Heavenly Homemakers

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Big Family Food and Fun: April 28-May 4, 2024

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: April 28-May 4, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: April 28-May 4, 2024

I had put together an Easy Bread Pudding the day before when I was making a big batch of Uncrustables so I baked it for our Sunday morning breakfast!

I packed lunch for us to eat after church with other families who were staying for a fun Sundaes on Sunday event! I had two loaves of bread worth of Uncrustables, four cans worth of Tuna Salad, and a batch of Cream Cheese Salsa Dip. Plus I packed grapes, chips, bread/buns, and sweet peppers.

Keith was supposed to have a soccer game mid-afternoon also, so I packed oranges for us to eat during the game and juice for the kids to drink on the way home.

Keith was prepared to fight a fire that morning but we packed his soccer gear just in hopes that his Fire Chief duties allowed him to play in his game. :)

During church, we got the inevitable “Your child’s game is canceled due to wet field conditions.” I think he’s had more cancelations than actual games at this point. But that did mean that we could stay longer at our church fellowship event.

Our awesome children’s minister had Sundae supplies set up after lunch for everyone!

Those oranges I cut up for the kids to eat during Keith’s (canceled) game? Not to worry – those got eaten right on our kitchen floor when we got home. BabyBoy#11 even got in on the action – sucking out some juice while his sisters gobbled down the fruit.

For about an hour that afternoon, I got all the kids involved in doing some much-needed house cleaning. Were they excited and did they have good attitudes about this? Not really. But did they learn some life skills and life lessons about working as a family team? Yes.

Keith had the privilege of running our steam mop, so he actually LOVED his job. The kitchen floor looked much better after he was finished!

I warmed up leftover pancakes and sausage for dinner that night. Then, our friends, the Bakers, came over to watch the seven littles for us. We grown-ups all loaded up at met up at a nearby church for a…

Rend Collective Concert!!!

This was a Christmas gift we gave our adult kids and we finally got to enjoy it together!

The entire night was full of powerful worship! While the entire group is extremely talented, we were all especially impressed with the fiddler. And look! We found the fiddler and got a photo with him during intermission!! :)

Ah, but you might not have noticed the fiddler in the above photo because Kelsey is holding a tiny babe. :) Indeed. Justus and Kelsey have recently started to foster this sweetheart. She is beyond precious. :)

Monday morning, I packed the BBQ Pork/Cheese Sandwiches I’d put together the week before plus some bags of chips to send with Matt as he headed to York. Malachi and some friends were meeting up at our old house to clean it out one last time before the new owners started to move in.

Elias and Malorie helped me with the kids all day while Matt was gone. I decided it was a piggy-tail day.

A piggy-tail-BUBBLE day.

I had a big meeting with our Case Worker, Casa, and Foster Care Support Person that morning. BabyBoy#11’s adoption is coming up soon and we got more paperwork completed!

That evening, I smoked 14 Brats and 24 Hotdogs for dinner. I threw out Pickles, Fruit Cups, and Chips plus warmed up leftover Baked Beans. We ate as fast as we could then headed out for Brayden’s Ukulele Concert at school.

I could not stop smiling while he performed. Music brings out the best in him, 100%, and I was praising God the entire time for giving Brayden this area of success. I didn’t get any pictures of his fan club, but there were 14 of us sitting in the crowd cheering him on. :)

Tuesday morning Keith took on the task of washing some dishes. These dishes got very, very clean and also very wet.

Meanwhile, in the living room…

Just before taking them to school, I had Brayden and Kiya come in to the kitchen to scrub potatoes for our dinner that night. I’m working very hard to train the kids to serve our family in various ways.

The day before I had discovered a Lilac Bush in our yard that I didn’t know existed. It reminds me of the lane leading up to  grandparent’s house and the scent took me back to my childhood. I’m so excited we have this! I put some lilacs into a vase and took it into our kitchen for us to enjoy!

Late afternoon, Acacia and Josie snacked on grapes outside at their picnic table.

Dinner that evening was leftover BBQ Chicken from Saturday night plus Crock Pot Baked Potatoes and Steamed Broccoli. I also warmed up leftover Corn from the fridge. I needed to be out the door by 5:00 because Keith had Kindergarten Roundup. So dinner was ready by 4:30 and we started feeding kids in shifts.

In an effort to divide and conquer, Matt stayed home with four kids and I took Keith, Anna, and BabyBoy#11 with me to the elementary school. Keith was very excited and has declared that he is already a kindergartener. :)

We got to meet the kindergarten teachers and Keith made a hat in what might be his classroom next year. Anna made one too, because, why not? And BabyBoy#11 ate some magnatiles. :)

It was still early evening when we got home and everyone was hungry again because we’d had such an early dinner. The snack this tired mom decided to provide for her hungry children? Spoon after spoon of Peanut Butter. It was easy and it filled their bellies!

Matt attempted to mow part of our lawn while the kids played before bedtime. Everything went fine until it was time for me to transition everyone into the house to get ready for bed. That’s when kids started to put grass clippings in each other’s hair and then they all rubbed fresh grass onto their hands, creating grass-stained hands. Things can, and often do, go from calm to crazy in the span of five seconds. But hey, the lawn looks nice and we all survived.

Wednesday morning I baked a batch of Bran Muffins. Notice how I didn’t get the cinnamon stirred in well? That actually ended up being a pretty tasty mistake. :)

Keith had been asking for Breakfast Cookies so late morning, he helped me make a double batch. Having muffins and breakfast cookies in our freezer is so helpful!

In the afternoon I bagged up the Muffins and Cookies for the freezer. I also baked several pans of Bacon to have on hand and to share.

I had the little girls help me crack 2+ dozen eggs, then I made two Breakfast Casseroles in an attempt to get ahead.

For dinner that night, we made a simple meals of Boiled Elbow Noodles, Spaghetti Sauce with Meat, and Steamed Broccoli. Brayden helped make most of this meal, taking big pride in already knowing how to do most of it. :)

Most of the littles prefer their noodles without sauce but with butter and cheese.

With so many littles to chase, it is very rare for us all to actually SIT an enjoy a meal. But here we are, sitting. For two minutes. We attempted to practice some Bible verses with the kids, which is something we like to do at meal time if we can possibly get everyone seated and quiet.

Thursday morning, Matt headed back to York to work. Elias has started a new job as a Special Ed Para (such a great fit for him!) so he got out the door early. Malachi had video work to do so we called our dear friend Christina to come help us this morning!

I captured this photo of the girls enjoying a rare moment of quiet coloring as the adults were trying to get out the door.

Meanwhile, Keith had gotten out string, scissors, glue, paper, and a hole punch to make…a mask?

His creativity was flowing so next he made a light saber!

Christina is the best with our kids! She helped make our morning go very smoothly. :)

For dinner that night, we stirred together Wednesday night’s leftovers and Elias topped it with cheese to bake.

I decided to go with paper boats that night so that I didn’t add extra dishes to our needs of the day.

And we ate outside so that the mess would fall to the ground! After playing more, we ate some fruit cups to refresh us before bedtime.

We had refrigerated Wednesday’s Egg Casseroles so Friday morning, I cut them and warmed some up for our breakfast. Then I put the remaining pieces into baggies, and then into freezer bags for easy packed lunches (adults) and easy breakfasts (everyone).

We ran to Sam’s that morning where I grabbed milk, fruit, and veggies.

But the real reason we went to Sam’s is because I’d been researching the best Wagon/Stroller for our outings and they had a great one! We wanted to pick it up and get it ready for the season. Of course, putting it together was a BIG EVENT when we got home and Daddy could not have done it without all of this great help. :)

We loaded up and took it for a test drive all the way to the kids’ school where they were having a special Walkathon outside that day.

It’s going to be great to have, but it was a bit heavy for me once we put 100+ pounds of children inside. :) At the zoo, soccer games, parks, and other events, it will be fabulous!

To celebrate our kids’ school’s Walkathon that evening, our closest community library hosted a gathering for the students. They had a scavenger hunt, activities, crafts and PIZZA.

BabyBoy#11 was all in for this event. ;)

It felt extra special to eat pizza inside the library.

But the best part of the night was interacting with people from our community. Many are still new to us and this was a great gift to be with them in this way.

Saturday morning we ate odds and ends to finish off Breakfast Cookies and Muffins.

Meanwhile, I cut up the great big watermelon I’d gotten at Sam’s the day before. (I spent just under $8 on this. Read here to learn why I think this is a GREAT PRICE.)

We got to go to our favorite Sensory Friendly Library Storytime that morning.

We came home and warmed up leftovers for lunch. I used leftover baked potatoes and bacon to make a skillet full of something similar to what is described here. Wow was it good! Brayden and Kiya helped warm up veggies.

In preparation for our Sunday lunch, I dumped two kinds of sauces on chicken to marinate. Later that evening I smoked the chicken. I planned to rewarm it and put it into crock pots Sunday morning to take to church for lunch since once again, Keith had a soccer game right after lunch (if it doesn’t get canceled).

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing outside, moving a new housemate into our third floor, and getting ready for Sunday.

Our neighbor, John, was planting more flowers into his gorgeous flower garden. He has been so gracious to teach our kids and let them help. This is big for any kid – but for our kids – the time, energy, and love he is pouring in has been beyond big. Brayden was out having Bro Time with Elias, BabyBoy#11 was napping, and the other five kids and I went across the street to plant flowers with John.

He talked us through how he does things, why he does them, and he let the kids do all the work. It was amazing. When we got back to our yard, our kids used their new skills to plant fake flowers in our dirt while I smoked the chicken I had marinated earlier.

I also mixed up two loaves worth of Stir-and-Pour Bread to go with our Sunday lunch chicken. I haven’t made bread in a very long time, and my intent was to pull kids inside to make it with me. But they were playing so well outside and having so much fun I just let them be. They can make bread with me 100 other times or more. :)

I realized I only had whole wheat pastry flour, which doesn’t work for yeast breads. So I used unbleached white flour and the bread turned out great. Truly, anyone can make this bread. It’s so easy and requires no kneading!

The smell of smoked chicken and freshly baked bread teased us as I saved it for our Sunday lunch and instead pulled out leftovers for our Saturday dinner. This was the last of the leftovers in our fridge and it felt so good to get them all cleaned out! I turned the remaining leftover noodles into Mac and Cheese by making a white sauce. Keith grated cheese for this project and was so proud. Then I cut up the leftover hotdogs I’d smoked earlier in the week and stirred them in. We ate it with peas and the kids gobbled it up!

We put a lot of dirty, tired kids into the bathtub, and that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: April 21-27, 2024

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: April 21-27, 2024 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: April 21-27, 2024

Sunday morning was a bit less intense compared to the past few weeks. Instead of having to pack an entire lunch for our family to eat after church and before Keith’s soccer game, we were planning to enjoy a potluck lunch with our church family. My only responsibility was to take Frosted Brownies, which I had baked and frozen last week.

So while feeding all the kids breakfast, I put BabyBoy#11 into one of our kitchen sinks for his “bath.” A couple of the kids had fun helping me.

We loved spending extra time with so many friends after church while we ate.

Then we loaded up and headed to Keith’s soccer game. I had packed apples and pistachios to snack on at the game because even though we had just eaten lunch, we seem to always still need snacks. ;)

I tried to capture a picture of Keith’s fan club as we all trailed out after the game. We are quite a parade.

I had put a a Pork Roast into a crock pot early that morning for our dinner that night. But it was still not quite done at mealtime. So I left it to continue cooking and pulled out leftovers to fill our bellies.

It was a boring and no-veggie dinner of leftover Smoked Chicken, Mac and Cheese, and Toasted Sourdough Bread.

I had made some Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream that afternoon so we all enjoyed it with graham crackers as a treat after dinner.

Monday morning for breakfast I scrambled eggs and the kids made toast for themselves to go with their eggs.

It was a warm day so the girls were so happy to put on new summer-y outfits!

I attempted to take Anna to Food Distribution where Keith and I go on Monday mornings. Once Keith starts Kindergarten next year, Anna will be my Food Distribution sidekick. I instructed Keith to show her how it’s done and he did – sort of. They got pretty distracted by toy donations in the room where we were working, oy.

I just had the two of them for the rest of that morning because Matt and Elias had taken the three youngest kids to York for the day to spend time with our friend Nancy. So I spent my time and energy working extra on some of Keith and Anna’s behavior needs. And I taught them both to help me load the dishwasher.

After school, Kiya set up a nail salon on our back steps. :)

We had lots of visits from friends that afternoon/evening as our dear friend Phyllis came to see us. She showers us with love when she comes and our time with her is such a gift.

Then friends Charlene and Samantha came for the evening. Once our girls discovered Samantha’s purse, it was all over. Thank you, Sam, for letting them use up ALL YOUR LOTION AND CHAPSTICK. All of it. Gone. Plus dental floss. Bless.

I was so busy enjoying friends that evening that I didn’t cook or take pictures of what I didn’t cook. ;)

I asked Elias to throw in four frozen pizzas for us, which he did, and here’s what that looked like at the end of the night:

Tuesday, Matt and I made a plan to run to a couple of stores and then go to a park before heading home. I packed lunch, knowing that we would need to eat through all of these plans.

We had some lunchmeat that needed to be eaten up so I put it on buns with cheese and melted them in our air fryer just before we left for our outing.

Matt stayed in the van with our littles while I ran into Walmart for inner tubes so he could fix bike tires later that day. While in the store, I couldn’t not run over to see if there were any food mark-downs, right? Woo – marked down pizzas!

And a beef roast for $3.08/pound!

Our time at the park was windy! But it was a good outing for the kids so that we could get their energy out.

We dropped Acacia and Josie off at Ms. Kathi’s on our way home for their special time with her that day. Then we got home and put away groceries we’d picked up that afternoon. Here’s what I got at Aldi:

Keith and Anna didn’t have school that day. Anna was excited to help me load the dishwasher, seeing as she’d been taught how the day before and was now an expert.

Keith played in the dirt all afternoon and came in with a mustache.

Justus, Kelsey, and Kelsey’s mom, Nicole, came for dinner that night! Brayden, Kiya, and I had just arrived back from helping at the Food Distribution but I had all the food in crock pots or ready to rewarm on the stove. We had Sunday night’s Pork Roast, Crock Pot Baked Potatoes, Corn, Green Beans, Rolls, and Strawberries with Whipped Cream.

We don’t get to see Nicole very often so it’s a huge treat that she is in town!

Wednesday morning, I made French Toast and Bacon. I also blended up a smoothie full of greens for Matt and me.

It is worth a mention that I do very well keeping children alive. But plants? Not so much. (Water perked these back up, thankfully.)

While the plants were suffering and dehydrated, I also failed to pull the last of our  bacon out of the oven at the right time. I decided to make as much bacon as possible that morning to get ahead. But then I forgot about these pans when I went upstairs to get myself dressed and ready for the day.

Can’t win ’em all.

Matt and Elias spent the day in York working again and they took the youngest three kids to our friend Emma’s for the day. They loved this!

That night for dinner I grilled some Pork Steak I’d picked up on the cheap a few weeks ago.

They turned out amazing! We ate them with strawberries and salad.

Thursday morning I let Brayden and Kiya toast their own bagels or toast in the air fryer (they consider this a huge privilege). We ate them with applesauce or bananas.

Matt needed some items at Menards so he dropped three kids and me at Sam’s while he took the other two kids across the parking lot to Menards to do his shopping. My main goal was to get fruits and veggies because we go through them so quickly. Beyond spinach, spring mix, broccoli, oranges, salad kits, and grapes, I picked up some kleenex, plastic containers, barbecue sauce, pickles, heavy whipping cream, almond butter, hot dogs, milk, eggs, and fig bars.

We dropped Acacia and Josie off at Josalyn’s where they spent some time painting. :)

Late afternoon I handed everyone a box or two of kleenex from the case we’d bought at Sam’s that day and we all paraded up the stairs to put them on our storage shelf.

Kiya is quite the organizer, so she helped everyone put their box in its place.

We had to be at the kids’ school that evening for a special Preschool Family Open House so for an early dinner I baked the Walmart pizzas that I’d picked up earlier in the week.

Keith and Anna were so excited to introduce us to all their friends. Brayden was excited too because he has had the privilege of helping in a preschool classroom a few mornings recently. He felt like a celebrity when he walked in and was swarmed by little ones who were happy to see him!

There were activities set up at tables for us to enjoy.

Of course Anna found the flamingos at the photo booth!

Friday the kids didn’t have school so I made a huge batch of pancakes with sausage.

I was planning to make these Chocolate Cupcakes (with spinach) but discovered that I didn’t have any chocolate cake mixes. Not to worry – I just added a little bit of cocoa powder to the yellow cake mix to cover up the green spinach. :) While I was using greens, I made another batch of these smoothies for Matt and me.

Mid morning I packed up a lunch for us to take on our outing for the day. It was rainy and wet outside so we decided to take everyone to the indoor mall play place to get energy out. For lunch I packed Cheese, Salami, Crackers, Grapes, and the Cupcakes with a container of frosting to surprise the kids.

The mall play area was a big hit!

At lunchtime we took all eight kids (our Bonus Boy was with us again this weekend) to potty and wash hands. Then we sat in the Food Court and handed out the lunch we’d packed. It was both sweet and crazy. :)

Back at home, there were tornado sirens off and on all afternoon, which was a bit nerve-wracking for some of our kids. As many of you heard, there ended up being a lot of tornado-action here in Lincoln and in Omaha and surrounding areas. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who emailed to check in on us. Thankfully, we are all safe and sound.

Because of the craziness of the afternoon, we stayed in that night and warmed up leftovers for dinner. Kiya was excited to be our food-warmer-upper. :)

While Kiya was working on dinner, I used Sunday’s leftover Pork Roast to get ahead for future meals. I put together a huge pan of Party Potatoes with Pork Roast. Then I turned the rest of the meat into sandwiches like this. All of the adults in our house love having individually wrapped sandwiches on hand to grab and go for work needs.

Saturday morning we had No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites. (I had intended to make No-Bake Snickerdoodle Bites but realized too late that I didn’t add cinnamon. So I switched to chocolate chip and no one complained!)

While the kids played outside, I prepped our Sunday lunch. We were going to have a fun Sundaes on Sunday event with church friends right after worship service and everyone was to bring their lunch. I made two loaves of bread worth of Uncrustables to take with us. Then I used the crusts to make Easy Bread Pudding for our Sunday breakfast.

I headed outside so Matt could come in and get something done. I discovered that Brayden and Kiya were across the street with our neighbor, John. He is a plant and flower expert and they were helping him and learning as they went. This is so good for them!

Then John came over and started teaching our girls about the weeds in our yard that look like flowers. Note how Acacia has her arms around Josie and Anna. She is such a little mama. :)

The weather was decent so we decided to load up the eight kids and go to the zoo for a few hours. I grabbed a random assortment of whatever was easiest to grab for us to eat for lunch an snacks while we were there.

After we finished eating, the kids lined up on a wall to watch a Porcupine lesson being taught in the exhibit area.

We headed over to look at other animals and were stopped by a Peacock with all its feathers spread wide. Amazing!

We played in the sand area for quite a while before loading up for home. We had a huge afternoon/evening with people stopping by for visits including overnight guests. Our friend Malorie has turned into Elias’ girlfriend Malorie. :) :) :) She graduated from college that day and her family came to spend the evening and night with us. It was a wonderful time getting to know each other better!

For dinner I made a meal similar to this one with Smoked Chicken Legs, Caesar Salad, Corn, Baked Beans, and Rolls.

We got a bunch of dirty, tired kids through the bath and that was our week!

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

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

Before I share about our week, I have to tell you about the end of last week. :)

Saturday, the 13th, we had BIG PLANS. First, I made Crunchy Ranch Chicken with Steamed Broccoli for lunch. But because of our big plans, no one cared much about lunch. (But we did need to eat…)

Two wonderful couples and their kids blocked out the day to come stay with our seven littles. Praise God for such caring friends!

Then Matt and I, along with Asa and Eva, Justus and Kelsey, Elias, Malachi, and our friends Ricky and Cooper climbed into our big van to head to Kansas City for the day.

First stop: IKEA to pick up a crib for Asa and Eva’s baby. :)

Next stop: BBQ. Because when you go to KC you have to eat BBQ.

But the real reason we went to Kansas City: To watch MESSI play soccer.

Now. If you don’t know who Messi is, that’s ok. We can still be friends. Messi is THE BEST SOCCER PLAYER IN THE WORLD. He was coming to play just three hours from us, so we had to make it happen to go see this game.

It was truly incredible – the entire experience. I’m so thankful for the people who stayed with our kids so that we could make this happen.

So what if we didn’t get home until after 2:00 in the morning?? Yikes.

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

If you can believe it, all of our little kids woke up at their normal time on Sunday morning, ha. Four hours of sleep was not enough. But it was all worth it for this great experience.

We had a huge day ahead of us, so after some coffee and eye drops, we trudged on. :) Keith had his actual first soccer game (the first two got rained out; third time’s a charm) so before heading to church I packed food so that we could eat after church instead of driving all the way home and then driving all the way back.

Some friends joined us at the park, making 15 of us altogether.

We had Sub Sandwiches with Sliced Oranges, Sweet Peppers, Cucumbers, Carrots, and Chips. REMIND ME not to buy the fun individual bags of chips anymore. They were on sale and I thought it would be fun, which is was. But of course the kids only wanted Doritos and getting them to eat anything else was a fight. Who can blame them??

I’m not sure if you can see the little yellow butterfly in this photo. But Josie spotted it and had a marvelous time trying to catch it. :)

One poop diaper change later, we loaded back up and headed to Keith’s game. Would you look at that? He has two of the best coaches around. (How fun to have older brothers who are willing to be your soccer coach!)

Oh, and as it turns out, at this level, if you are a coach, you also get to be a referee. :) Check out that cutie in the orange socks!

The rest of us tried not to get sunburned on the sidelines and I guess it goes without saying that Keith’s cheering committee was rather large that day.

We got home and cooled off in front of the TV with Phineas and Ferb for a little while so that we could recover from our huge weekend. Our friends Ricky and Cooper would be heading back to Texas the next morning so we wanted to gather one more time for a meal together with them that night.

I asked Justus and Kelsey to pick up two Rotisserie Chickens from Sam’s before coming over and I would make some sides. But guess what? Sam’s had NO rotisserie chickens that night. Yikes. Last minute Plan B!!

I directed Justus to the refrigerator section of the store to get some Smoked Sausage that he could quickly grill for us. Meanwhile, I warmed some frozen Meatballs for the kids got them fed while the sausages cooked. We had Salad, Strawberries, Broccoli, and 10-Minute Mac and Cheese with our meat.

We all went to bed early Sunday night and felt much more rested on Monday morning. :) Also on Monday morning? I needed to face this laundry pile. After such a big weekend, I was very behind. This wasn’t even all of it as we still needed to strip beds and gather clothes baskets from the kids’ rooms. :)

I started a load, then Eva came over so Keith and I headed to help set up food at the Food Distribution site. He discovered a pull toy so I loaded it with some of the items we needed to carry to a table because this was a MUCH better way to haul the food. :)

Also, note that this soccer player is still wearing his jersey from Sunday. He was so very excited about it and wanted to show the ladies he sees every Monday at Food Distribution. They oooed and awwed over it appropriately. Then I told him he had to put on clean clothes before the school bus came to pick him up later. :)

Back at home, Justus had come over to smoke a Pork Loin that he was making to share with a few families. Keith helped him prepare the spices.

We spent a lot of time outside that afternoon enjoying the sunshine. These curls tho…

Kiya got to be a part of a Craft Club on Mondays after school this semester. She brought home some clay this time and was sweet enough to share it with her sisters. They had their own little Craft Club at the picnic tables while I finished making dinner.

Meanwhile, Elias and Brayden were having some Bro Time, playing a fancy game of Uno.

Dinner that night was very simple because my brain and body had not yet caught up on rest from all the work and planning it took to execute our fun weekend. I grilled Salmon Burgers that I had tucked away in the freezer from Costco, air fried some French Fries, and got out a jar of Pickles. Do pickles count as a vegetable?? ;)

Here’s how I kept the Salmon Burgers warm after I brought them in. A large cooking pot worked as a great cover for the plate!

Tuesday morning I made a double batch of Peanut Butter Honey Puffs for all of us to snack on as needed.

I used some of the awesome chicken thighs I’d picked up on sale last week to get prepped for dinner that night and for another meal in the future. I put the amount of chicken we needed for that night’s meal into a pot and dumped on some Creamy Italian Dressing I had in the pantry. Then I put the rest into a small crock pot with some Salsa to slow cook all day.

It had rained quite a bit but we were able to go outside later in the morning. Our neighbors are awesome and all of the kids between our house and two other houses play in each other’s yards as if they are our own. That morning, we enjoyed our neighbor’s trampoline. I caught the girls giggling while playing ring-around-the-rosie. Indeed, they did all fall down. :)

The kids didn’t want to come inside, which was fine by us. While we were playing, a friend we hadn’t seen in a while stopped by for a hug. :) Matt and Keith walked to the corner to watch a tree get removed that had fallen in the night. Late morning I took a tray of snacky-lunch outside to eat before the preschool bus came for Keith and Anna.

That afternoon I smoked the chicken that I’d marinated in Creamy Italian Dressing. Brayden, Kiya, and I went to hand out food at the Food Distribution site, so at mealtime, Elias made a salad to go with our meat.

We came home with some treasures from Food Distribution that day.

Bedtime is always a loud and crazy ordeal with this many (tired) littles. I loved being able to capture this calm and quiet moment with Daddy and some of the kids after teeth were brushed and Acacia’s brace put in place.

Brayden saw what Daddy did and wanted to get in on the action. So he had an easel set up with his favorite train book to share with Keith when he came in.

Wednesday morning we took about a hundred years to get our shoes on so that we could go to Walmart to pick up diapers for someone and to get a few items to celebrate Kelsey’s birthday.

BabyBoy#11 has been making progress with his OT and Speech Pathologist so he hasn’t puked in a while. BUT. When I fed him a little snack that should have dissolved in his mouth while we were shopping, well. Let’s just say we needed a lot of paper towels and baby wipes. Poor guy.

Of course, the other four kids sat calmly in the carts while we were cleaning it up. (bahahaha.)

Anyway, people around us were helpful and we made it to check out and home all in one piece.

I made a big pot of Ham and Potato Soup for dinner that night (which was supposed to have been started earlier in the day in the crock pot but I could never get around to it).

One of our kids had my phone for a Zoom call with the therapist during dinner-prep time so this is the only other picture I was able to take of our food that night. I cut up strawberries and whipped some cream plus cut up a watermelon. Then I packaged up soup and fruit to go deliver to a family with a new baby. :)

Thursday morning we ate Toasted Bagels or Bread with Bananas. I made a “blender full of salad” for Matt and me. :)

Matt and Malachi headed to York to work for the day, leaving Elias and our friend Malorie here to help me with the kids. We had signed up to take Frosted Brownies to a potluck on Sunday so the girls and I put those together to bake.

I snapped this shot of Anna getting on the bus at noon. Note that she is wearing her bath robe as a jacket. There was no convincing her to exchange it for an actual jacket. We fight enough actual battles with the kids that I definitely didn’t feel that this was a battle to fight. You want to wear your bathrobe to school? It will be just as warm as a jacket? Alrighty. See you after school!

And speaking of after school, she and her bathrobe barely made it off the bus because of the fun and exhaustion. :)

Malorie and the kids spent some time drawing while we waited for dinner to cook.

What was dinner, you ask? Elias and Brayden had spent some Bro Time putting together Smoked Queso for us to eat. We ate it with cold watermelon on the side and it was TASTY.

They also made a pan of Oreo Brownies as a treat after dinner.

I found a minute to cut the big pan of brownies I’d made earlier in the day to freeze and take to the potluck on Sunday.

Friday afternoon while we played outside, BabyBoy#11 got some walking practice in.

I made a pan of Stick of Butter Rice then got out the Salsa Chicken I’d made earlier in the week to make 24 of these Burritos for the freezer.

We warmed up leftovers for dinner.

Before bed, we played outside. It got a little bit chilly so Daddy got the fire pit going for a few minutes. Everyone LOVED this.

Our Bonus Boy (former foster son and half-sibling to some of our kids) came to visit for the weekend. We all love it when he comes. He and Keith are only 6-weeks apart and BFF.

Saturday morning we took all the kids to the zoo for a couple of hours.

We went during lunch time so I’d given them a snack of applesauce and pretzels before leaving. Then we ate a snack of milk, cookies, and cheese while we were there.

We came home and had a late lunch of leftover Smoked Queso, Olives, and Fruit for lunch.

Dinner that night was leftover Smoked Chicken and Smoked Sausages from the week. Plus I made several boxes of Mac and Cheese (one of the only foods Bonus Boy likes) and a bowl of Salad.

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16 post!

Big Family Food and Fun: December 10-16, 2023

Sunday we were blessed to have friends join us for lunch after church – a precious family of five that we have known for many years. Living in Lincoln with them now is a huge blessing so that we can worship and spend time together.

I made a Spiral Cut Ham, Cheesy Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans. Their family brought Salad, Cucumbers, Cornbread Muffins, Brownies, and a Trifle. It was an amazing feast!

When our kitchen looks like this, it is my favorite. I will stare at this photo and praise God for all He’s given.

We visited and the kids played a good part of the afternoon. Then I turned some of the leftovers into casseroles. I used leftover ham to make an Easy Egg Casserole and put it into the freezer for Christmas morning. Then I made two Ham and Hashbrown Casseroles – one for us to eat this week and one to give to a mom who just had her first baby.

At dinnertime, we finished off some of the side dishes from lunch along with Roasted Chicken. After we got the kids to bed, Matt finished getting all the chicken off the bones. Throughout the week, we can have easy chicken meals, plus I can make broth with the bones!

Monday morning Eva came over to help with the kids. I took BabyBoy#11 to a WIC appointment. Then I was blessed to spend two entire hours visiting with my friend Charlene – a rare and awesome treat!

Monday evening, Brayden had a Ukulele Concert so I made a big pan of Cheesy Chicken and Rice (this recipe but with chicken instead of beef) so we could have an early dinner before his performance.

Most of us were able to watch his concert and he was so excited (and nervous) that so many were there!

Justus and Kelsey surprised him with flowers afterward. :)

Here’s our crazy concert crew:

Tuesday after breakfast I used the chicken bones from Sunday night’s chicken to make a big pot of broth.

Keith and Anna had home visits from their preschool teachers that morning. Then as soon as all the littles went down for naps that afternoon, I headed out by myself to shop at Costco. I got a few more Christmas gifts plus milk, fruits and veggies, olive oil, chicken nuggets, diapers, and a few other needed items.

I got home just in time to unload the van and then pick up Brayden and Kiya to head to the Food Distribution where we help hand out food each Tuesday afternoon. I had used the last of Phyllis’ pulled pork to make BBQ Pork Melts, which Matt and Elias baked at dinnertime. So we got home and ate them along with leftover potatoes and fresh spinach.

Wednesday morning I used leftover ham from Sunday to make Ham and Cheesy Eggs and then let the kids choose a bread item. (We almost always bring home quite a bit of bread leftovers from the Tuesday Food Distribution.) That day we had a couple varieties of loaf bread plus bagels and Cranberry Orange Muffins.

Our morning was full of appointments and meetings. As we were getting kids dressed, Keith requested to comb Acacia’s hair for her. I usually let the girls look at pictures on my phone while I brush their hair (to keep them still) and Matt was able to capture this sweet sibling moment. Acacia actually let Keith brush her hair for quite a while!

I had a lot of tortillas from Azure Standard in our freezer and I wanted to make a big batch of these Burritos, so for lunch I made a Burrito Bar so that I could the leftovers to put together freezer burritos.

For dinner that night I used the chicken broth I’d made on Tuesday to make a pot of Chicken Noodle Soup (with spaghetti noodles since that’s what I had on hand). I also made a blender full of these smoothies because I had a lot of greens in the fridge to use up.

Justus had come over to give Brayden a piano lesson so he grabbed a bowl of soup too.

I was going to get out a Christmas craft for the kids to work on that evening, but I discovered a wrestling match that then turned into an I Spy game with Daddy. And before we knew it, it was bedtime. :)

Thursday evening we had signed up to deliver a meal to friends who just had a baby. So we decided that we would eat an early dinner, load everyone up to look at Christmas lights since we needed to head out to drop off food.

Brayden saw what we were having and asked if he could make dinner. Yup! From start to finish, he made our Orange Chicken and Steamed Broccoli. (This may not seem like a big deal for an almost-10-year-old. But for this guy, it is a very big deal and we are so thankful he has come so far as to do something like this.)

Meanwhile, I pulled out some frozen Christmas cookies to frost and decorate for the new parents we were delivering food to. Following these methods of making cookies with kids is sooooo helpful and this night proved it! The cookies were already rolled out, cut out, and baked. All we had to do was frost and sprinkle. Kiya loved helping me with this job and wanted to know who else we could make food for. :)

After we ate Brayden’s delicious dinner, Matt loaded all of the littles while I finished putting together the meal we were going to deliver: Ham and Hashbrown Casserole, Steamed Broccoli, Grapes, and Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies.

After we dropped off the food we found fun neighborhoods with lots of Christmas lights to enjoy. When we got home, Elias had pulled up the Husker volleyball game – perfect timing! We won the game just in time to get the kids to bed. :)

Friday morning I made a loaf of bread worth of Eggs in a Nest. Kiya had requested them since I hadn’t made them in a while. Perfect!

That morning I also made a batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins with some bananas that were turning black.

Putting the muffins into festive paper liners turns them into Christmas muffins!

We loaded all the kids up that morning to run errands. First stop: Trader Joe’s to look for a few gifts to put together for teachers, etc.

Keith got to push a kid-cart, which totally made his day!

After school that afternoon, Keith proudly pulled out an ornament he had made at school and wrapped by himself.

Look at who is learning to write his name!

That evening, we all put on our snuggly-est jammies and headed to church for a Christmas Pajama Party! The children’s ministry team did a wonderful job putting together a super fun evening for the kids. We had a great pizza meal.

We had a dance party.

A grinch and an elf showed up and started a “snowball fight” which was a huge hit!! Well, except for with Acacia and Josie who weren’t so sure what to think about the whole thing, haha.

More dancing!

There were crafts and a bingo game and a chocolate fountain – a WONDERFUL party that we all loved! Best of all, the kids were all jammied up and ready for bed as soon as we got home. :)

Saturday morning I set out the Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins  I had made the day before. I also baked the remainder of the box of bacon I had bought a few weeks ago. We had a few yogurt cups from Aldi so we finished those off too.

Mid-morning we loaded up snacks and kids and headed to the indoor play place at the zoo.

I had made a big bowl full of Tuna Salad so we could eat right away when we got home.

During naptime that day, we spent time getting ready for a Christmas party with some friends who were coming from out of town. Kiya set out fun Christmas plates and juice pouches.

Then the kids watched as I attempted to put together Santa Bananas. Hahahaha, you got me, Pinterest. We were all giggling the entire time I was putting these together – especially every time I tried squirting the whipped cream onto the Santa hats and into Santa beards. The whipped cream didn’t cooperate very well.

Oh – and then the red M&Ms started to bleed so by the time we served these, Santa had quite the bloody nose. Sorry ol’ fella. It was FUN though and I’m glad we tried these. Good luck if you decide to try too. :) :) :)

We set out a buffet of Hotdogs, veggies, and other fruit to go along with our Santa Bananas.

Justus and Kelsey came over to help, thankfully! Altogether there were 8 adults and 16 kids. Was it loud? Do you even have to ask? But look at this precious, full table…

After dinner, we all loaded up in our cars/vans and drove around to enjoy Christmas lights. When we came home, Matt and Justus had popcorn ready and then Justus and Kelsey helped serve Hot Cocoa to go with it.

What a night! Matt had already bathed four of the kids earlier while I was working on the infamous Santa Bananas. Kelsey threw two of the girls into the tub after Hot Cocoa. Our guests headed out and we tucked everyone into bed after a fun time together!

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023

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Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023 post…

Big Family Food and Fun: December 3-9, 2023

Sunday before we left for church, I put a huge Lasagna  into the oven to bake plus made a pot of buttered corn and buttered hoagie buns to warm up later,  (The day before, I’d made a bunch of lasagnas to try and get ahead.)

We invited another family to come over and eat with us, plus all of our older kids came, plus one of our kids’ friends.

Altogether there were 21 people who ate, which made our pan of Lasagna look like this by the end of the meal. It was an awesome time!

For dinner that night, I made a big pot of Chili. I froze the leftovers so we can have an easy meal another day.

Monday, we had “leftover breakfast.” Leftover Warm Vanilla Soother, leftover Breakfast Sandwiches, and leftover  Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins. With blueberries and yogurt.

Eva came over to help with kids and I took Keith to the dentist for a checkup. He did awesome!

When we got home, I sliced apples and served them with peanut butter and sprinkled cinnamon for a snack. We ended up going through five apples for four kids. It hit the spot!

Having Eva’s help meant I had extra time and hands! So I took advantage and made Mudballs (x5) and Snickerdoodle Bites (x8). These are some of our favorite snacks.

We were out of baby carrots so in the late afternoon while dinner was cooking, Keith helped peel carrots so I could make carrot sticks.

For dinner that night, I boiled two pounds of whole grain angel hair pasts and stirred in a container of white queso from Costco along with a little bit of milk. Then I added diced ham. It was so good! We ate it with leftover peas.

During the evening we got out some craft kits to keep the kids busy. We started by making Reindeer Hats. Then we wore those while making Sticker Cards with Christmas scenes.

Even this guy got to be a Reindeer!

We gave up on gathering all 9 kids for a picture (our 7 plus two friends). But here’s what we managed to get. You can’t hear it through the screen, but you should know that this picture is LOUD. ;)

Ah, here’s another Reindeer.

Tuesday I didn’t get many pictures. We had Scrambled Cheesy Eggs for breakfast with fruit then cheese/crackers/avocado cups for lunch. I picked Brayden and Kiya up from school and headed to our Food Distribution site to help hand out food.

The kids have become great at helping vacuum after the giveaway ends…

We got to help ourselves to some of the leftover items – mostly bread, rolls, and buns but also some greens, fruit, and sweet potatoes.


One of our housemates treated us all to Costco pizza and salad for dinner that night! (This was all that was left after we all enjoyed four large pizzas.)

Wednesday morning I used some of the biscuits we’d been given at the food distribution and made Sausage Gravy to surprise Matt. (Biscuits and gravy is a favorite meal for him.) The kids had biscuits with butter and jelly plus clementines.

They were still hungry and I didn’t want to fill them with more empty carbs so I got out last week’s Crustless Cheesecakes for them.

In the midst of fixing breakfast plates and taking kids potty, I started a big pot of broth for our dinner that night.

We loaded up all seven littles, dropped Brayden and Kiya at school, then took the other five to Wal-mart for a few essentials. Somewhere between the girl’s clothing and picture frames, one of the girls peed her pants. This picture does not accurately share how much pee was on the cart and floor.

Clean up on aisle nine!

We got it cleaned up, changed her into new leggings that I was planning to buy anyway, got some groceries, and headed back out to the van. PHEW. (Have I mentioned lately that Matt is a rock-star dad??)

Our dear friend Phyllis came all the way to Lincoln to visit us that afternoon. She is one of our biggest prayer warriors, a huge support, and precious encourager. She always spoils us with her delicious cooking and baking when she comes. I texted this picture of our favorite Phyllis cookies to Malachi saying, “Guess who’s here??” He was like, “No way! ON MY WAY!” He loves Phyllis. We all love Phyllis.

Here are some of the littles hanging out in the kitchen later while I finished making dinner.

I used that morning’s broth to make Beef and Noodles (like this except with beef. and store bought noodles). We had loads of veggies in our soup broth – such a great way to guzzle down nourishment!

Thursday morning I made two loaves worth of French Toast like this plus four pans of bacon. Having this big box of bacon that I scored on sale a couple weeks ago has been SO NICE!

I have loved the ease of these Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins, so I experimented with making Flourless Banana Muffins (without the chocolate). They turned out ok but I’m going to make some tweaks to make them a little bit better. Then I’ll share the recipe with you!

Thursday night we warmed up Pulled Pork that Phyllis had made and brought to us. It was delicious with corn, spinach, and fries.

Friday evening our church had a Christmas party. Then a friend of mine and I snuck out to go to our monthly Adoptive Moms Support Group. THEN, Saturday morning our church hosted a lovely Christmas Brunch for ladies. It was all so much fun and so very good. But I was too busy enjoying it and didn’t get many pictures.

Before leaving for the brunch on Saturday morning, we made pancakes and sausage. I had helpers and a fit thrower, but we got the job done.

Eva dropped off Asa to help Matt with kids, then I hopped in with Eva to head to the brunch. Before leaving I made a bowl of Chicken Salad and Asa was using it to make the kids sandwiches when we got back. I made a blender full of these Smoothies to finish off lunch.

For dinner that night I made 5 Cheese Tortelloni with sauce, plus Garlic Butter Shrimp, steamed broccoli, and Caesar salad. It was a great feast – and super easy to make.

I had an idea to make these cookies with the kids and maybe watch a Christmas show, but then we turned on the Husker Volleyball game and really enjoyed watching that instead. The game ended just in time for us to give kids baths before bed. Here are the three littlest girls with clean and braided hair at bedtime. :)

And that was our week!

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Big Family Food and Fun: July 9-15, 2023

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Ready for Food and Fun: July 9-15? We are on week three of Castle living. Each day we make a little bit more progress as we settle in. Of course, each day we make lots of messes, eat lots of food, and throw lots of tantrums so unpacking boxes is a bit of a challenge between dealing with normal day needs. :) We’ll get there!

Unrelated to food (unless we’re talking about formula), suddenly none of his clothes fit this little chunkers. (BabyBoy#11, not Matt. Matt’s clothes still fit.) Good thing I found some clearance items this week!

I’d say we ate pretty well this week as we have been well cared for by others and I am getting settled into our new kitchen. Every day I tell Matt, “I LOVE this kitchen!” Hopefully he doesn’t get tired of hearing it. Truly, it is an amazing kitchen and I’m so thankful God gifted it to us.

(This was the real estate photo.
The kitchen is no longer this clean because we live here and make food here.
But pretend that it is still this shiny.)

Food and Fun July 9-15

Sunday morning we sliced the Sourdough Pumpkin Bread our friend Barbara had made for us and enjoyed it with grapes before loading the kids into the van for church.

Before we left I had put potatoes into the crock pot for a Bake Potato Bar for lunch. When we got home, I realized that I had only set the crock pot to “low” instead of “high” so the potatoes were still not done. Oops. SO, I switched our lunch plan with our dinner plan and we warmed up more of Barbara’s food! What a gift that she had taken care of us so well!

We enjoyed her Turkey Alfredo, finishing off the first pan and half of the second. YUM.

That evening, we had our baked potatoes with bacon, cheese, peas, sour cream, and butter.

Monday morning I realized our need for quick-to-grab foods so I stirred together these No-Bake Cookie Cups. They are made with just a little bit of honey so they’re perfect for breakfast or snacks.

The rest of the day was borderline nuts. (What else is new?!) We had foster care specialists come in the morning to tour our home and approve it for foster care. We warmed up leftovers for lunch, then took the kids on a walk to the Sunken Gardens before naptime.

That afternoon, BabyBoy#11 had a well-baby check up with his new doctor. I filled out tons of paperwork to get all of our kids in the system and to authorize their medical records to be transferred over. Then we ran to Costco because it was close by. I rushed through grabbing a few essentials because Matt’s truck was in the shop and we needed to pick it up by 5:30.

I got home and we threw all of the kids into the van with a snack to hold them over (which it did not). We picked up Matt’s truck and went into Sam’s because it was two minutes away. Elias was with us, thankfully, so we had three adults with seven (hungry) littles in Sam’s. This was not my most relaxing shopping hour, ha. We filled two carts with more essentials. Meanwhile Keith screamed through half of the store because I wouldn’t buy him boots that he didn’t need. Oy.

We grabbed the beautiful $5 Rotisserie Chicken on our way out of the store, got home and tore it off the bone to quickly feed everyone before bed. Zero out of ten, do not recommend executing a plan like this in the future. But that chicken sure did taste good.

There was a mess of chicken skin, bones, smashed grapes, and apple cores all over the dining room when we were done and we managed to get the kids in bed – only thirty minutes late.

The good news is that I am now stocked up on groceries again, woohoo! I spent $216 on food at Sam’s and $286 at Costco. I’ve been avoiding the stores in an effort to use up what we have, and I’m so thankful for the savings as we’ve had other moving expenses. Making meals and snacks will be much easier now!

The next morning Matt and Elias needed to leave early to get to York for a meeting and to work on our house there. So I made them Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwiches for the road. We had a lot of strawberries that I’d picked up over the weekend so I made another batch of this Cheesecake Parfait to enjoy with them.

Then Kiya got up and the kids finished off the No-Bake Cookie Cups I’d made the day before.

Kelsey and Eva arrived to help me manage the kids all morning since Matt and Elias were going to be gone all day. (Malachi is gone for three weeks for work and church camp.) We decided to take the kids to the splash park I packed a loaf of bread worth of turkey sandwiches, juice boxes, and mandarin orange cups to eat there.

The kids LOVED this outing and took great naps when we got back. When everyone got up, I was on my own with all seven kids so dinner consisted of air fried Orange Chicken (boxed, from Sam’s), rice, and broccoli. OH WAIT. I burned the broccoli. So our veggie turned into spinach dipped in ranch. OH WAIT. Kiya eats her spinach with ketchup. Hey, whatever gets the nutrients in, I say.

Wednesday morning we ate yogurt with granola for breakfast before heading to our “new library” to check out story hour.

Silly as it sounds, when we got there and the story hour lady was soooo nice, it made me teary-eyed. We had loved story hour in York and I miss it already. I miss a lot about York and it’s all starting to hit me. So I cried a bit through Llama Llama Red Pajama. Tired much, Laura? :)

See Kelsey there? She had picked up a 2-year-old buddy to help out a friend
and they were at the library when we got there!

We came home and warmed up leftover Turkey Alfredo and made quesadillas with the leftover Rotisserie chicken from Monday.

I also sliced apples with this cheese, which is SO GOOD. Unless you don’t like it, and then it’s not so good. But most of us think it’s SO GOOD.

I had a lot of spinach in the fridge, and there’s only one solution to dealing with that: Make a cake. Obviously. I knew my kids would love the treat, and they were only fascinated that I could bake a cake in a crock pot. They didn’t care about the spinach. Big score!

That afternoon during naps, Kiya and I had a “date” at Aldi to pick up everything I hadn’t gotten at Sam’s and Costco. Highlights: whole milk yogurt, salad kits, protein snacks for Elias, cheese and meat trays for picnics, juice, and whole milk cottage cheese. Also macaroni salad because I have been hungry for it but didn’t need a Costco-sized container. :)

I spent $115 at Aldi that day, bringing our July total up to $884 so far. (Keep in mind that our four youngest kids are on WIC so that provides us with around $210 in food – a huge blessing. You can see what WIC provided for us this month in this post. Plus lovely people have showered us with food blessings since we arrived in Lincoln.)

My plan was to smoke Pork Loin for dinner, but wow I am learning that I need to budget my time differently now that we are in a city. Driving places takes longer, but also just getting out the door to go shopping takes longer because I’m not organized enough yet to efficiently find my purse and shoes. One day at a time.

Anyway, by the time we got home, there was no way I was going to start smoking pork loin. Matt had the smoker going so we quickly threw on Smoked Sausage I’d gotten at Sam’s. While that cooked, Elias put together the Caesar salad kits, I steamed corn on the cob, frosted the crock pot cake, and worked really hard to open the container of mac salad. ;)

We were so hungry and this feast tasted so good!! With cake for dessert – woohoo!

Inspired by my Crock Pot Cake, I decided the next morning to use the big bunch of brown bananas in my kitchen to try baking this Banana Bread recipe in the crock pot. It worked well enough that I’ll write a post about it so you can try too if you’d like to bake without heating up your oven!

While it was “baking” I cut two cantaloupe, a watermelon, and two pounds of strawberries to have in the fridge for easy side dishes.

Matt was working on fixing one of our air conditioners all morning (always fun when things break right after you move in). But we were able to all steal way late morning to have lunch at the zoo. We are amazed that we can “walk to the zoo for lunch” whenever we want! It’s just a few blocks away and we have a year family pass. Lunch with tigers and pandas. YES!

That evening our next door neighbors joined us in our backyard for dinner. They have been so good to welcome us and help with various needs. Our kids and their kids are becoming great friends and spending time together that evening was fantastic. We smoked three of the Pork Loin that I’d gotten BOGO last week and enjoyed it with green beans, banana bread, plus watermelon and mac and cheese brought by our neighbors.

Lunch on Friday was delicious soup Barbara had made plus Matt made grilled cheese sandwiches and set out pears.

Elias baked frozen pizzas that night and we enjoyed them with cold melon outside.

Matt spent time cleaning our smoker while the kids and I picked up sticks so the guys could mow. Afterward, the kids all lined up like this and started singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” It was kind of amazing because it is so rare that all the kids cooperate and play together like that. I had to document it! :)

The next morning we ate a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and yogurt before heading to the Farmer’s Market to meet friends.

I also made a double batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies because our friends were coming over for lunch after the Farmer’s Market. It was fun to bake cookies for the first time in my “new” oven!

Lunch with our friends was a Nacho Bar with chips, taco meat, white queso, salsa, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, corn, black beans, and avocado.

That afternoon I put together a huge Lasagna for our Sunday lunch so that we could celebrate Eva’s birthday together. We pulled out leftover to clean out the fridge at dinnertime, gave all the kids baths (no easy task), and cleaned the kitchen.

Hope your new week is off to a great start!

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Big Family Food and Fun: June 18-24, 2023

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We’re down to just a few days before we pack up and move. Our meals are a bit hodge-podge these days as we use up the food we have on hand.

Here’s what we have left in our freezers. WAIT. Freezer. Singular. We gave one of our uprights to our neighbors. We’re only taking this one with us and here’s what’s in it.

Compare that to last week!!

I took what was left in our other freezer so I could defrost it before we gave it away. Goodbye ol’ freezer. You’ve been good to us.

Grocery Spending

My spending total as of June 24 is only $240. Most of that has been fruit and vegetable purchases, plus a few odds and ends to complete some meals that I’m putting together with the food we have on hand. I love the savings we enjoy when we’re eating from our pantry and freezers!! But I also know that July is probably going to make up for it because once we settle in, I’ll need to stock up on everything again!

Bonus: Look what we got at no cost:

We donate a lot of household items to an organization in York called Blue Valley so I follow their Facebook page. One day last week I saw that they had strawberries, blueberries, oranges, yogurt, and cabbage given to them – and it was all free to our community for the taking. Keith and I ran over there while the four littlest kids napped and we were shocked at the flats of fruit! “As long as you can use them, take an entire flat,” they said. Oh, we’ll use them!! What a gift. (York area friends, follow Blue Valley Community Action on FB. You never know what you might learn about.) :)

The kids have LOVED having a free-for-all with all of the berries!

Here’s part of our Walmart pick up order on Friday. Gotta have greens for these smoothies. :)

Here’s what we ate last week:

And now on to looking at the meals we ate throughout the week.

It all started with Father’s Day. The Saturday before as we were preparing, I was reading this recipe out loud so we could make pie for Daddy. Hearing, “we need 4 Tablespoons of butter,” Anna ran to the kitchen. She came back yelling, “Tablespoons! Tablespoons! Tablespoons!” She was alllll ready to make pie!

We decided to make two pies. First, this Easy Chocolate Fudge Pie – with a big scoop of peanut butter added.

Licking the spatula is the best reason to be involved in helping to make the pies.

Then, we made this Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pie – without the chocolate chips. Yes, Matt loves peanut butter. Both pies turned out so good!

Saturday night, Elias cut up two pounds of chicken so I could make Bacon Chicken Pasta for Father’s Day lunch right after church. I have GOT to make this more often. Every single person ate it and asked for more. It’s so very good!

Justus and Kelsey were able to come that afternoon to help out. AND they brought everything to make a Father’s Day dinner!

I took advantage of the help by spending an hour scrubbing a bathroom. Meanwhile, Kelsey got Kiya and Brayden in the kitchen working on dinner prep. They loved this!

Anna had coffee with Justus. (Not really.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All afternoon I marveled at all of this. THIS IS WHY GOD IS MOVING US TO LINCOLN. Well, one of the big reasons. We’ll get to do life together with our Bigs. We need this.

Matt and I are stretched pretty thin. Any time our older kids pour into our younger kids, everyone wins. Brayden and Kiya needed to work in the kitchen with Justus and Kelsey – this fills them up! Anna needed Justus and Kelsey snuggles. Asa called Matt for Father’s Day and some of the littles ran to the phone to talk to him too. Eva snuggles and reads books to littles constantly when she’s here. I could go on and on. Here’s a shot I couldn’t pass up of everyone getting ready to watch a soccer game after dinner, Elias so naturally holding BabyBoy#11, and the littlest girls climbing up to join.

Meanwhile, Malachi went from going to Ecuador to spending a week at Soul Quest to heading to church camp to spend a week counseling. We’re thankful he’s out there serving, and we miss him. Good thing he’ll be back in time to help us move. ;)

So dinner. Justus smoked meat all Sunday afternoon: chicken thighs and barbecue ribs. Kelsey and the kids made mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts. It was all SO GOOD.

And Kelsey took pictures, because she knows that her mother-in-law is a food blogger who posts everything her family eats. Way to go, Kelsey!

On Monday, we ate up most of our weekend leftover smoked meat. What a treat! I made mac and cheese and peas as a side with lunch, plus let the kids choose canned peaches or canned pineapple.

For dinner we warmed up leftover mashed potatoes and I made corn and these smoothies to go with our meat.

Friends came to hang out late Tuesday morning plus I had case worker visits that day too. So mid-morning while the baby was napping, I browned some hamburger and put together pizzas to bake during my meetings. While I was at it, I made a tiny crustless pizza for my friend. (Tasha. It was Tasha. Remember Tasha? Tasha can’t have gluten. So I made her a crustless pizza.)

We ate our pizza with carrots and watermelon. Then Anna drank the watermelon juice from the bowl. Please enjoy this photo of Anna, along with my left foot and two buckets full of dirty rags.

That evening, I made Salmon Patties and served them with peas, leftover mac and cheese, and canned fruit.

Wednesday morning I blended ingredients together to make Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip. We ate it with chips and the kids’ choice of pears, peaches, or pineapple. (I had to get out cheese for our bonus kid who was spending several days with us. He’s the picky one I referred to in this post, but check out #5 here to see what he does like and eat. I keep these on hand for him if I can!)

My friend, Jenny, went to Costco that day and offered to bring home a Rotisserie Chicken for us. Such a blessing!! We pulled it off the bone that night and filled plates for the kids, serving it with melon from the fridge.

For lunch on Thursday, I made our meal based on food in the pantry. This “spaghetti” tasted great!

We’ve mostly eaten leftovers from then on, except for Saturday night when some wonderful friends came over. We needed to do some work up high on our house, so they hooked up their lift to their tractor and brought it over so they could help Matt accomplish the task. Phew!

The kids had a blast sitting on and climbing on the tractor while their daddies worked.

The rest of us packed and cleaned, then we got out everything we needed for a hot dog roast at our fire pit.

It just so happened to be this sweetheart’s birthday. One might say that we were so busy getting our house ready to sell that we almost forgot to celebrate. OR, one might claim that we went all out for Josie by renting a tractor for kids to play on during her birthday party!! Let’s go with the latter.

We put candles in her rice krispie treat, gathered around to try to keep the wind from blowing out the candles (to no avail), and sang to our birthday girl.

We thank God for the opportunity to have this impromptu party while our friends were there serving us.

And now, we pack the final boxes and load the truck. Stay tuned for next week’s adventures!

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April 2023 Groceries and Meals We Ate (Big Family Food!)

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Whoa. Here are our April 2023 groceries and meals we ate!

Groceries we bought

My big shopping day this month included two trips to Sam’s (in one day, ha). First I went in once for non-perishables, left to do other shopping I needed to get done, then went back in for fresh produce, refrigerated, and frozen items before driving an hour home.

I was preparing for Easter that day, so along with the normal produce I always get, I also picked up fresh asparagus and garden green beans.

I was thrilled that day to find a great deal on chicken legs. Sam’s and Costco always have big packs of drumsticks for $0.98/pound, which is a fantastic price. But this particular day they had a $1.50 off deal – no limit – so I got five big packs of chicken legs for around $3.50 each. SUCH a great price for good quality meat!

I splurged on those coconut crisps – have you had them? We love them at our house! I also bought a lot of tortilla chips this month because we had graduation parties to celebrate. More on that below.

Here’s the back of my van after my big Sams’s day. All this cost $817. Actually, that was just for the food. We budget paper products and household supplies separately.

The whole family gets involved with bringing in the groceries from the van when I get home. It’s like Christmas, seeing what I got at the store that day!

Another day, I stopped at our local grocery store to get some fresh fruits and veggies. I always check their meat markdowns while I’m there, so I got a great deal on a pork roast and some smoked sausage.

Here’s our 1-yo helping me take groceries out of bags another day I went to get some WIC items.

Keith made a tower of canned goods and he was so proud of how it was taller than him. :)

The rest of the month we grabbed fruits and veggies as needed, plus a few additional items we needed for Elias’ and our daughter-in-law, Kelsey’s college grad party. I went slightly over our $1,200 budget for the month and felt great that I kept it so close since we are/were preparing to host extras!

Meals we Ate

We had a gorgeous April, so we ate a lot of our meals outside. (We like it when the kids drop their crumbs in the yard instead of in our kitchen, ha.) Malachi had his senior soccer season so we took a lot of meals to the field too.

Early in the month, I made a platter of chicken salad sandwiches and took them to the trampoline for the kids to eat. I threw out some bananas and that was dinner. :)


For that week’s soccer game, I made 16 hamburgers and packed them up for all of us to eat while we watched.

The next soccer game’s dinner featured peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with apple slices and grapes.

One weekend for lunch I made Salmon Burgers (recipe coming this month). We ate them with carrots, honeydew melon, and pear slices.

One morning I was able to get some baking done. First, I divided up my big bag of whole wheat pastry flour from Azure Standard, putting it into gallon-sized bags for the freezer.

Then I made this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread/Muffin recipe x6 along with some scrambled eggs. I froze most of the bread/muffins to serve on other days as needed.

I had marinated some chicken breasts last month, so one night I smoked them and served them with green beans and fruit. (We were in a hurry to get Elias out the door that night so I brought the chicken in from the smoker early and finished cooking it in a skillet.)

Here are some of the kids eating Pumpkin Bread and peaches outside while they wait for the rest of dinner.

I packed 22 hotdogs to take for us to eat during Malachi’s soccer game one night. There were only three hotdogs left at the end of the evening. :)

The day before Easter I prepped as much food as possible. (We ended up having 27 people share our celebration that day!) I made coffee ice cubes so that guests could make a fancy Cold Coffee.

Our Easter meal included a sprial-cut baked ham, huge pan of party potatoes, roasted green beans, roasted asparagus, corn, rolls, fresh pineapple, grapes, and cheesecake.

During Easter break, we spent a day at the zoo. Asa’s wife Eva plus Justus and his wife Kelsey were able to join us and help with all the kids. We packed summer sausage, cheese, crackers, carrots, hummus, applesauce, and chips for lunch.

That evening, we all met at a park for dinner (Asa joined us after work!). Kelsey and I ran to Costco and grabbed a $4.98 rotisserie chicken, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, pretzel bites, and soft serve ice cream (because we adults needed a treat after all the fun at the zoo!).

Justus was awesome to pull all the meat off of our rotisserie chicken while we all helped ourselves. :)

A bit out of order, here’s what we ate for breakfast before leaving for the zoo that morning. I used the rest of our Easter ham from the day before to make an Egg Casserole.

One evening I smoked marinated chicken thighs and served them with roasted carrots/broccoli, cream cheese corn, grapes, and garlic bread.

I knocked out a bunch of breakfast/snack prep one morning, making a big pan of Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars, a double batch of Bran Muffins, and a double batch of Applesauce Bread/Muffins.

I baked a huge bag of dino nuggets from Sam’s one evening and served them with pears and carrots.

On an unusually hot day in April, I declared it to be too hot to cook. So I quickly blended up this 3-Ingredient Beans and Cheese Salsa Dip for dinner, which we ate with chips and carrots with ranch or peanut butter. (Our 7-yo girlie likes her carrots with peanut butter, and if it gets the veggies down, this is just fine with me!) Side note: Skippy makes a 3-ingredient peanut butter now that has ingredients I don’t feel bad about. Maybe one day I’ll go back to making our peanut butter again? Maybe.

I can’t remember what we were doing this particular day but it was a full one so I resorted to something easy from the freezer! We declared it to be an ORANGE meal with our favorite Orange Chicken from Sam’s, oranges, and carrots. :) (By the way, the CaraCara oranges are a favorite around here! Pink on the inside and extra delicious!)

I used up a bunch of blackening bananas to make two loaves of banana bread and two pans of muffins. We froze some and ate some with scrambled cheese eggs and fruit one Saturday.

Keith is here eating his first plate of food one night. This is usually how I feed my kids: I give them a plate with their fruit and veggie first, then I give them the main dish. Otherwise, they tend to fill up on the main dish and are suddenly “not hungry” for their veggies. Keith shocks us by eating his spinach without any dip. Way to go, Popeye!

This box of food is what I packed to take to Lincoln one day when we were going to spend the day with our married kids there. I packed frozen chicken burritos to warm up, carrots and hummus, chips and salsa, peach cups, and those awesome coconut crisps that Sam’s and Costco sometimes have!

For a lovely, warm, but windy, soccer game, I made 12 melted sub sandwiches. Some had turkey (from the big bird I baked last month) with ranch and cheese, and a few had just ham and cheese.

I cut the sandwiches all in half to make them easier to eat, and put them into ziplock bags to stay warm. I also packed veggie straws, oranges, and applesauce squeezies.

I decided to take a picture of my lovely swirling smoothie one day when I was making it for lunch. This includes a 1/2 pound of fresh greens, along with frozen fruit and milk. Matt and I drink this and it gives us each two servings.

We hit a new level of busy as the month ended and we were preparing for graduations and adoption day! So I started slacking a bit (feeling no guilt!) on meal plans and just throwing out whatever I could find to simply put food in our bellies. This meal was a simple pan of cheesy scrambled eggs (15 of them), spinach, blueberries, salsa for those who wanted it on their eggs, and a pan of Chocolate Oatmeal (because I had some in the pantry I wanted to use up).

I made a huge Lasagna for Malachi’s May graduation day and put it into the freezer one morning while the baby napped and the girls played.

Malachi had his very last home high school soccer game (sniff) and I made a big breakfast casserole to eat at the game. I’d never tried this before as a “to-go” meal but it worked great! I put it together that morning, baked it in the afternoon, cut it into squares and took the squares to hand out on the sidelines for the kids to eat. It worked GREAT!

Here’s our 2-year-old sitting in the wagon working on her second square of egg casserole. :)

Last but not least, here’s a picture of my vanilla beans. I got them out to start a huge batch of vanilla!

We hosted a graduation party for Elias and for Justus’ wife, Kelsey, on the 29th. I just don’t have those pictures ready to share yet. I’ll include those in next month’s meal post! May is going to be incredibly full with our girls’ adoption day and Malachi’s high school graduation. Ready, set, go!

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