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

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!

Saturday, November 8

Early Saturday morning, I made a huge pan and a regular-sized pan full of Chicken Enchiladas for our upcoming Sunday Lunch.

Then I made a batch of Vanilla Ice Cream for Matt’s birthday lunch that day. His birthday had taken place a few days before, but we’d made plans to celebrate on Saturday.

We took a bunch of antsy kids to Library Storytime that morning. Getting them there and getting them home is a big effort, but worth it because they really need all the outings like this that we can provide for them.

Back at home, I finished putting together a big lunch: Oven Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes in the Crock Pot, Gravy, and Buttered Peas.

We feasted, then had Berry Cobbler and Ice Cream.

After lunch, we cleared away the plates and played a game of Settlers of Catan. Playing games is the best way to celebrate Matt’s birthday!

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

Anna and Josie were the first to help themselves to Breakfast Cookie Bars on Sunday morning. Our kids (and me, for that matter) still haven’t adjusted to Daylight Savings Time so our mornings are starting ridiculously early.

After a wonderful time of worship that morning, our church family helped us load up a tote full of non-perishable food to add to our Little Free Pantry so that we could offer support to our neighbors.

Several families joined us for lunch after church and it was wonderful to visit and get to know what was going on in each other’s lives.

I caught Auggie in the playroom with his little Church Twin. These two boys are similar in age and if you see one at just a glance, you can’t tell which is which. It’s pretty sweet. :)

We enjoyed Chicken Enchiladas, Guacamole, Beans, Stick of Butter Rice, Chips and Salsa, and Chocolate Chip Cookies baked into Bars for lunch.

There were 26 of us gathered that day. We never feel like we get to talk to all of our guests as much as we’d like. But it’s still great to connect, and even better to see all of our guests visiting with each other. This time is so rich.

That afternoon, instead of hosting Community Group, Matt and I left the kids behind with Elias and Malachi (Malorie was visiting her family in Texas) while we took a small pan of Chicken Enchiladas over to our friends’ house where our Group was meeting instead. We are sad that these friends are moving to another state in a couple of months. This day, we spent time together packing boxes, moving refrigerators, and loading items to donate. The time together was bittersweet as we think about doing life together differently in the near future.

Back at home I threw together a quick dinner of Chicken Nuggets, leftover Mac and Cheese, and Salad. The kids were pretty wild and loud that night after being cooped up in the house to avoid being outside in the cold. Matt tried to run them around up and down our stairs with a game of ball tag, which they loved. Then he attempted a board game, which was absolutely nuts. Meanwhile, I was trying to manage kids jumping and yelling on the sidelines. God bless us everyone.

Monday morning, we had to change our schedule a little bit. Matt and I had the opportunity to record some podcasts at Back to the Bible where Asa works (and where Eva’s mom, Paula works too!). We settled the three youngest at home with Emma (who comes on Monday mornings), then we dropped the other kids off at school on our way.

I don’t have any pictures from our morning, but it was wonderful to spend time with the Back to the Bible crew! When we got home, the kids were outside with Emma playing in the leaves. Auggie had decked himself out in his coat and Brayden’s huge boots. He was very proud!

For dinner that night, I thawed and heated a pot of Taco Soup. It was great to simply pull it from the freezer without any effort!

That evening was especially rough. One of our kids had a meltdown that basically lasted from the time we picked kids up from school until it was time to go to bed. The others took turns melting down, so there was screaming and yelling in our house all evening long. Through it, on my way to the couch with a sad/mad kiddo to try and sit and help them calm their body down, I captured this scene, which only looks like we all sit and color and play magnatiles calmly in the evenings, ha.

Tuesday morning, Josie helped me make Pumpkin Muffins.

As we learn more every day about Autism Spectrum Disorder, we find that it’s impossible to get ahead of what our kids might “fixate” on. They see something or hear about something and suddenly it becomes the only thing they can think about. For Keith, this is often as small as an Amazon box or a long stick – and it is the most special item in the world – the only thing that matters. Or it is that he must have a dirt bike and a field to ride it in, and I need to buy this for him immediately. (<–try reasoning this out of an ASD kiddo. yikes.)

Well, on Tuesday morning, Keith’s obsession was getting dressed up to be the most handsome boy at school. This one we could accommodate and had no arguments with. (Also worth noting, at bedtime that same night, Keith laid in my room with me and sang a worship song for ten entire minutes that he was making up as he went. His song was all about praise to God and how Jesus has all the power and makes the darkness go away and is with us all the time and everywhere no matter what. It was the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard as it shows us that while Keith has a lot of struggles, the Truth of Jesus is getting into his heart. Oh how I needed to hear that song from his precious heart.)

After we got the kids to school that day, Justus dropped off Little Sweetheart to spend the day with us. Our day was pretty chill and we got a lot of little things done at home. Mostly, we played outside in the sunshine because we want to take advantage of every moment that we can before the severe cold sets in.

I took Brayden and Kiya to hand out food and clean with me at our weekly Food Distribution while Matt held down the fort with the other kids at home. As we expected, many more people came through the food line that day than we have had in the past. Thankfully, we had lots and lots of food that had been donated that we could hand out to people. As clients were making their way through to each food table, someone came in with jugs and jugs of milk for us to hand out – wow! So almost everyone who came through got a gallon of milk as a bonus. This was great to see!

When we got home, ABA therapy was well underway with Anna and a new technician that will be working with her for the short term while we wait for a permanent one. The needs of this, along with all the other needs of the kids, distracted me from taking a picture of our dinner that night. We had Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips, Salad, leftover Veggies from the fridge, and Pumpkin Muffins.

On Wednesday morning, while the kids were eating breakfast, I packaged up some hamburger patties and buns to put into our Little Free Pantry fridge. I’d picked up a pack of 12 hamburger patties on sale, so I repackaged them to provide three families with four burgers. This project has been so much fun!

Arrow came to hang out with us that morning. He and Josie were playing during snack time and I love this action shot!

We are in the process of getting Josie set up with ABA Therapy now that we have her ASD diagnosis. So this morning, we had a Telehealth call to work toward putting together her program. The clinician was very sweet to include Acacia in the fun interactions as they were running some tests to assess Josie’s cognitive ability.

That afternoon, I filled a cart at Aldi with items for our Little Free Pantry fridge and also for our own family’s needs.

That afternoon, we had quite a challenge getting Anna home from school. She struggles so much getting to and from school, but does just fine during school. The sidewalks had cleared and we still couldn’t motivate Anna to get on her bike to ride home (her legs didn’t work, she “couldn’t remember” how to pedal, she wanted to hold the snacks that Keith had…).

Ms. Rachel is one of the preschool teachers so she knows Anna from last year. She has been wonderful to step in and help several times when we’ve struggled to leave school. Here’s a shot I took of the two of them as Ms. Rachel worked to pull Anna out of the meltdown that was on its way to turning to shutdown. I sent this photo to Matt to let him know we were still at school and it would be a while before we made it back. God bless Ms. Rachel (oh, and Ms. Alex who joined us also and teamed up to finally get us on our way). Phew.

It was a hectic evening as Anna struggled her way through ABA therapy that night also. Dinner was really good though! I’d smoked Pork Chops that afternoon, then Stir Fried some Veggies (asparagus, zucchini, and carrots), and made Stuffing (from a box, ha). This all tasted delicious!

Brayden goes to Youth Group Bible Study on Wednesday evenings and it was his turn to take snacks this week. He helped me come up with his “menu” and he was very excited. He took chips and salsa, grapes, and Rice Krispie treats.

Kiya’s birthday was back in October and one of her gifts was to have a one-on-one outing with me to go pick out a new volleyball for our family to enjoy. Four weeks later, we FINALLY made this outing happen! It was a sweet time and after much deliberation, she chose this one.

Thursday morning, I made a loaf of French Toast for breakfast.

We checked our Little Free Pantry fridge after breakfast and it was completely empty – praise God! That means more people came and took what they needed after we went to bed. So the kids helped me restock it.

Before we left for school, I took this picture to show you, then we added in a few more items after we got back from school drop off. We try to keep a variety of items in the fridge to offer people choices, but not many more than one or two of each particular thing: milk, apples, yogurt, cheese, 6-pack of eggs, carrots, and a few meat options.

Little Sweetheart spent the day with us again and we took full advantage of sunshine and crunchy leaves to play in.

Auggie felt it necessary to rake the cement. And because one can never be too safe, he wore a baseball helmet to complete his task.

After school, Keith put on his full firefighter gear because that morning a firetruck had responded to a call across our street. Thus, he was now in firefighter mode.

And just who do you suppose drove by our house again that afternoon? More firefighters. They saw Keith in our yard, all decked out in his gear ready to fight fires. So they stopped so that they could take a picture. These men are heroes.

I’d made a very simple meal of Sloppy Joes with Chips and Grapes for dinner. My goal was to be able to spend time with the kids outside before it got dark since the temperatures were so warm.

We played volleyball until it got too dark to see the ball.

I’d browned ten pounds of hamburger meat that afternoon. Some of it got turned into our dinner. The rest of it got turned into a huge pot of Chili that I planned to serve on Sunday for lunch. Kiya was my Helper of the Day so she worked with me on this project.

On Friday morning, Matt took Josie and Auggie with him to take the elementary kids to school so that I could leave early with Acacia. Before her therapy appointments, we went to Wal-Mart to get more items for our Little Free Pantry. She was very insistent on helping me scan the groceries as we checked out.

For the next two hours, Acacia worked hard at Speech and Physical Therapies.

Back at home, we found Auggie hard at work with his Early Development Network special ed teacher. He was working his way through a sensory tunnel and Josie was helping.

That afternoon, I got ready for Keith’s 7th birthday dinner. He wanted a Dirt Bike cake so I rigged up a bike with a ramp. He loved it!

His dinner menu request was: Noodles. That’s it. He just wanted noodles. While that was fine for him (and for five of our other kids), I knew the rest of us would want something with our noodles. So I made both red and white sauces, warmed some bacon to go with white sauce, and steamed some broccoli.

We played a little bit of volleyball before dinner so that we could enjoy time outside before dark.

Then we all gathered around the table for the big birthday feast. Keith enjoyed two plates full of noodles with butter and salt. I was also able to get him to eat some birthday broccoli!

We never have to give big, expensive gifts to make the kids happy. Keith received a fun ball toss toy that I’d picked up on clearance for $4 a few months ago, plus a set of elbow, knee, and wrist protection gear to wear on all his bike/skateboard/skate adventures.

Saturday was full, so I’ll have to catch you up on this next week. We:

• Made a double batch of Breakfast Cookie Bars for upcoming Sunday breakfasts
• Made a double batch of Flourless Peanut Butter Brownies for snacks and lunchboxes
• Went to Library Storytime
• Ate leftovers for lunch
• Tucked Auggie in for a nap and left him home with adult kids while we took the others to Heartlands church for a Build a Blessing event
• Got home and made a bunch of Quiche for dinner to enjoy with my cousins who were passing through town

And that was our week!