids into the kitchen to help me make Peanut Butter Honey Fudge. I had almost forgotten this recipe, but it was a perfect treat to make since we were cooped up and needed an activity.

Brayden got to to do the stove-top part of this.

Then we scooped the mixture into fun molds, then the rest into a dish.

Dinner that night was Costco’s Tortelloni with Sauce plus Steamed Broccoli. A few years ago, I did a price breakdown to share that this entire meal only cost $1.41/person. Want to see what the cost is after inflation 2.5 years later? I did the math!!

After dinner, we ate some Peanut Butter Honey Fudge!

Then we spent the rest of the evening playing Charades.

Oh, and Kelsey sent me this delicious picture of their dinner that night: Simple Pizza Chicken Bake!

With a January full of sickness and a February full of freezing cold temps and a household full of constant intense-kid-needs, I felt like I’d been hanging on for dear life. I have been getting up early each morning to have some glorious time in the Word and in prayer. But otherwise, I’m on the go all day with needs piled on top of each other.

God made it very clear to me on Friday morning that I needed to meet my own needs so that I could effectively care for my family. So as soon as I was able, I packed myself up and headed out the door. (The kids were able to be back in school that day!) I sat at Panera by the fire with a cup of coffee, resting and working. In a setting like this, my work is restful, which is a blessing.

Feeling refreshed and enjoying my alone time, I headed next door to Costco. I looked through clothing for clearance sales, then filled the bottom of my cart with fresh produce.

I then decided that since I was kid-free, I should stock up on everything we’d finished off at home during the past couple of months. Did I need a second cart? Yes. But did I get one? No. I just kept piling my one cart higher and higher. Craziness.

Back at home, Matt and I got groceries brought in and put away before picking up kids from school. I had a smile back on my face again, thanks to the down time I’d enjoyed. Anna washed grapes for our dinner while Brayden and Kiya helped with other parts of our meal.

We had Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Tomato Soup, Onion Rings, and Grapes.

Saturday morning, Malorie and I left all the kids home with the guys while we headed to church for a Ladies’ Brunch. The speaker was none other than our very dear Kelsey. The morning was incredibly wonderful in so many ways and I’m so thankful we got to do this. Back at home, Asa, Arrow, Justus, and Little Sweetheart had joined our crew so I went home to kids, grandbabies, and big boys. I felt so filled and blessed.

The Italian Cream Cheese Chicken I’d started before the brunch smelled good when we got back! That evening, we were planning to celebrate Justus’ birthday a week late, and this was his dinner choice.

Malachi had made a batch of Hot Cocoa while we were gone. I love that he does this!

Brayden and Kiya helped me make Butterscotch Bars for the night’s birthday celebration.

We slid them into the oven, I finished this post, we got some cleaning done, then the family joined for Justus’ birthday. And that was our week!

 

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025 post!

Before launching into the week’s food and fun, I’ll share the tail end of last week’s fun. It was a fantastic afternoon/evening!

Saturday the 8th, we met up with several other families at church so that we could put together some baskets of goodies for people who are not physically able to come to church any more. For an initial project, some of us stood around two tables tying soft blankets. We completed six of these together.

Meanwhile, our littler kids were in the kitchen baking cookies with Ms. Terra and Ms. Melissa.

Next, we put together some crafts to go into the baskets.

Some grown-ups added homemade soup and bread, plus lotion and other goodies to the baskets along with our crafts, cookies, and blankets. The baskets were beautiful by the time we finished!

We all loaded up to make deliveries. Our family was so blessed to visit a couple we’ve known since before Asa was even born. It was soooo wonderful to catch up with them and share memories. WORTH NOTING: I was nervous to take our seven busy littles into a tiny apartment to visit two people who move slowly and carefully. We didn’t want to disrupt or cause any issues. But as always, GOD IS BIGGER than my worries.

The kids did great (and yes, Auggie did find their TV button and turn it on and off several more than a dozen times – but they didn’t care and thought he was precious because he is). We played with their little doggy, we asked about their grandkids, we listened as they shared some of their health concerns. We filled a lovely hole in their evening and they were beaming when we left. As a matter of fact, WE were also beaming when we left. Will we go back to visit these friends? We most definitely will.

Well now, what did we get to do after that? We got to go to a restaurant! Other families had also made their Basket Deliveries and we all met back up at Runza for dinner.

Our littlest kids have had few if any restaurant experiences (because truly, this is a lot of little ones to take into an eating establishment) and they were fascinated. Everyone else was already there and some had already eaten, so friends were ready and able to help us get our tribe seated and supplied with ketchup and water. I ordered several packs of Chicken Strips and Fries and went back and forth handing them out until everyone was full enough.

Then we enjoyed some ice cream cone tokens that my niece had given us. Here’s Acacia with our church’s children’s minister as they talked through our ice cream cone order. Their relationship is so sweet and we are so thankful for Ms. Mandy.

Was it freezing cold outside? Yes. Did that stop us from eating ice cream? No way.

I have a lot of favorite parts of this night, but this photo shows you one of my favorite favorites. Brayden and Kiya got to sit with some of their big kid friends to eat and they had the time of their lives.

We got home just in time to head to bed! What a great Saturday!

Big Family Food and Fun: February 9-15, 2025

Sunday morning, we ate a plate of Breakfast Cookie Bars before church.

I did a little prep work for our Sunday lunch gathering, making BBQ Chicken-Bacon-Ranch Sliders to heat up after church. (I had slow cooked a bunch of chicken thighs with barbecue sauce ahead of time and shredded it, then spread it onto the buns with the other fillings.)

Three other families joined us that day. We all marveled at how great it was to be together since it had been so long since we’d been able to gather this way (thanks to holidays, sickness, and bad weather). Friends brought Fruit and Veggie Trays, Mac and Cheese, Chips, and Cookies to go with our Sliders. Our food spread was delicious.

There were 28 of us all together and I’m not sure who had the most fun: the kids or the grown ups.

That morning, Keith had tied strings like lasers all throughout the house, making us have to crawl under and over as we went from room to room. Our friends are so gracious about our little quirks. :) And what did the girls do after lunch? Nails, of course.

Our Super Bowl meal that night was as simple as can be: Frozen Pizza, White Queso and Chips, plus Leftover Sandwiches and Veggies from lunch. We went to bed nice and tired that night.

Monday morning, we scrubbed a bunch of potatoes to cook in the crock pot all day for our dinner.

Mid-morning, we took the four littlest on a very boring but needed outing to fill the van with gas and pick up milk since we were almost out of both. I picked up a rose plant to give to a friend who will be celebrating her first Valentine’s Day after the loss of her husband. And I grabbed a couple other things we needed – exciting things like dental floss and apples.

I happened upon a rack full of kid boots marked down on clearance for guess how much?! $1.00! I got ten pairs of boots for $1 each. I was so thankful for this!

After Auggie’s nap that day, he “helped” me make Chocolate Banana Flourless Muffins. We had made a batch of these last week and we went through them so quickly that I hoped another batch so soon would still go over well.

They did. When I pulled them out of the oven that afternoon, we had 21 muffins. At the end of that day, we had eight.

Dinner that night was Baked Potatoes with ham, cheese, butter, sour cream, and peas, plus the above mentioned muffins.

We knew super cold weather was coming in, so we loaded up after dinner and went for a little walk in the mall. Ever tried herding cats…at the mall? There are so many sparkly things in every direction.

We managed to get all seven kids to the play area, which was our ultimate destination.

The effort to get everyone here was well worth it. They jumped and ran and slid and climbed and got hot and sweaty. As we headed back to the van (where being outside in the cold felt really good to all their hot little selves), they all devoured a muffin plus one of the bags of apples I’d bought that day.

Tuesday morning, we ate Breakfast Sandwiches that I had tucked away in the freezer.

SIDE NOTE: I never realized how many eggs we went through. I mean, I did. It was a lot. But now that eggs are scarce and prices are high, I’m rationing them and not scrambling eggs as frequently. Therefore, I’m getting into a bit of a breakfast rut. Time to brainstorm more breakfast ideas for variety. Hmmm….

After we got everyone fed, I dropped kids off at school and took Auggie to his therapy appointment.

He was both nervous and excited to try out the swing.

After we left therapy, we went and picked up Little Sweetheart to come hang out with us.

Late morning, I used leftover BBQ Chicken from Sunday’s lunch to make Chicken Taco Soup. Was this a weird way to use bbq chicken? Maybe. But this is how we use leftovers and save money. (It tasted just fine, by the way.)

Eva texted me this fun photo and told me she was making my Italian Chicken Bake for dinner. Yum! She used her crock pot though – very smart.

I took the kids to our weekly Food Distribution site that afternoon. After that, we met with a new team of Christian therapists that our family is going to start working with. We spent some time getting to know them and they walked me through the therapy plan so I knew what to expect. By the time we got home, Matt, Elias, and Malorie had the littlest four kids fed. Those of us who had been gone all afternoon/evening ate our Chicken Taco Soup and some salad and got ready for bed.

Wednesday was a snow day so kids were home all day. We often feel like we need to be very structured for our crew and keep them busy with parent-led activities so that fights and behaviors are less severe. This particular day, we attempted a mixture of parent-led activities along with times of free play. It worked fairly well. Here’s a photo of us gathered around the table mid-morning for a Bible-focused activity.

Since it was a snow day, we had to make Snowflake Quesadillas for lunch. I was going for a shot of the girls cutting their snowflake tortillas, but Elias was feeling goofy so here he is too. ;)

We ate some Popcorn Chicken and Tomato Soup with our Snowflakes.

After lunch, half of our crew bundled up and headed outside to shovel snow.

Eva was able to make her way to our house to drop off Arrow. Usually he’s here on Wednesday afternoons while kids are at school and Auggie is napping. This time, he had six aunts and uncles to entertain him, so he decided that a nap for him was a silly idea. There was too much fun to be had!! WE ENJOY OUR GRANDBABIES SO MUCH!!!

We made Hot Cocoa during the afternoon.

At dinnertime, Acacia and Josie helped me made salad kits. Sometimes a girl just needs to wear her brother’s protective headphones when working in the kitchen. One can never be too safe.

I had pulled some ham from the freezer that morning and made Ham and Cheese Melts for our dinner that night. We’d been given a special rice dish leftover from Food Distribution on Tuesday, so we warmed that up, and ate the girls’ salads.

Thursday morning, I talked myself into scrambling some eggs for breakfast. I had found some Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eaters in the freezer the night before, so I thawed them overnight for our breakfast. The vanilla variety got eaten right away (before I took a picture), then the chocolate ones were gone soon after.

The little girls helped me make a quadruple recipe of Brownies that morning in hopes that we could put together Valentine treats for our neighbors.

I needed to do some serious Aldi shopping, so we packed snacks and bundled up kids and headed that way. Matt stayed in the warm van with the kids, handing out snacks and books. I ran through Aldi to shop as fast as I could. Somehow this doesn’t look like much, but it was a full cart of lots of good groceries!

When the three elementary kids got home from school, they helped me mix up dough for Cinnamon Rolls. I think it’s been several years since I made these, but I decided that this would be a perfect treat for a Valentine’s Day breakfast the next day. The kids were very excited! They especially liked re-learning about how yeast works and watching the yeast/water/honey mixture get bubbly once it activated.

The rest of the evening got a bit crazy (good, but crazy) as we let the Cinnamon Roll dough rise, then moved on to cutting hearts out of our brownies. I pulled the kids into the kitchen a few at a time to help with this fun but messy job.

Cute, huh?!

It took a while, but I was mostly successfully able get all the little hearts out of the pan. Everyone was happy that while the heart-shaped brownies were for our neighbors, the plate of scraps was for us. :)

Oh yes, and dinner. Everyone needed dinner in the midst of this. Brayden had helped me brown hamburger meat earlier and I turned it into Sloppy Joes while making five boxes of Mac and Cheese. Dinner was later than usual because of our baking endeavors, so I’d sliced a bunch of fresh pears to hold the kids over. By the time dinner was actually ready, the kids sat down and devoured their food.

I’d had to punch our Cinnamon Roll dough down a few times because it took me forever to get back to it. But after dinner, Kiya and I finally rolled them out and cut them. She was my cinnamon-sugar girl. (By the way, I used unbleached white flour this time because the only whole wheat flour I had was pastry flour, which doesn’t work for yeast bread recipes.)

The goal was to get the rolls prepped and into the fridge to bake fresh on Valentine’s Day. Mission accomplished. Then there was quite a kitchen mess to tackle!

Friday morning, I baked our Cinnamon Rolls plus two pans of Bacon for our Valentine Breakfast. The kids LOVED the rolls. What a special treat.

Auggie wore his overalls that day, and I decided that I needed to feature him because babies and toddlers in overalls are THE.CUTEST.

My friend Meghan came to visit late morning and we visited for several hours. I didn’t get any pictures because we were talking (and crying, because that’s what we do). She lost her husband to cancer exactly one year ago this week, and God has brought her and her kids through so much. We had a lot to celebrate (while still mourning).

When the kids got home from school, they were all very excited to pour out their sacks of Valentines to see what all they got!

The temps outside were bearable that day, so Brayden went outside to build a snowman. Introducing: Johnny…

Matt had been in York all day working on our rental property, and unfortunately he’d had car trouble along the way. At this point, he still hadn’t made it home so I was one-on-seven. I had planned for all of us to walk around delivering the Valentine brownies we’d made the day before, but I didn’t think I could pull that off by myself. So instead, I gave careful instruction and sent a few kids across the street to knock on doors by themselves while Auggie and I watched from our porch. They did such a good job!

I had started Beef Stew in a crock pot that morning with some stew meat I’d picked up on sale the day before. It was only a small portion (for our family size) so at dinner time, I also made a pot of Chili. Just as we were dishing it up, Matt called. He and the broken down car had made it back to Lincoln, but he had pulled into a parking lot about three miles from our house, unable to go any further. So, I loaded up the seven kids and we went to pick him up. Dinner tasted extra good when we got back!

Saturday morning, I put one of my $5 hams into a roaster. Some of our friends had a loss in their family this week, so two other gals and I had teamed up to provide a meal for 25 of their family members that evening.

We baked a double batch of Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies (<— I did not make homemade butterscotch chips). I planned to give half of them our friends along with their big meal that night, and save the other half for our Sunday lunch the next day.

Since we were preparing such a big meal for friends that evening, we decided to have Sam’s Rotisserie Chickens for our Sunday Lunch the next day. I gathered some of the kids into the kitchen with me to help me make Stir and Pour Bread to go with our chicken the next day.

This recipe is ridiculously easy and these loaves turned out beautiful!!

I had some melted butter left over in a pan so I brushed it over the hot loaves. Then I tortured us by not letting us eat it!

For lunch, we pulled out leftovers. The best part of the meal was this fresh lettuce that one of our neighbors had given us the day before. She is a student at UNL and had grown it in a green house. Fresh lettuce in February tasted SO GOOD.

We spent the rest of the day finishing the evening meal to deliver to our friends, cleaning and doing chores, delivering more of our Valentine’s Day brownies, and getting ready to move into our time of Sabbath.

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025 post!

I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoons as we head into a time of Sabbath rest. So before I launch into our new week’s photos, I’ll back up and share about our Saturday evening!

I made a simple meal of Quesadillas with ham and turkey for dinner that night with Tomato Soup. Elias had a friend visiting so there was seven kids and seven adults eating that night. This picture doesn’t show you much compared to what we actually ate because I forgot to take a picture before everyone went through the line the first time. We went through three entire packages of tortillas as the quesadillas were a huge hit for everyone!

I have found that it’s easiest to give the kids straws to use when they eat/drink their Tomato Soup. There’s still usually a mess left behind at the table, but straws make the messes smaller, plus they manage to get the soup to their mouths more easily so that they don’t mess up their shirts.

We’ve cut way back on sugar at our house this year, but on Sabbath, we get treats! I had a few brownies that some of the kids chose. But Malachi decided to make a pot of homemade Hot Cocoa, and some of the kids opted for this treat instead. It was so sweet to watch Brayden and Kiya make it with him. Have I mentioned how happy we all are for Malachi to be back at the Castle with us?! :)

This recipe makes such good Hot Cocoa!

Big Family Food and Fun: February 2-8, 2025

Sunday morning we ate a loaf of Banana Bread from our freezer that our friend BryAnna had made.

It was a true delight to host Sunday Lunch after so many weeks of dealing with sickness in our household. We’ve missed our church family! I baked a Ham and made Baked Beans, Party Potatoes, Corn, and Green Beans with Peanut Butter Brownies for dessert.

We hosted our Community Group later that afternoon, then Anna helped me put together an Egg Casserole with some of the leftover ham from lunch.

Josie (aka Wonder Woman) joined us later and they helped me make Pizza for dinner.

We made five pizzas altogether plus a Crustless Pizza per Brayden’s request.

I served no veggies with this meal (unless you count the peppers on one of the pizzas) because at this point in the day, I was tired and that’s that.

Monday morning, we baked the Egg Casserole Anna and I had made the day before. It was a great breakfast to start off our school week.

The morning with the four littlest felt long, but we kept getting out activities for them and before I knew it, it was time to get the girls ready for their noon bus. Here they are enjoying Water Wonder books for a few minutes.

I had leftover green beans and corn from Sunday Lunch, so I used those to put together a Shepherd’s Pie for our dinner that night. At dinnertime, I slid it into the oven to bake while the kids did homework.

Let it go on record that last time I made Shepherd’s Pie, all the kids ate it right up, giving me great encouragement. This time?? Good grief, the fighting. It was ridiculous and not fun. And it made no sense. Why do kids love food one time and hate it two weeks later? After all these years of parenting, I still haven’t figured that one out. Anyway…

Earlier, Matt and I had decided that we were crazy enough to take all the kids to Hobby Lobby that night to pick out their Valentine cards for their classmates. Then after the dinner fights, we almost decided not to go because we were worried that fits would happen in the aisle full of breakable Valentine decor.

At the last minute, we landed on “we’re crazy anyway, let’s just do it” so we loaded them up and went. All the way there, I was talking them through the plan of choosing a box of cards, sitting in the carts (for the youngest four), not touching anything…

Matt and I did not have high expectations for our time inside the store (it’s better this way). But would you believe, all seven kids were precious angels at Hobby Lobby that night? I’m not sure we’ve ever pulled off such an amazing endeavor. We went into the store at 7:00, the kids all easily chose their cards, we checked out, and we were back in the van buckling up the kids to head home by 7:20. It was a Valentine miracle.

The outing was good for everyone’s spirits, and we got home just in time to get everyone ready for bed. Malachi came down and helped out, holding Auggie for us and then obviously playing a game of soccer with Keith because getting rowdy is how Keith calms down for the night. I can’t explain it. It’s an ADHD thing.

Tuesday morning, I made Eggs in a Nest for breakfast per Kiya’s request. (She proceeded to eat three – yes THREE – of them.)

Auggie had Speech Therapy that morning, then he and I made a trip to Sam’s because his therapy location was close-by. It was a huge stock-up trip because I hadn’t done any serious grocery shopping in several weeks.

Auggie and I got home in time to help finish getting the girls ready for their preschool bus. I’m not sure why I bothered to fix their hair because it was freezing outside and hats were needed. Good thing they are cute with fixed hair AND with sweet winter hats.

After school, Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and I headed to our weekly Food Distribution site to hand out food to the community and to help clean up afterward. We’ve missed this for several weeks because of all the sickness at our house, so it was extra wonderful to be there and see people. Keith discovered a small white board with a marker and spent the entire time drawing on it instead of helping. But it was still a win because it kept him calm.

Here’s Kiya at the end of our distribution time as we were putting away the few leftovers before vacuuming.

We came home to a crock pot full of Ham and Potato Soup that I’d made earlier in the day. Matt made a bowl of Caesar salad and we all dug in.

Wednesday morning, the kids spotted their Valentines that we’d purchased on Monday evening and they reallllllly wanted to work on them. I reassured them that their school parties weren’t for nine more days, but I also allowed Keith to get started on his after he was completely ready for school since we had 20-minutes until time to leave.

Once we got the three oldest out the door, I let the little girls work on their Valentines. Anna can write her name by herself and got through four entire cards before getting tired. ;) Acacia and Josie tried to write their names but as of now, their signatures are much like a doctor’s. ;)

It was our housemate, Kermit’s, birthday so we spent some time prepping a family dinner for that night. Anna helped me crush graham crackers for an Easy No-Bake Cheesecake.

I also baked several pans worth of Bacon to go with Cheeseburgers.

We got the girls out the door for preschool and Auggie down for a nap. Then Eva dropped off Arrow for some Lolli and Pop time! We played for a solid hour and Arrow jabbered the entire time. :)

During his nap, I prepped and baked 16 hamburger patties for dinner. My goal was to have our burgers and bacon almost ready so that I could simply finish them up once it was time to eat – as opposed to making a bunch of bacon and burgers right at meal time when all of the kids were home from school and hungrily whining at my feet.

I cut up several “Raspberry Oranges” to go with our dinner and Josie ate half the plate while waiting for dinner. Kelsey and I tried to get a good picture of her very red mouth, surrounded by the mountain of orange peels she left behind. Josie wasn’t super interested in letting us get a picture, but Kelsey snuck one in. :)

I finished off the burgers in a skillet a little before 5:00, then transferred them to a crock pot to stay warm. Just before serving time, I rewarmed the bacon in a skillet so that it would be hot and crisp. And with that, we had fresh Bacon Cheeseburger fixings all ready to go at 5:30. I also cut up two Beef Smoked Sausages and cooked them so that we’d have enough meat to feed our crowd that night.

The sides were simple with our meal: Leftover Baked Beans, Pickles, Chips, Veggies with Ranch, and Fresh Fruit.

Birthday Cheesecake time!

All of our family plus a few extras were able to join us that night, putting 21 around our table. Nights like this are my favorite.

Thursday morning, we ate a random assortment of breakfast items from the fridge: leftover Breakfast Casserole, Breakfast Sandwiches, and Yogurt. Meanwhile, the girls helped me open sticks of butter to make Breakfast Cookies.

I baked a double batch of Breakfast Cookies, spreading the dough into a pan to make bars to save time.

After we got the three elementary kids off to school, we got the youngest four ready and loaded up to play at the indoor play area at the zoo. An outing was needed!

There’s a ball shoot that is lots of fun here, so Anna used her hat and the kids filled it with balls to put into the monkey’s mouth. The balls get sucked up through tubes, then are released every ten minutes, showering back down onto the floor.

Today, however, something was stuck in the ball shoot. We had a wonderful time watching a zoo worker climb a very tall ladder to try and fix the ball release.

We took bananas and peanut butter honey sandwiches to snack on during our time there.

We got home in time to get the girls ready for their preschool bus and put Auggie down for a nap. Justus dropped off Little Sweetheart and she went directly down for a nap.

I had pulled out bananas to thaw while we were at the zoo, so I quickly mixed up a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins for the oven.

When the babies got up from their naps, we had a delightful tea party in the play room.

Dinner that night was more involved than usual, but WORTH IT. I made Chicken with Cream Cheese Sauce with a pan of Rice and Steamed Broccoli. Super tasty!

That evening, I followed my own advice for making cookies with kids and we made Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies.

Worth noting: I used my wonderful Bosch Mixer to mix up the dough for these cookies, and I just re-read the reason I invested in it. I found it so precious to read this and to re-visit part of the beginning of our foster-adoption journey. At the time of that writing, we had only added three extra boys and one daughter-in-law. We’ve since added FIVE more kids, another daughter-in-law, and a very serious girlfriend. I had no idea when I bought that Bosch Mixer in 2020 how much I’d need it now. I’m so thankful my friend Rhonda encouraged me to do it. Anyway, why am I over here crying over my Bosch? Because this.

Anyway…Thursday night we made heart-shaped cookies, hahaha.

That night, all we did was roll/cut/bake. We’ll save the frosting and decorating for another time.

Friday morning we finished off our Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins from the day before. Eva and Arrow came by for a couple of hours and the Aunties had a good time being helpful. :)

Auggie had been needing a haircut for quite a while and I finally got that done Friday morning! Phew. Here he is, so handsome after his nap…

For dinner that night, I warmed up leftover rice from the day before, made some Taco Meat, and got out other fixings for a Burrito Bar.

After dinner, I was able to give Brayden and Keith much-needed hair cuts. So all three little boys went to bed with fresh heads!

Saturday morning we took our kids to our favorite Sensory-Friendly Storytime.

It was especially fun to see Auggie willing to participate in some of the song/activities.

After story time, Ms. Diane pulled out all kinds of special sensory toys for kids to play with for a half hour or so.

We had a free morning, so next we headed into the main area of the library to play and read for about an hour. Acacia and Josie worked at the post office for a while. :)

Kiya was able to keep Auggie engaged in a book for a couple of minutes before he was ready to move on.

The most special part of the morning was that we let the three older kids check out one book each. This shouldn’t be a big deal at their ages. But with our family dynamics, we’ve not felt comfortable checking out books up until now. There are too many tantrums and impulse control issues at our house, which can lead to destroyed books. And in general, with this many kids, we’ve not been sure we could keep from losing library books in our house. But today, they each got one, and we set out some guidelines for where the books would be kept in the house if they were not being read. We’ll see how this goes!

Back at home, we warmed up leftovers for lunch. Then we sat down to complete everyone’s Valentine cards. This job was NO JOKE. The kids all needed help with several aspects of assembling their cards, and hey all wanted help at the same time. So 90+ cards later, my nervous system was a little wrecked. (And I still needed to help Keith make his. Not today though. Mama needed a break.)

They were all so happy to have their cards ready for their parties, and our time together ended well. We did some cleaning and then I turned on a movie for them so I could finish this post. :)

We had a fun night with church family later, but we also headed into our time of Sabbath for the week, so I’ll share more about that next week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025 post!

On Saturday, January 25, we were all still recovering from a longggggg week of Influenza. Kiya was the only kid who didn’t get hit with it, and she was very helpful since I was laid up on the couch for so many days. She mixed together some Tuna Salad for our lunch on Saturday.

For dinner that night, I slowly managed to make Spaghetti. I’m not much of a fan of pasta, but as my appetite came back after not eating much for days and even weeks (because we’d had a stomach bug before Influenza), Spaghetti sounded really good to me. All of our littlest kids really like noodles, so even if they didn’t want sauce, they gobbled down plates full of noodles with Parmesan cheese along with Green Beans or Corn.

Malorie started her semester of online classes, and I walked into the kitchen that evening to find Acacia learning Anatomy with her. :)

Big Family Food and Fun: January 26-February 1, 2025

Sunday morning, I made a pot of Tapioca Pudding because again, it sounded really good. We stayed home from church that morning because our coughs were pretty bad and we didn’t want our kids to spread germs.

Lunch was easy because a week ago after our Burrito Bar, I’d stirred together this Burrito Casserole. I slid it into the oven to bake the last part of the morning, plus put the last of our White Queso into a small slow cooker to warm up. We all either made Smothered Burritos or enjoyed the casserole as a chip dip. We got out salsa and guacamole to go with this too – I’d just forgotten to get those out yet when I took this picture.

Dinner was fun because at Christmas time, we’d been given a gift certificate to daVinci’s. We used it Sunday night to order pizzas. Plus Matt made a small cheese pizza for the kids who wouldn’t want fancy pizza.

Monday was a refreshing restart. All six school kids were well enough to go back to school – something that hasn’t happened since before Christmas break, phew! As an added bonus, the day was sunny with temps in the 50’s.

My energy was still very low so we didn’t do much that day besides REST after all the kids left for school and Auggie went down for a nap.

I filled a crock pot with Cheeseburger Soup for our dinner, which was a hit with everyone and we finished all of it.

Tuesday morning, Auggie had both a Speech Therapy appointment and a Neurology appointment. It was the first I’d been out of the house in over a week. I ate a Breakfast Sandwich between appointments in an effort to be filled with protein to make it through the morning.

We had a box of bacon in the fridge that we needed to be finished off, so that afternoon, I baked 8 pans of bacon. I wiped out the last of the box, and we ate bacon that night for dinner stirred into Mac and Cheese with either Peas or Steamed Broccoli. This provided us with a lot of cooked bacon in our fridge for grown-ups to warm up for breakfast or lunches as needed.

This week, Malachi moved back in with us! He’s been living across town in an appointment with his cousin. But they both decided to make a shift so Malachi is back. We are all (Malachi included) very excited about this!

Both Little Sweetheart and Arrow have been able to come over this week per their usual schedule of spending time with Lolli and Pop. Here’s Arrow enjoying a (plastic) donut. After all, grandparents are supposed to give their grandkids lots of sweets, or so I hear? ;)

Dinner on Wednesday evening was Meatball Subs with buns and cheese, Pickles, and Pineapple Fluff. All the kids ate very well that night, something I’m so thankful for after our very rough month.

Thursday morning, I made a pan of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Bars and scrambled a dozen eggs with cheese.

Mashed potatoes sounded good, so the kids took turns “helping me” peel potatoes before leaving for school. They were so excited about this job, but as it turns out, peeling potatoes is harder than they thought. At least they were willing to try. :)

With so many kids’ needs, I finally finished the potatoes mid-morning (took three hours from start to finish, ha) and got them into the crock pot to cook all day. I also pulled out ground chicken from the freezer to make Chicken Cheeseballs for dinner later.

That afternoon, I made two pans of Chicken Cheeseballs. I froze one for another time and baked one for dinner.

This was such a tasty meal: Chicken Cheeseballs, Mashed Potatoes, and Buttered Peas.

Friday morning Anna helped me load the dishwasher. She loved feeling grown up doing this job for me. She even got to push the buttons to run it when she was finished.

It was another gorgeous day outside, so kids played after school and soaked up some sun.

I had picked up a lot of fresh produce at the store that afternoon, so we had a fruit plate with Burgers for dinner that night.

I had found slider-sized burgers marked down at Sam’s a few weeks ago, and they are perfect for our crew since the little ones can’t eat a full-sized burger. We ate 17 out of 18 of these Burgers that night plus Baked Beans, Fruit, and Pickles.

Saturday morning I made Blender Pancakes – a rare treat at our house. I then spent the morning getting ready for the next day’s Sunday Lunch. I planned to bake one of our $10 hams, so I made a big pan of Party Potatoes to go with it. We were hoping for a large crowd, so I also made a small crock pot of Baked Beans and steamed Green Beans. I had Peanut Butter Brownies in the freezer, so I pulled those out for our Sunday dessert.

We ate leftovers for lunch that day in an effort to clean out the fridge. Brayden was excited to help me warm up spaghetti and meatballs.

We spent the rest of the day resting, cleaning, and heading into our Sabbath Saturday/Sunday. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025 post!

Before I share about our new week, I’ll fill you in on the last part of our day Saturday, January 11th. (We enjoy a Sabbath rest beginning Saturday evenings so I turn off my computer on Saturday afternoon instead of adding these to our weekly post.)

Elias and Malorie have started a tradition of taking our birthday kids out for a special treat as a gift for their big day. With all the sickness we had after Christmas, they had not yet been able to take Brayden out. So on this particular Saturday afternoon, they made it happen. Their idea was perfect since he loves music: they took him to the Guitar Center where he tried out various instruments. Then they treated him to a milkshake at a restaurant next door. He loved this!

Back at home, we were prepping to celebrate Anna’s 5th birthday. She requested Chicken Nuggets, Fries, Avocado and Chips, and sliced fruit for her birthday. (I’m telling you, she was very specific about wanting all the fruit – sliced. It was very sweet.)

All the kids were able to join us except for Malachi who had been invited to go on a last minute video shoot in California. We missed him!

Anna chose this cake “with sprinkles” and I baked it in a sheet pan. Did she request that her cake be filled with spinach? No. Well, that was just a bonus. It’s how we make cake now. :)

The three little faces in this picture are the sweetest. Thank you, God, that we are chosen to be their family.

After dinner, we gathered in the living room for present time. The great thing about gifts for 5-year-olds is that you can pick up a Scratch Art Princess book at Aldi for $5 and the birthday girl will think it is the best thing ever – because for her, it is.

Does all of this feel very “Sabbath-y” to you? Hmmm. The evening was certainly not calm, quiet, or particularly restful. But the more we learn about what it means to Sabbath, we are understanding that especially in this season in our lives, taking a “day off” doesn’t mean “do nothing.”

We are learning that Sabbath allows us to take a break from the normal days’ needs, to enjoy community, to delight in every bite of food we take, and to really take in what is going on around us. Our Saturday evenings and Sundays give us all of this and we are grateful to experience it.

Big Family Food and Fun: January 12-18, 2025

Sunday morning, we enjoyed Breakfast Cookies turned into bars. This has become a standard Sabbath Sunday breakfast for us because I can make them during the week and freeze them. I’ve actually been doubling the recipe (you’re so surprised that I do this) and freezing them on two plates to give us two Sunday breakfasts for one amount of effort.

The day before, I had made Beanie Weanies to share at a Kids’ Ministry Potluck and Game Time after church. So I warmed those while we ate breakfast plus got out Grapes and the rest of Anna’s Cake to take with us.

After church, families with kids shared a meal together.

Then the games came out. Have you ever played Happy Salmon? It’s so fantastic (and LOUD). But wait. Have you ever played Happy Salmon with Brayden?? This kid loves to yell, so Happy Salmon is HIS GAME. Come to think of it, you probably heard him playing from wherever you live. Now you know what that noise was on Sunday afternoon. :) It was kind of awesome.

Meanwhile, look at all these darlings playing board games together.

That afternoon, Matt and I got to enjoy our Community Group with three other couples. We had taken a break from meeting during the holidays so being together again on this day was extra sweet. We turned on a movie for the kids, then we grown-ups met around our table with coffee and carrot cake, sharing life and prayer needs. We’ve been going through Practicing the Way together – diving deep into what it looks like to be more like Jesus and do what He did.

Dinner that night was Leftovers and Salad. I gave the kids a weird snack of Muffins and Salami for a snack before bed. Did they think it was weird though? No, they just chomped it down.

Monday morning we used some overripe bananas to make a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins.

Mid-morning, I baked a pan of Stick of Butter Rice to use with our dinner that night. And for the record, I need to change the name of that rice because I’ve stopped putting butter in it, haha. All the other ingredients (salt, minced onion, and chicken broth) give this rice amazing flavor, and butter has gotten very expensive. So Butterless Stick of Butter Rice is what I make now, what can I say?!

I used the cooked rice to make a version of Tator Tot Casserole: this recipe but with rice instead of green beans. I served Broccoli and Corn on the side.

Brayden has been wanting to take Mac and Cheese for his school lunch so I walked him through making it that evening to rewarm on Tuesday morning. Kiya got in on the project too so that she could also take some.

Tuesday morning for breakfast, everyone chose between Breakfast Sandwiches and Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins. I also got out yogurt to help fill everyone up.

After getting the elementary kids off to school, I made a double recipe of Breakfast Cookies and baked them into bars.

Since I already had the oven on, I also made Crustless Cheesecake. I love having these in the fridge so that I can grab one when I need a filling snack.

Later, I cut the Breakfast Cookies into bars and froze them on two plates to pull out the next two Sundays for easy Sabbath breakfasts. The Crustless Cheesecakes went into the fridge for snacks this week.

As I prepped for dinner, I experimented with a variety of Chili Mac – using leftover Chili from the fridge stirred into leftover Mac and Cheese from the fridge. This is one of the big ways I save money on food –  using up leftovers, turning them into a new meal to make them more exciting. (For the record though, the little kids did not love this meal. So I won’t do this again. But at least we ate up some leftovers!)

That afternoon, I took Brayden, Kiya, and Keith to hand out food at our our weekly Food Distribution site. Kiya and I ran our stations at a food table while the boys washed coolers as they got emptied out.

Afterward, I vacuumed while the kids mostly played at a chalkboard. But I love that the other grown-up volunteers know that they can ask my kids to help them with jobs during clean up time. Here, all three of them were lugging boxes out to the recycle bin. (Keith is behind Brayden – I missed getting him in this frame.)

Back at home, Matt had made Caesar salad and was feeding kids. They all ate this, but didn’t have seconds so our snack that night included bread or crackers with peanut butter to fill them up.

Wednesday morning, we enjoyed some of the breads and bagels we’d brought home from Food Distribution. There’s always a lot of bread up for grabs there, and we are thankful for this gift. This time, we had Cinnamon Swirl Bagels and Blueberry Bread – very fun!

We also brought home some almost-expired spinach from Food Distribution that I needed to use up quickly. I made a batch of chocolate Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eaters and added a huge wad of spinach to the blender.

Then, instead of turning the batter into muffins, I baked it in a loaf pan. I love that it has both pumpkin and spinach in it! (Adding chocolate chips would have made it taste even better.)

Mid-morning, we loaded up the youngest four kids and went to the Children’s Museum to play. Look how big they are, hanging up their coats all by themselves…

There are three levels at this museum, and we typically stay on the main floor or go to the basement. This time, we spent our whole morning on the top level discovering new favorites!

We got home in time to eat Avocado Cups with Chips before the bus came to pick up the girls for preschool.

Arrow came to hang out with us this afternoon. His sweetness is overwhelming. Goodness, that face.

Dinner that night was leftover Tator Tot Casserole plus a few other leftovers we pulled out of the fridge.

Malachi had returned from California and came over to catch us up on his adventures. He grabbed a bite of dinner with us, then took kids on rides throughout the house.

Thursday morning the kids ate Yogurt with Granola for breakfast – a super easy meal. After we got the older three to school, I left Acacia and Josie behind with Matt while I took Anna and Auggie with me to Walmart.

Taking only two kids to the store? Sort of easy. But only having one cart? Yikes. We barely made it work. :)

Back at home, Justus had dropped off Little Sweetheart. I got home and we got all the groceries carried in and put away, got the little girls off to preschool, put Auggie down for a nap, sent Matt off to a meeting, and then I had some Little Sweetheart snuggle time!

For dinner that night, I made two pans of Pizza Chicken Bake. We had been given a been given a box of Instant Mashed Potatoes so I made these for a side dish. (Why do they not taste great and pretty much not actually taste like potatoes?). I also steamed Green Beans and toasted some Buttered Rolls.

At the last minute, we texted our neighbors Coleman and Sarah to come eat with us. During the warm months, we often hang out with them at their garage and the kids LOVE this. So we’d been missing them as we’ve all been cooped up inside. It was so great to catch up with them during dinner.

Friday morning, I let the kids chose cold cereal for breakfast so that I could focus on other food projects I wanted to get done. Kiya was completely ready for school by 7:45 (we don’t need to leave the house until 8:40), so I asked her to crack 20 eggs into a pan to bake for Breakfast Sandwiches.

Meanwhile, I browned a pound of hamburger meat and made a quadruple batch of Simple No-Bake Granola Bites.

Mid-morning, I cut the baked eggs into 20 pieces. (I always put shredded cheese on the eggs as soon as they come out of the oven, so it melts and is ready for sandwiches.) Then I put a frozen sausage patty on each of 20 buns, along with a square of egg/cheese to complete the Breakfast Sandwiches.

I bagged the sandwiches up individually for an easy-to-grab breakfast option for the grown-ups who take breakfast and lunch to work. Then I put several into the fridge and the rest into a freezer bag to be frozen and pulled out as needed.

Next, I stirred the cooked hamburger meat into a casserole dish with tomato soup, corn, and last night’s leftover green beans. I spread the leftover mashed potatoes over the mixture, then topped it with cheese. This was my way of using up leftovers to make our dinner of Shepherd’s Pie for that night!

This turned out SO GOOD. The kids ate it well, and I’m so glad I was reminded of this meal idea that I’d forgotten about. We will definitely make Shepherd’s Pie again. As an added bonus, it’s an entire meal in one pan. So easy!

There was to be a potluck on Sunday after church, so on Saturday morning, I prepped our dishes to take and share. I made a crock pot with Baked Beans and another with Cream Cheese Corn. I had a Chocolate Fudge Pie in the freezer so I pulled that out to take.

It was Elias’ birthday so that morning, I also prepped for his family birthday dinner. He requested Fish Tacos and I made Taco Meat from hamburger, too, for those who didn’t like fish.

He asked for a Brownie Sundae Bar for dessert. So I pulled Brownies from the freezer that I’d made a while back, plus made a quick batch of Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.

We ate leftovers for lunch in an effort to clean out the fridge, plus did some much-needed cleaning.

I put away my computer in the early afternoon as we headed into our time of Sabbath rest. I’ll share about Elias’ birthday dinner next week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2025

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2025 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 29-January 4, 2024

I stop working on Saturdays in the afternoon so that we can move into our special time of Sabbath rest that we’ve chosen to practice for our family. Therefore, each week when I begin these posts, I start by backing up to share what the last part of our Saturday looked like. :)

Last Saturday was amazing because we asked some friends to come help with our seven littles so that Matt and I could spend time with all of our adult kids for a few hours. We all met up at Justus and Kelsey’s house, had a Secret Santa gift exchange, ate a super delicious meal courtesy of Famous Dave’s (Justus and Kelsey had gift cards!), then played games for four hours!!

We laughed so hard and had so much fun. Phew, we needed this.

Back at home, we walked into this scene with our kids having the time of their lives with Ms. Kathi and Ms. Terra. The other kids were hanging with Mr. Matt and since the weather was beautiful that day, they’d all been playing outside most of the time we were gone. Our three caregivers rocked it for us and we are sooooo grateful for the gift they gave us that day.

That morning before we headed to Justus and Kelsey’s, I’d put a Melt-in-your-Mouth Beef Roast into a crock pot to cook for our dinner. Kiya had helped me scrub potatoes and we filled another crock pot so we could make these mashed potatoes to go with our roast. When we got home, I realized I’d forgotten to add the carrots I planned to throw in with the roast. So I quickly made peas while Terra mashed the potatoes for us. We got hungry kids fed, bathed, and tucked in for the night after an awesome day!

Sunday was Brayden and Auggie’s birthday! Brayden chose all the meals for the day. (When Auggie gets older, we’ll have to figure out meal choices having two birthday kids in one day!)

We had Scrambled Cheesy Eggs and Hashbrown Patties for breakfast.

Brayden wanted Lasagna for his birthday lunch, and we had some of our normal Sunday crowd join us after church. Friends brought a Pasta Bake and Oranges to help complete our meal. We made Caesar Salad and Corn, plus Oreo Brownies for the birthday dessert.

There were 29 of us gathered that day.

It was fun to celebrate Brayden during this time! Meanwhile, Auggie was having a lovely birthday nap. :)

Two stick candles side by side make an 11, right? ;)

The weather was sunny and gorgeous! Our friend Mandy stopped by and many of us headed out to take a walk together to fill up our church’s Little Free Pantry. It’s just a few blocks from our house.

Back at home, Auggie woke up and shared a hug with his Birthday Bro.

Brayden wanted to make his birthday dinner for the family: Orange Chicken and Onion Rings.

I got out cucumbers and carrots to offer a veggie with dinner. Brayden did a great job!

Then it was Auggie’s turn to blow out candles. He’s the big 2 now!

Elias and Malorie had to run to Walmart and asked if I needed anything. You guys? I am a sucker for these cheap hams. I’d gotten four of them on clearance for a $1.00/pound last week. But just in case, I asked them to look and see if by chance they’d been marked down any more to $0.50/pound.

Sure enough! There was an entire case of them. I asked them to get four for me, then I worked to create freezer space!

See how hard this is to resist??

Present time! Auggie was pretty excited about his magnetic toy set.

Brayden started playing school right away with his new Dry Erase Board. What a great day!

Monday morning, I made a blender full of smoothie for Matt and me. The kids ate yogurt and granola, plus Banana Bread.

I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen that morning getting ready for company to come. I had chicken bones in the freezer that I’d saved after a Rotisserie Chicken purchase. I used the bones to make Chicken Broth for soup, knowing we’d need it for a big crowd we’d be feeding on Wednesday.

I also put several pounds of boneless chicken thighs into a crock pot with two jars of salsa. I planned to have it ready to turn into Taco Soup.

I also cleaned out one of our dishwashers and was so happy to see this top rack. This is what our dishwasher looks like after a big Sunday Lunch. We eat, we visit, we drink coffee and have dessert together – it’s such a beautiful time. I love a dishwasher full of coffee mugs to remind me of our awesome time of fellowship.

Late in the afternoon, I blended the onions and carrots that had cooked with the chicken bones and stirred the veggies back into the broth. This makes it so rich and extra nourishing.

I shredded the chicken and put it into the fridge with the broth to be ready to make a huge amount of soup on Wednesday!

For dinner that night, I put one of our $5 hams into our large roaster to cook. This created the easiest, cheapest meal on earth. The ham was delicious, and we ate it with leftover mashed potatoes and veggies from the fridge. I also cut up two pineapple, which really hit the spot! (By the way, the spiral cut hams we get so cheap are coated in a brown sugar glaze which we don’t love so I rinse it off before cooking it.)

Tuesday morning we spent time cleaning and making beds as we prepped for our friends to come hang out with us and spend the night. We LOVE it when the Brocks come to visit! They also have a large family (there are eight of them!) and our kids all get along well. They arrived just before lunch and we had the goal to eat quickly then play games all afternoon!

Lunch for our large families was a simple spread of Summer Sausage, Cheese, Crackers, Chips, Dips, Veggies, Fruit, and Zucchini Bread and Banana Bread that the Brocks brought.

I love it when our table is full of Coppingers and Brocks, but the sweetest scene is….

THIS. Their little girls and our little girls like to sit together in these special seats. Meal time is crazy and loud at our house, but when the Brocks are here, everyone is calm and grounded (at least for a time).

We played games all afternoon, then Brayden, Kiya, Keith and I took two from the Brock family to help hand out food and clean at  our weekly Food Distribution site.

This particular week, there were fewer volunteers available, fewer clients who came through the line, but extra food to hand out because of the holiday. Our kids worked very hard and very well and we were so proud of them. Putting our kids in situations like this where they serve is sooooooo beneficial in so many ways.

Brayden wanted to take a picture of Keith scrubbing a cooler. And do you see those strawberries above? Clients who came through the line took as many as they wanted, but at the end of our give away time, there were still many flats worth of berries and they needed to be eaten or frozen right away. We brought home many, many pounds of strawberries that day, and then we all promptly ate many, many pounds of berries as soon as we got home. What a great treat – free strawberries to feed our collective 13 kids!

After everyone ate their fill of berries, we ate our actual dinner: Hawaiian Chicken, two pans of Stick of Butter Rice, Steamed Green Beans, and Rolls.

We had invited our friend, Breck, to join us for dinner because she knows the Brocks too. It was such a great time of visiting before everyone moved into playing more games as we rang in the new year. (Some of us rang in the new year by going to bed before midnight, ehem.)

Wednesday morning we celebrated the first day of the year by eating 28 Eggs and lots of Bacon. (The Brocks had brought six dozen eggs from their chickens!)  The plate of bacon you see below was just a small portion of what we baked as people ate it as fast as it came out of the oven. We finished off all the strawberries we’d brought home the night before from the food distribution plus we ate more of the Zucchini Bread and Banana Bread the Brocks had baked and brought with them.

Kids played and played all morning while the grown ups visited and worked in the kitchen to prep for a huge lunch.

We had invited all of our older kids to come for lunch so that they could catch up with the Brocks, plus we invited another family to come join as they have great connections with the Brocks too. Altogether, there were 30 of us, and it was a great time of visiting and feasting.

We went through at least three pots of coffee that day. Lunch was a huge roaster full of Spicy Ham and Potato Soup, two crock pots full of Chicken Taco Soup, and a big assortment of anything else we could set out to fill everyone up: rolls and croissants, fritos, sliced oranges, carrots and cucumbers, crackers, and cheese.

Take note of Elias wearing Malorie’s shower cap. :) He was doing an oil treatment on his scalp and wasn’t shy about walking around like this most of the day. It was hard to take him seriously, but somehow we managed to have real conversations and play games with his crazy-headed self.

We filled our dining room table.

And spilled over into the living room. Meals and times like these are truly awesome.

The rest of the day was spent playing more games together. In fact, the Brocks intended to head home mid-afternoon but by the time our third game ended, we realized we needed to give them a bite to eat for dinner so that they wouldn’t have to stop and feed all their kids on the way home. So we pulled out all kinds of random leftovers (I forgot to get a picture), rewarmed soup, and got them filled up before sending them on their way. What an amazing visit!

Thursday morning we decided it was a pajama day. We also had a refrigerator that looked like this, so I declared it to be a Leftover Day for all three meals. (I had Lasagna and Soup in our pantry fridge also.)

As I was clearing out food for kids to pick what they wanted for lunch, I pulled out the spinach that was expiring and turned it into these Cupcakes. I find it amazing how much spinach I can manage to stuff into my blender to make these. What a great way to eat greens. ;)

Later in the afternoon, I looked up “ways to use cottage cheese” because I had quite a bit in my fridge that needed to be used. I found a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and the girls and I gave it a try!

I used all whole wheat flour instead of some of the white that the recipe called for. They turned out pretty tasty. I froze most of them for an upcoming Sunday Lunch. And check out the awesome three-tier cooking rack Malorie got me for Christmas!

Bedtime at our house is quite the hectic situation, with so many littles struggling with behaviors or needing attention. Matt put on Acacia’s leg brace and read to the three little girls while I wrestled with Auggie then read to the three older littles. By the time I got into the little girls’ room to tuck them in, Josie and Acacia were already fast asleep. I soaked in their sweetness for a moment.

Friday morning we had a lot of prep work to do so that we could be ready for what we thought would be a full weekend. I put a Pork Loin into a crock pot to cook for Sunday’s lunch. I also put several pounds of boneless chicken thighs into our large roaster with barbecue sauce to shred for Sunday as another meat option. Here’s what it all looked like later in the day when it was finished.

Mid-morning, we loaded up all the kids to burn off energy in the indoor play area at the Zoo. I packed snacks because even though they ate all morning and would eat all afternoon, we need to eat also while we’re out and about.

We came home and finished up a jar full of Ham and Potato Soup leftovers.

Friends came for dinner that night, so I made 9 Pizzas from crusts I had in the freezer. We ate our pizza with Caesar Salad.

One of the reasons we’d arranged for dinner with friends is because they had some toys to hand down that their kids were finished with. A tool set and work bench? Keith was in heaven!

And check out this amazing play kitchen they brought. The little girls got lost in there while we grown ups visited, and Auggie even played for quite a while. Such a cool kitchen!

Saturday we had a meeting out of town, but had some sick kids which changed a lot of our plans. We ate leftovers for all of our meals and tried to catch up on some laundry. And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 22-28, 2024

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 22-28, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 22-28, 2024

Saturday evening as we kicked off our Sabbath time of rest, I baked a pan of Crunchy Ranch Chicken that had been prepped ahead and in the freezer. The kids all love this chicken so they eat it well (something I can’t say about most main dishes). We served this with Tator Tots, Spinach, and Canned Pineapple – all super simple and fun! (And yes, this pan of chicken wasn’t enough for all of us, but we each had a little and filled up on the rest of the food.)

Sunday morning, I put an entire bag of frozen meatballs from Costco into two crock pots. I poured a jar of spaghetti sauce over one pot and barbecue sauce over the other. They cooked while we were at church. So easy!

We came home and set out fixings for Meatball Subs and Sliders with a variety of rolls/buns, sliced cheese, and banana peppers. This was a huge hit! I had leftover chips from Malachi’s birthday gathering last weekend, so I set those out too (which, of course, was all our little kids wanted to eat – a reminder of why I don’t serve chips very often, ha). Friends brought salad and a veggie tray, plus we had grapes and desserts.

28 of us gathered that day for this feast. Sundays are my favorite!!!!

One of our guests was a friend from our older boys’ childhood and he brought his girlfriend so we could meet her. These guys grew up playing soccer together and it was a beautiful day. So what did all the guys do after lunch? They headed to the yard to juggle a soccer ball. We gals hung in the living room with babies and visited. This was a delight.

Late in the afternoon, we gathered all of our kids plus the loaves of Apple Bread and Eggnog Bread that we had baked on Saturday so that we could deliver them to our neighbors for Christmas. The temps outside were amazing, making this outing extra fun.

We knocked on doors and had such a great time handing out loaves of Christmas Bread and visiting with neighbors.

One particular stop is always a favorite because these neighbors go ALL OUT with decorations. They invited us all inside to see their special Christmas displays. We stood and watched their train go around and around the tree for quite some time!

At one of our final stops, we discovered the most incredible porch swing of all time. Getting a picture of the kids on a moving swing is next to impossible, so here is the least blurry of all I attempted. :)

Back at home with lots of hungry kids, we warmed up leftover noodles and chicken from Malachi’s birthday dinner Chicken Alfredo night. Brayden requested mashed potatoes, which did sound good with the leftover chicken. So I quickly made some with instant mashed potatoes I’d gotten from Azure Standard to have on hand for meals like this.

Last week at Costco, I scored four quarts of half and half for just $0.97 each. They were marked down because they are close to expiring. So on Monday morning, I used some of it to make a really rich version of Warm Vanilla Soother. My goal was to get some good nourishment into Anna because she’d been sick and not eaten well for a week and a half. However, that morning, everyone liked this treat except for Anna. Boo.

Either way, we drew fun faces on plastic cups to enjoy our Warm Vanilla Soother, plus I made some sausage links.

The temperature was in the low 50s that day, so we headed to the zoo to play in their indoor play area with the Spider Monkeys. We were all so excited that the Red Pandas were out that day – a rare treat for sure!

The Red Pandas are the most adorable creatures at the zoo, and there were four out playing that day.

We made our way to the indoor play area, admired the monkeys – including a baby monkey – and then played hard on the climbing jungle for over an hour.

We put coats back on and went to visit the giraffes before heading home.

I had put Hearty Bean Casserole in a crock pot before we left so that we’d have lunch ready right when we walked in the door. I was so glad I had done this because everyone had played hard and was hungry when we got back. We sliced apples to eat with our beans and everything tasted extra good after our morning outing.

I put Auggie down for a nap, then headed to Sam’s and Walmart. I did not want to join the crazy crowds at the store on December 23, but I needed to seize my opportunity to pick up a few more needed items for Christmas and upcoming birthdays. Oy, having THREE birthdays in our family between December 20 and 29 adds a lot to the holiday season. I wanted to be sure our birthday babes felt celebrated.

So I got all the food needed to meet their birthday meal requests, plus got more fruits and veggies to fill everyone’s bellies throughout Christmas break.

Back at home, Kelsey and Little Sweetheart had come over to help Matt with all the kids. The boys played outside while three of the girls had fun playing a game at the table with Kelsey. So sweet!

My final stop on the way home from shopping was Raising Cane’s for a huge cup of sauce for our Christmas dinner. :) I texted this picture to all of the adults in the family, letting them know that I’d acquired the sauce, so Christmas could now happen. (We started this tradition last year, eating Chicken Strips with our favorite Cane’s sauce for lunch after we open gifts. It’s fun, easy, and a great way to feed this many people, especially picky kids on a special day.)

For dinner Monday night, I made 18 mini hamburgers with pre-made patties I’d picked up marked down at Sam’s that day. We ate them with fries and pickles, making for a simple meal before watching a Christmas movie that night.

Just as we were settling into the living room for our movie, our neighbor dropped by with a gift for the kids. SO SWEET.

Christmas Eve day was a bit nuts all morning and early afternoon because the kids were so anxious for Christmas! We tried to keep the kids occupied in good ways so that they didn’t eat each other, oy.

I had picked up small items for Matt for Christmas, so I called the kids in one at a time to each wrap a present for Daddy to put under the tree.

They worked together to set up School in the pantry and played for a while. But as it turns out, having your 9-year-old sister for a teacher isn’t as much fun as one would think. ;) Nor is being a 9-year-old teacher to students who are also your siblings and who also don’t want to gather around you for Circle Time. So…

I called off school and invited everyone into the dining room to frost and decorate a cookie. We’d rolled, cut, and baked these a couple of weeks ago, then froze them for Christmas time. With the big mess out of the way, it was great to simply hand everyone a knife with frosting and a few sprinkles and let them enjoy their cookie. I have yet to taste a sugar cookie as good as Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies. So good.

After this, we got everyone dressed and ready for our Christmas Eve Candle Light service at Heartlands church.

We came home to a simple but special dinner of Nachos with Apples and Martinelli’s (sparkling apple cider).

After we got the kids to bed that night, Matt and I got the living room all set up for Christmas morning.

We had Egg Casserole for breakfast on Christmas morning with Monkey Bread that our neighbor made plus fresh fruit.

Justus, Kelsey, and Little Sweetheart arrived a little before 8:00. We wished our housemate/friend Kermit a Merry Christmas before sending him off to visit family for a few days.

Asa, Eva, and Arrow joined us a while later, plus our friend Kayla. (Elias and Malorie were visiting her family in TX so we FaceTimed them later.) The morning was crazy and fun as we opened gifts.

These three were very proud of their new dresses, hats, and gloves. :)

With this many people, opening gifts and stockings took all morning long.

Keith has been wanting roller skates since our time skating with family in Kansas in November. When he opened his gift, he put these on and skated throughout the house most of the day.

It was beyond awesome to have our two grandbabies with us for their first Christmas!

We enjoyed our second annual tradition for Christmas lunch: Chicken Strips with Cane’s Sauce. It’s the simplest, allowing us to eat something fun without having to work so that we can continue to enjoy our time together. We had chips and dips from Costco, plus veggies and cookies.

During the afternoon, we turned on a movie for the kids so that the adults could play a game together. It was the first time in several years that Matt and I actually got to enjoy game time with our grown kids!!

We’d surprised them with decks of the game Jibber Jabble in their stockings – a game created by a friend of ours. We had SO MUCH FUN playing this for over two hours! It was super cool knowing that our kids grew up with the creator of this game. And truly, what a great group game. Check it out here.

Later, Asa and Malachi spent a long time putting together our big family gift: a ping pong table. We’ve been wanting to put one in the basement for a while and this Christmas the time was right. Everyone is pretty excited about this!

The rest of us hung out with babies and kids while the ping pong table construction was underway.

Dinner that night was more of the same from previous meals, with Little Smokies, Cheese and Crackers, and Pickles added to the mix. The entire days’ food was super simple and fun.

Kiya was excited to try out her new Dominos game, so Eva and I played with her and taught Brayden and Anna to play also.

Thursday morning we were all feeling the let down after the Christmas hype, so some of the kids’ behaviors were pretty challenging. We took them to the Children’s Museum to burn off some energy.

Eva and Arrow met us there for a while. Auggie, as the much older kid, decided that he needed to explain some of the features of the museum to Arrow.

On our way home, Matt surprised the kids with a rare drive through to Arby’s. He had a coupon for three $1.00 fries so we took those home to share with our lunch. Meanwhile, I texted Malachi to please warm up leftover chicken so that it would be ready to feed hungry kids when we got back.

I got out spinach to offer some sort of nourishment with this meal. Everyone had about five fries, haha. It was still a treat for them that they appreciated.

Late that afternoon, some of the kids played school while others hung out in the basement trying to learn to play ping pong. On skates. ;)

For dinner that night, I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce with boiled noodles, green beans, and corn. I also warmed up some leftover Alfredo sauce with chicken for those who wanted white sauce on their noodles.

After dinner, I used the rest of the red sauce to put together a huge Lasagna for our Sunday lunch. We will celebrate Brayden and Auggie’s birthdays that day, and this meal was Brayden’s request.

We got the kids ready for bed, knowing that soon, Elias and Malorie would be back from their trip to TX to see Malorie’s family. There was a lot of excitement when they walked into the room!

We had some present time with Elias and Malorie since they’d missed our Christmas gathering the day before. Then Malachi took the girls for a ride through the living room before we headed upstairs to tuck everyone in. :)

Friday morning, I remembered that this time last year, I’d gotten ham marked down to $0.50/pound post-Christmas. Matt was SUPER DAD and took care of all seven kids by himself while I ran out to see if I could score the same deal. Indeed, spiral cut hams were marked down. They were $1.00/pound instead of $0.50/pound, but I wasn’t going to complain. I grabbed four then went to see what else I could find.

I picked up ground chicken for $2.51/pound (to make Chicken Cheeseballs) and hamburger meat for $3.34/pound. I also ran to Aldi to get fruit/veggie pouches for Auggie and got some meat deals there too!

Back at home, everyone had shoes on and we loaded up to drive 30-minutes to visit our dear friend, Elina. The kids ate bananas, applesauce, and cheese sticks all the way there. We got to meet several of her friends and some people who work with her each day. Then we gave her the Christmas gift we’d brought.

Elina’s friend was kind enough to take a picture of all of us together.

Back at home, Brayden put together a Caesar salad for us, which we ate with leftover chicken and Banana Muffins.

The afternoon was spent playing and cleaning. Matt turned a table over to repair it and had lots of help.

Dinner that night was Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Tomato Soup and Clementines.

Then we gathered in the living room to work on a fun craft that Malorie’s mom had sent back for the kids as a Christmas gift. So fun!

Saturday morning, I put a Melt-in-your-Mouth Beef Roast into the crock pot for our dinner plus got Crock Pot Mashed Potatoes started.

The rest of the morning was spent getting ready for sitters to come hang out with the kids so that Matt and I could spend the entire afternoon with all of our adult kids at Justus and Kelsey’s. This was much needed and our sitters were so awesome to do this for us. I’ll share more about this next week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 15-21, 2024

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 15-21, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 15-21, 2024

Saturday evening, as part of our Sabbath time of delight, we took the kids out to look at Christmas lights before bed.

Sunday morning, we ate a plate of Breakfast Cookies into Bars that I’d made a few days before.

Pop got to snuggle a sleepy Little Sweetheart during worship time that morning. Anna wasn’t feeling well, poor thing.

We had an amazing full house for lunch that day with 29 of us altogether. I had made a large roaster full of Spicy Ham and Potato Soup last Friday, and simply rewarmed it (with the help of Kelsey who got to the house after church before we did that day). Some friends who joined us brought food also and we had a feast with soup, salads, breads, chips, fruit, and cakes.

I love it when the dining room and the living room tables are full of dear ones.

We had an extra special “Pigmas Party” at Heartlands church that night! It was reverse of the Christmas in July idea with a…Barbecue in December! One church member smoked a bunch of pulled pork for all of us (it was amazing!). Everyone brought desserts. It was a wonderful time of fellowship.

There was an ugly sweater contest and I was definitely in the running with my hideous flamingo sweater with matching (um, clashing) earrings and hair bows!

The kids had fun trying on items from the photo booth.

The evening ended with Justus and two friends entertaining us with some fun Christmas music.

Monday morning, I scrambled a dozen eggs and warmed up bacon I’d baked last week. I got out a jar of Smoothie I’d made the day before for Matt and me.

While the kids were playing that morning, Auggie found Keith’s Husker helmet. It weighed him down, so he didn’t wear it for long. But he did wear it proudly. :)

I wrapped presents that afternoon while drinking cold coffee with cream to power me through. :)

I had to take Keith to an appointment after school, so I got dinner out before I left to make dinnertime easier for Matt, Elias, and Malorie. I had two Quiche (or is it quiches? nope, I looked it up. quiche.) in the freezer from a previous meal, so Matt warmed up individual pieces in our air fryer and it tasted great!

—> By the way, I’d intentionally made extra Quiche a few weeks ago, knowing I’d have leftovers to freeze. If I’m going to get out ingredients to make one meal, I might as well make double the food using the same amount of effort, right? Having pre-made food in the freezer like this saves me on busy nights! <—

With the Quiche, we had Spinach with salad dressing, Oranges, and Pears.

MONDAY NIGHT FUN:

As we were finishing dinner that night, Matt discovered (…wait for it…) a squirrel in our pantry.

We have no idea how it got into our house, though our neighbors had told us they had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago. WHAT?

Have you ever tried keeping seven trauma-kids calm while there’s a squirrel in the pantry? Well.

Malorie helped me keep the kids occupied in the kitchen, dining room, or living room while Elias and Matt did everything they could to trap the squirrel, then set it free outside. It was not an easy task, but there were enticing peanuts involved.

All that to say, getting everyone settled in for the night wasn’t easy (as if it ever is easy?!).

Oy. But there’s more.

Tuesday morning, I had to get Auggie to Speech Therapy in the midst of getting the other kids off to school, so we had a simple breakfast of Yogurt with Granola. I also set out the Pancake Sausage Muffins I’d made last week (that failed to rise) for any of the kids who wanted those. Meanwhile, Kiya made herself a ham sandwich with spinach for lunch and I drank my morning smoothie.

ALSO DURING BREAKFAST

Elias usually leaves for work around 7:20 but walked out and came right back into the house announcing that his car had locked him out somehow. Did I mention that his car was running?!

Our extra car isn’t running right now so I was no help because I needed to van for Auggie’s appointment. So he quickly grabbed Malorie’s keys and took her car (later Malorie took his car to work). He made it to work just in time.

Matt watched a YouTube video in an effort to learn how to break into a car (hahahaha). But he isn’t burglar enough, so it didn’t work. He finally gave in and called a locksmith who had it unlocked very quickly once he arrived. I texted this picture to Elias, letting him know that an hour and twenty minutes later, his car (that had been running that entire time) had most definitely defrosted and was nice and warm.

And then I texted Elias that between the kids’ frequently challenging behavior/needs, the squirrel in our pantry last night, and the hubbub of the morning with the car situation – if we hadn’t scared Malorie off by now, ain’t nothing going to scare her off.

Malorie is a keeper.

All of that was before 8:25, in which I was also trying to get kids ready and off to school plus get Auggie ready to leave for Speech Therapy. Arriving at the clinic with Auggie felt like a vacation for me.

This is his third week, so he warmed up to his therapist much more quickly this morning and was ready to play!

After therapy, he got to pick a sticker. I kid you not, look at what Auggie innocently picked out:

I texted the above picture to Matt, Elias, and Malorie saying,

Of all the stickers Auggie could pick after therapy today, he chose this one. Too soon, buddy, too soon.

PHEW.

Back at home, we worked together to get the girls ready for school. Bubble braids for the win!

Anna still wasn’t feeling well and it had affected her appetite. Mac and Cheese sounded good to her so I made some for the kids’ lunch before the bus came. But, silly as it might sound, I cried when I made it.

Our Bonus Buddy moved out a few weeks ago and we miss him terribly. Mac and cheese is one of the few foods he likes, so I haven’t brought myself to make it since he left. Ugh. Silly mac and cheese. Salted with tears.

We got two out of three little girls on the bus and I tucked Anna and Auggie (and Little Sweetheart, who was hanging with us that morning) in for naps. I took a minute to breathe, then scrubbed potatoes and put them into a crock pot for dinner.

After school, I picked up the three elementary kids and we headed to our weekly Food Distribution site to hand out food and help clean up. At the very end of our time, Keith helped Mr. Jim scrub spots on the carpet.

When we got home, we enjoyed Baked Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese, plus Caesar Salad.

As we finished feeding the kids, Kelsey texted to let us know that some Christmas Carolers might be stopping by. We got the kids ready to meet them outside, not knowing exactly who would be coming. It turned out to be Justus and Kelsey plus two friends we’ve been getting to know and love. Auggie immediately made himself a part of the group. :) I was only able to take a fuzzy picture through my tears. It was so beautiful and precious to be loved on by these four dear ones.

Wednesday, I spent the morning cleaning out two different rooms because when there are this many people living in a house, clutter is not welcome and makes me a little bit crazy. Somewhere during the morning, I found a few chap sticks. So Josie helped Auggie put some on.

Acacia and Josie got a present from their teacher at school that day, and the best place to unwrap it was in the doorway of the kitchen on the floor.

Josie, who apparently didn’t need to take her coat off all day, helped me make salad for dinner that night.

We ate our salad with all the random leftovers we pulled out of our fridge.

Then we loaded up our van with everyone who lives at our house to enjoy a Drive Through Christmas Show. With 12 people in a 12-passenger van that is 9′ tall, we maxed out the limits for who could drive through on one purchased vehicle ticket (12 people with a 10′ height limit, phew).

We got to drive through twice, making it a great outing!

Back at home and ready for bed, Daddy read one of the girls’ new books that their teacher had given them as a gift.

Thursday morning I baked 16 eggs and made 16 Breakfast Sandwiches. Keith helped me stir up the eggs.

We took the four youngest kids to Costco that morning to get stocked up on regular groceries plus everything we needed for Christmas. For a Thursday, we were shocked at how busy Costco was. If it’s that busy on a weekday six days before Christmas, we sure are glad we didn’t wait to go any closer to the 25th!

For dinner that night, we had a double batch of Hearty Bean Casserole with a peeled 3-pound bag of Clementines and Buttered Rolls. It was a super simple meal and everyone gobbled it up.

Friday was Malachi’s 20th birthday! A bunch of his friends came to the Castle Thursday night and they spent the night and day here. It was marvelous.

That morning, I put Chicken Thighs into a crock pot with Italian dressing to slow cook all day for our dinner that night.

Malachi and his friend Allan were the first ones up Friday morning, so they went out to get birthday donuts for the crew. (I vowed to take pictures of all the guys later and got exactly none. Boo.)

Mid-morning, Matt and I took the youngest four kids to the WIC clinic for an appointment.

For the first time ever, Josie and Acacia confidently allowed the nurse to weigh and measure them.

Acacia is barely on the charts for her height (2nd percentile). We call this high spirited girl Tiny-but-Mighty. That’s our Acacia.

Back at home, Justus had dropped Little Sweetheart off with Malorie.

Then Eva dropped off Arrow a few minutes later.

Acacia took over their care until the preschool bus came. :)

That evening, everyone gathered to celebrate Malachi’s birthday. He had requested Chicken Alfredo. I shredded the chicken that had been slow cooking all day, boiled two pounds of noodles, steamed broccoli, made salad, and warmed up a jar of red sauce for those who didn’t want Alfredo. I also set out some fruit to stretch the meal.

 

Malachi’s birthday dessert request was Butterscotch Bars – a family favorite. With the extreme busyness of the week, I was so thankful I had some baked, cut, and already in the freezer! We passed the plate of bars around the table, but first, Malachi blew out his birthday candle.

After dinner the mamas and daddies took their babies home for bed and I put on a Christmas movie for the kids. The rest of the grown ups (and Brayden!) worked upstairs to move and set up furniture. Matt has been working during every free moment of the past few months to redo the boys’ room ceiling. It’s been a major project and the boys have been displaced in the meantime. We are so thankful they can move back into their room! Here the guys are, rebuilding the bunk bed.

Saturday, we spent time cleaning and regrouping after the bedroom transition the night before. The girls also helped me get some baking done so we can deliver goodies to our neighbors!

I loved that all the little girls wanted to help me sweep. Ugh, check out the window blinds that are broken (and there are more not pictured in this photo). This is the room the boys lived in while Matt was repairing theirs. Wayyyyy too many of the blinds got messed up thanks to ADHD and whatever else has yet to be diagnosed. :)

Here’s the final product of our morning baking adventures. We made five loaves of Apple Bread and five loaves of Eggnog Bread. (In case you click over to get this fun recipe, you should know that I cheated and used store-bought eggnog.) We plan to put these loaves in a clear bag and tie them with ribbon, then walk through our neighborhood handing them out.

The rest of the day was spent doing more cleaning, giving baths, getting haircuts, and getting ready for our Sabbath rest. And that was our week!

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