Here’s our Big Family Food and Fun: May 19-25, 2024 post!
Our week started off with a precious time of worship with our Lincoln church family. For years now, I have had a difficult time getting through worship without tears. I feel so grateful and humbled by a Savior who knows our needs and cares enough to meet them. This Sunday was especially sweet as I held Justus and Kelsey’s foster babe and saw so many others loving on my babies.
How we all need each other. How we must all be in community. I’ve always known this but while constantly caring for so many special needs kids who struggle to understand their worth – seeing our village love them with us is so touching and precious to me. I was able to capture just a few moments throughout the morning. Acacia spotted her dear Kathi and stood with her to sing.
Josie claimed her spot with Malorie who was here from Texas to visit Elias (and the rest of us, ha!) for a few days.
Acacia made her way over to Elias and spent the rest of her auditorium time with him before she headed to the nursery for Toddler Time. Meanwhile, Brayden was getting loved up on by Kelsey (I wasn’t able to get a photo). I’m so thankful for our village. It is huge and needed. God is faithful.
After church, we headed to a park for a drizzly Picnic with Pals organized by Mandy, our Kids Minister.
Keith had a soccer game but this time we decided to send him off with Elias and Malorie while we took the other kids home for rest time. I had a migraine and went to rest myself. When I came downstairs, I found Matt playing a game at the table with Brayden, Kiya, and Keith. Very sweet!
One of our housemates helped prepare Tortelloni with sauce which we all ate very quickly so that we could head off to a graduation celebration with friends.
Just as we arrived at the party, we were greeted with thunder, lightening, and heavy rain. The party moved inside and the hostess pulled out a fabulous dollhouse for our kids to enjoy. We ended up staying much longer than anticipated because the kids settled in and had such a calm time of play. This meant that we adults got to enjoy a great visit – praise God!
Monday morning I pulled this Pork Roast from the fridge that I’d been thawing. Look at the crazy sale price I got on this! Such a blessing.
I discovered that apparently 8.4 pounds of pork roast is too big for the biggest of crock pots. So I transferred it to my electric roasting pan to slow cook all day. Then I had the kids take turns scrubbing potatoes to cook in a crock pot all day for mashed potatoes that night.
I had several bananas turning black so Anna and Kiya helped me turn them into Banana Bread.
Matt went to York to work for the day, Elias was at work (he’s a special ed para now) so Malorie was my side kick for the day. Is she Elias’ girlfriend? Is she my friend? Is she one of our little kids’ favorite person? The answer is yes. :)
Malorie hadn’t been to “our zoo” (we think we own the place) and we have a Plus One included in our membership. So we loaded up the five littlest kids and headed there, mainly so we could dig in the huge sandbox that morning.
On the way to the sand, we needed to see if our wingspan was as long as an eagle…
I’m not sure what the girls were doing here but wow am I glad I captured their silliness!
Ah. We made it to the sand.
I had grabbed yogurt squeezies, raisins, and graham crackers plus a jar of peanut butter to spread on. They got out of the sand and snacked before we headed back to the van so we’d make it home in time for the preschool bus.
We got some sweet rest that afternoon, then Acacia and Josie and I loaded up to walk to school to pick up Brayden and Kiya.
It was a hot one that day, so cold watermelon tasted extra good when we got home.
Keith was very happy to help me make salad to go with our dinner.
We had Pork Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Caesar Salad, and Buttered Rolls.
Tuesday morning I used two loaves of Cinnamon Bread to make French Toast.
We were privileged to babysit Justus and Kelsey’s Little Sweetheart for a few hours. It had been raining a lot so while the kids wanted to play outside, we didn’t want them to get muddy. Once the rain let up, we loaded them up for a walk – four in our wagon/stroller and two in the double stroller. It worked great and we had a nice long walk through our neighborhood.
That afternoon, I made a double recipe of Creamy Bacon Spaghetti and put it into a crock pot on the “keep warm” setting for our dinner. I planned to pick Brayden and Kiya up from school and head straight over to hand out food to the community at our Food Distribution site. So my goal is to always have dinner ready for everyone before leaving at 3:30 on Tuesdays. I made a pot of green beans also, but didn’t get a photo.
There was an extra big crowd at Food Distribution that day (I wasn’t able to get photos) so we handed food out to well over 100 people. All of this food is donated by grocery stores and restaurants in an effort to avoid food waste. We love this!
Back at home, Elias, Malorie, and Matt had held down the fort. I had been dealing with some “special behaviors” with one of our kids who had gotten triggered by something at Food Distribution so Matt took over with that one. Then I turned right around and got to deal with some behaviors with the other one now that we were home.God is faithful and we continually ask for wisdom as we parent these kids.
Just before bed, I asked Anna and Acacia to help me put some cans of sparkling water into our living room mini fridge and they were very excited to help! (This fridge is usually off limits to them as we keep it full of drinks for guests and the grown-ups in the house. Every once in a while we let the littles pick something special to take to drink for an outing and it is the best thing ever.) :)
Wednesday morning Malorie and I took the five littlest kids to a Music and Movement Library Story Time. We always get excited when we get to dance to music with scarves!
Look who can stand up on his own now! He has been doing this for weeks now, but so far still hasn’t taken steps. He progresses slowly, but he does progress. He’s pretty proud of his standing skills, as he should be. :)
Josie was feeling shy around the big crowd of kids that morning so Malorie took her to the back of the room so she could still enjoy the music and fun.
We got home in time for a case worker visit. After that, we played outside for a while we waited for the bus to come. This kid was high up in a tree before I knew it. There’s never a dull moment with Keith.
It was Keith and Anna’s last day of preschool. The teachers had a water day planned so the kids got to wear their swim suits under their clothes. This was VERY exciting.
The kids’ bus drivers have grown pretty attached to the clan throughout this year. They came bearing gifts at pick up time today.
I had baked a double batch of Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars the day before so when I had a free minute, I cut them, bagged them, and put them into the freezer to have on hand as needed during the next few weeks.
Keith brought home a gift from one of his bus drivers: a tiny wooden airplane kit with five thousand tiny parts. He was so excited to put it together. Notice Elias’ “you’ve got to be kidding me” face when he saw the impossible task before him. :) :) :) Needless to say, the plane never made it off the ground.
Back in the kitchen (my comfort zone, where I know how to put things together and there are no tiny parts with vague instructions) – Acacia put together a salad to go with our dinner. Josie helped by dumping bacon bits onto the floor under her stool.
With our salad, we had a big batch of Lazy Dogs with pickles and carrots.
We played outside most of the evening. At one point, Keith grabbed a sweet pepper from the counter and started eating it like an apple. Who was I to stop him?
Ms. Kathi had given us a bunch of “Hens and Chicks” from her garden for us to attempt to transplant into our yard. I told her that I keep kids alive, not plants. But she declared that we could give it a try and if they didn’t survive (the plants, not the kids) so be it. So the kids had fun planting them all over our yard.
Thursday was Brayden and Kiya’s last day of school for the year!
Matt and I spent the morning with the five littlest stocking up on groceries to kick off the first part of our summer break. First Aldi…
Then Costco.
I captured this sweet photo of Acacia loving on BabyBoy#11 as we unloaded carts into the van. I can’t stop looking at it:
When we got home and started to unload groceries, Keith found a stick/weapon/tool – which definitely did not help him to be more efficient in carrying in food. But it sure was fun.
Late afternoon, Elias and Brayden spent their Bro Time making dinner together for our family. Matt and I loaded the other six kids in strollers or bikes and walked to a nearby garden/park to get out of their way.
When we got home, our neighbors Coleman and Sarah were out so we stopped to visit with them for a while. I love the relationship we are forming and how they love our kids. :)
Back and home, Elias and Brayden had made a feast! Pasta, three kinds of sauce, meatballs, salad, garlic toast, and cookies.
Friday morning we jumped right in to our Summer School at Home fun. After breakfast we started reading Little House in the Big Woods. The littlest didn’t last long on my lap for this book, but Brayden, Kiya, and Keith LOVED it. And oh, so did I. :) :) :)
After we finished a chapter, I spread out different books at their reading levels for them to choose from. I explained how we’d be building Book Worms as we read and challenged them to see how long our Book Worm might be by the end of summer! (Find the specifics for this idea in the Reading Nook folder in the Summer School at Home Toolbox.)
We finished prepping for a morning outing then by packing a picnic (the Surprise Picnic – as described in the Summer School Cooking Corner Picnic in a Hat book). The kids LOVED THIS!!! I had printed Zoo Scavenger Hunt pages from the Summer School Investigation Station folder and we loaded up for a big zoo day with friends!!
Two families joined us at the zoo as we celebrated our first day of summer break together!
Brayden carried the big kids’ scavenger hunt paper and Keith was in charge of the little kids’ version. They had so much fun with this!
Sometimes at the zoo we just hit one or two areas. Today we did just about everything, spending four hours and having a blast. We got to feed the alpacas…
We all sat together and ate the lunches we’d packed.
We saw lots and lots of animals. We played in the sand. We got wet in the splash area. We fed the giraffes.
And we ended our zoo day by taking a train ride. As you can see, no one was excited about this…
We came home tired and satisfied. Of course, the transition from zoo to home caused several kids to melt down. This is typical for us. We have lots of fun at our outings but then we try to sabotage our day by acting out afterward. God is faithful. He will heal. We pray continually for patience and wisdom.
Three kids’ behavior struggles later, we settled some for a nap/rest time then turned on a show for the others. Matt held down the fort while I was blessed with a much-needed-very-good time with my therapist. I haven’t been able to do that for myself for quite a while – focusing more on kids’ therapy appointments instead. I’m thankful God provided this for me!
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Side Note: I thought it was funny that as we were loading up for home one of our kids asked, “Can we finally start our Summer School at Home now??” Ha! They hadn’t even realized that the morning read-aloud, the books they’d read on their own, the zoo trip, the picnic they’d helped pack, and the scavenger hunt WERE part of Summer School at Home! I guess they thought we’d be sitting at the table for hours all summer practicing math facts. Nope. Learning looks different at home! Summer School at Home is a party, man. :)
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Saturday’s breakfast was simple: Bagels and Strawberry Parfaits.
While the kids ate, I declared it to be Operation Refrigerator Clean-Out Day. We try really hard not to waste food and try to save money by using up what we have before we make more food. I had veggies getting wilt-y in the fridge so I decided to make Stir-Fry for the adults to eat with their breakfast. (The kids were welcome to it too, but shockingly, there were no takers, ha.) Then I used the last of a container of spinach to bake Chocolate Cupcakes.
This gave us a great start on eating up items from the fridge before they went bad. The rest of the day we ate more leftovers, got the lawn mowed, caught up on laundry, did some cleaning, and got ready to start a new week!
