Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: August 9-15, 2026 post!

BONUS: August 8

I finished last week’s post in the afternoon, but then we were blessed with a wonderful bonus evening that I wanted to highlight!

Asa and Eva’s family came over so that Asa could hang out and play a game with our friend/housemate, Nathan. That meant that Arrow and our kids had playtime, and all of us got some Phoebe time! She’s old enough now that all of the kids could take a short turn holding her, and everyone LOVED this privilege!

I put 17 Hamburgers and 16 Hotdogs on the smoker that evening, then we ate them with Grapes and Cantaloupe. It was super simple, but how grateful did I feel having so many dear ones around our table again that evening!!!

You might recall that Nathan had to have surgery on his ankle after a fall two weeks ago. So this time with Asa was extra good and it was fun to hear their laughter as they finished up their game.

There are always people coming and going from the table during meals like this, so it’s almost impossible to catch everyone at once. I had the honor of holding Phoebe while everyone ate, and I just took in the scene. What a delight!

Big Family Food and Fun: August 9-15, 2026

Sunday morning, I took advantage of the kids sitting in the living room watching a show and used my time to put muffins into baggies for the freezer. I’ve been trying to do a little bit each day to prepare for packing five school lunches every day. The day before, I had baked batches of Vanilla Pumpkin Muffins and Spinach Cupcakes.

These little bags went into big bags, and then into the freezer to pull out as needed.

We ate a special plate of Breakfast Cookie Bars as we got ready for church. See those little soccer ball shaped chocolate chips in there? I found those on clearance after the World Cup ended. Fun!

There were 25 of us gathered for lunch together after church.

We had a brunch-themed lunch! I made two huge Egg and Hashbrown Casseroles, one with ham and one with sausage. Our friend, Rebecca, brought homemade muffins, plus we had strawberry shortcakes and fruit. It was fun and delicious!

Matt and I enjoyed Community Group time that afternoon. For dinner, we ate food that our friends had dropped off after their mom’s funeral. When people have excess food, they often think of us, knowing that we eat a lot at our house. We are happy and grateful to receive these blessings!

Emma came on Monday morning! All eight kids were home so Matt and I weren’t able to steal away like we had often through the summer when she came. But I did head out to finish up shopping that needed to be done before school started. We were incredibly blessed at Wal-Mart to find one final bike we needed to get all of our kids to and from school – and it was on clearance!

My Sam’s cart didn’t overflow like it usually did, so at this point, I decided to get cases of toilet paper and napkins. THEN it was overflowing. :)

Back at home, everyone took in loads of groceries. The bike brought a lot of excitement – plus there were new shoes for the kids who still needed them. I *think* we are ready for school now!

We had been given a bag of Fish Fillets at a past Tuesday Food Distribution (someone had donated a huge amount of these), so we air fried them for lunch. They were a hit! Friends had given us a loaf of sweet bread that we enjoyed, plus I prepped two pounds of strawberries. We ate every single bite of this lunch before heading outside. I gave three boys a needed hair cut and we let the kids play in water all afternoon.

At 4:30, we all made the trek to our kids’ elementary school for their Open House. Elias and Malorie walked with us to help out. We’ll have seven kids at the elementary school this year – a new record for us!

We made our way to everyone’s classrooms, found their desks, met their teachers if we didn’t know them already, and felt a lot of excitement reuniting with classmates and teachers that we’d missed over the summer.

Auggie wasn’t sure what to think at first as he went to his classroom for the first time. But as soon as he found the play area, he made himself right at home!

I had made dinner before we left for Open House and we were all ready to eat when we got home. We ate our way through three pounds of noodles, a large pan of red sauce with meat, a jar of white sauce, and a pot of steamed broccoli. Plus we ate grapes, fruit/veggie pouches, cheese, and whatever else some of our pickier kids needed to fill up their bellies before bedtime that night.

We spent time on Tuesday morning working again on school lunch prep. First, I made Flourless Chocolate Banana Muffins and Peanut Butter Snack Bars. Just as I was sliding the muffins into the oven, I saw the saucepan of coconut oil that I’d melted for the muffins and failed to add to the muffin batter. Ugh. The hazards of multitasking! (The muffins turned out ok. Not great, but we ate them!)

While those were in the oven, I made a monster-sized recipe of Mudballs. I set aside some to deliver to a friend who had just lost her sister. I planned to take those for her family, along with a few other baked goods.

My last baking endeavor that morning was a double batch of Monster Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. These turned out super ooey-gooey-good!

Once all the bars had cooled, I cut and individually bagged them and put them into the freezer.

I felt stocked up now for grab-and-go school lunch packing needs. We’ll see how long all of these prepped foods last!

Matt bravely took seven of the kids to the Heartlands church building to help with some cleaning needs. I stayed back with Auggie so he could finish his ABA therapy session, and I used my time to continue food prep in the quiet. I cut two big packages of steak and added frozen peppers and onions to cook for our dinner that night.

When Auggie finished therapy, I gave him a hair cut. He did great and this completed our four younger boys’ hair cuts as we head into the school year!

The kids had earned some freebie coupons from the Library Summer Reading Program. So on the way home from Heartlands, Matt stopped and picked up free kids meals from Slim Chickens. That made for a fun end-of-summer break lunch!

That afternoon, I took Brayden, Kiya, Keith, and Acacia to serve at Tuesday Food Distribution. There is also a clothing giveaway room at this distribution location, so we all took in some bags of clothes to donate before heading to our food giveaway stations.

Back at home, Matt had finished setting out the Steak Fajita bar that I’d started earlier in the day. I got home from Food Distribution just in time to drop off kids and then Brayden and I headed to his Middle School Open House. This time together helped settle his nerves as he saw each classroom, met new teachers, and found his locker.

On Wednesday, I spent almost the entire day prepping for school breakfasts and lunches. We’d brought home a big pile of overripe bananas from Food Distribution the day before, and I had big plans for them!

I started by making a double batch of Angela’s Breakfast Cookies. I froze half and set the other half aside for our first day of school breakfast.

Meanwhile, I baked 24 eggs to turn into Breakfast Sandwiches.

While the oven was hot, I baked a pan of Stick of Butter Rice to use with leftover Steak Fajita meat.

Our two kindergarten girlies had their very first day of school. They were beyond excited and nervous, which is why they packed and repacked their lunches six times.

After dropping off the girls, I put kids to work helping me get our pantry more organized for school lunch packing. Our summer has been so FULL that everything felt messy, cluttered, and disorganized. So I worked on fridge and freezers and pantry shelves to help us feel more settled and ready to be efficient on school mornings.

While Brayden helped me move things in the pantry, I put Kiya to work filling baggies with peanut butter pretzels to have available to grab-and-go.

I made two loaves of bread worth of Uncrustables for the freezer.

We ate leftovers for lunch, then Matt gave each of the older kids a turn mowing. This was Kiya’s first time and she was so proud!

Our evening was very full as we are having some significant transitions with our ABA therapy workers. We are so sad to see some of our wonderful therapists and technicians leaving after all they’ve done for our family. We met three new workers this week and we trust God to use them to continue to do good for our kids.

Dinner needed to be simple that night, so I made Sloppy Joes and Salad to serve as needed. Emotions were running high as not only were we making shifts in ABA therapy, school was to start for everyone the next day. So there was nervous energy filling the house. Bedtime felt good that night (once we finally settled everyone in).

Thursday was everyone’s first day back to school. Organized and prepared as we were, it was still an incredibly hectic morning getting seven kids out the door on time. Brayden did a good job eating a Breakfast Sandwich and heading out by 7:30. Auggie’s ABA therapist arrived at 8:00. And the other anxious kiddos didn’t know what to do with themselves until time to go, so they created a bit of chaos. Therefore, try as I might, I wasn’t able to get a first day of school picture with all of them.

These four lunch bags sat still for me though. So here’s a first day of school lunch bag picture. (Anna had already put her bag into her backpack.) All of the prep I’d done leading up to this day was so helpful in packing good food for our kids!

We made it to school just in time, and I was able to capture a shot of these three: two second graders and a first grader.

Back at home, I used the last of the over ripe bananas to make three loaves of Banana Bread. Arrow and Hopelyn both came to spend the day, which was PERFECT as Matt and I enjoyed some quiet for the first time in months. It’s funny how “only” having a 3-year-old and two 2-year-olds to hang out with is sweet and peaceful. We had such a fun morning!

While we were reading Curious George together, I did my best to get a picture of us. :)

At noon, Brayden came home from school. We are trying a new plan for this awesome 7th grader this year: part time public school and part time home school. Last year, spending a full day at the middle school was too much for him in many ways. We are praying our new plan works to help keep his nervous system more settled.

After he ate lunch, our friend Becky came and picked him up for a special afternoon at her house.

They cooked together, played the piano, and made a special treat to bring home to everyone.

Matt and I put all three little ones down for naps and attempted to have a 32nd Anniversary Date!!! Ice cream and coffee in the sunshine? Uninterrupted conversation with my favorite guy? THE BEST! (This moment lasted exactly five minutes before one of our very struggling neighbors came by with a very big need. So the uninterrupted convo was very much interrupted, but serving together with Matt is what has made our 32 years so special. We spent the next hour helping get our friend some food and water and off to the hospital with another friend. We plan to attempt another date time next week when Emma comes!)

At school pick-up time, we buckled the babes into our big wagon and made our way a few blocks to create a big parade of kids on bikes. Hopelyn thought this was the funniest thing and laughed so hard as we traveled.

We got home in time to start ABA therapy for four kids. Becky dropped off Brayden along with Caramel Corn and Baked Ziti that they had made together. He was SO PROUD of his work and we were proud of him! It was a delicious dinner and we finished the entire pan along with Green Beans and Corn.

After we got the kids to school on Friday morning, our dear friend Donna came for a short but sweet visit. We went to college together and don’t see each other often so we made the most of our catch-up time!

At lunchtime, I made Sloppy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Grilled Turkey and Cheese Sandwiches.

After we ate, I introduced Brayden to part of what his homeschool afternoons will look like each day. He read through his assignment list, and we got started on his work together.

After some American History work, a scripture reading time, and a math drill, I took him and Auggie to the library. Brayden had some specific library goals detailed in his assignment notebook and I worked with him there to find all of the specific book sections and work through his list. Meanwhile, Auggie did amazing playing with all of the fun library toys he found.

It was a pretty great afternoon with the two boys and we got home in time to head to school to pick up all the other kids. Our evening was full of ABA therapy and I didn’t get any more pictures on Friday. We ate leftover Steak Fajita meat for dinner with Stick of Butter rice and toppings.

Saturday we took the kids to the Children’s Museum for the morning.

Overall, the outing went very well until the end when several kids had meltdowns. We were grateful for happy kids for the majority of the time we were out!

Brayden and Kiya had an extra good time with a special scavenger hunt that was set up at the museum that day. They did amazing figuring out clues to find each item on the list throughout the morning.

There were also special craft stations set up throughout the building. This along with all the regular features of the museum provided lots of sweet time.

The building zone is a fairly new feature of the museum, and Keith and Bonus Buddy did a great job building a house together!

We had acquired eight free kids’ meal coupons from Raising Cane’s at a summer event a few weeks ago. There’s a Cane’s right across the street from the museum, so we grabbed the grub and ate in a courtyard close by. This was great for about ten minutes – then they all scattered and it was no longer fun. But I do think these kids are making good memories, even if things like this are challenging for Matt and me.

Back at home, we did some cleaning, got muddy, gave baths, had an early dinner, then took the kids to a Salt Dogs baseball game. I’ll share more about that next week!