Living Large: Logistics for Our Larger-Than-Normal Family

1 Corinthians 10:31-33

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

This blog post is as much a sharing of ideas as it is a quest for gathering ideas from readers.  While I have enjoyed working out the logistics of managing a larger-than-normal family, I am always looking for new ideas for process improvement at home, desiring to do all to the glory of God.  (Could it be that this is partly because I am married to a continuous process improvement project manager?)

So, here are some of our large family life logistics that help manage the daily chaos...

Getting a Head Start

Because managing a kitchen for a larger family takes a lot of work, I like to get a head start on the things that I can in order to make our mornings run more smoothly.  Every night after supper one of the children sets the table for breakfast in the morning, setting out bowls, spoons, cups, napkins and granola.  The fresh foods (milk, yogurt, etc.) come out in the morning.  This has been a super way for me to streamline our morning routine and to avoid the challenge of getting children to function faster in the morning.  (Only a few of our kiddos are "morning people".)  If our dining room table is not being used for school work (which it often is as kids spread out to work), the table-setter will also set the table for lunch immediately after clearing it from breakfast and for supper immediately after clearing it from lunch.  Additionally, it is my goal each evening to go to bed with the house ready for school in the morning, everything picked up, put away, corrected, and ready to go again.  (This is often an unrealistic goal, and/or I function on less sleep than the average person needs just to get this done each day.)

Team Work

Here in the Olson household we employ a fabulous staff!  (See the adorable children in the photo above.)  The majority of the daily household chore and weekly cleaning is divided up between the six children.  They rotate chores on a weekly basis, but everyone helps with something every day.  Deep cleaning, emergency projects, groceries, planning/implementing the menu, and managing the home and teaching are still my responsibilities, but it is so nice to have extra hands to work alongside me each day.  Often a task may take longer or be completed to the ability level of the child who is doing it, but as they work they are learning valuable life skills and serving their family together.

Feeding the Brewed

I have used a variety of menu-planning tools for the past 3 1/2 years for several reasons.  The original reason was to have a visible reminder for our children that the next meal was indeed coming.  The menu planner was intended as a way to manage the constant, anxious queries about the availability of food, but it also helped me to plan ahead and manage my shopping trips and grocery bill.   I just started using Cozi as an organizer and it includes a meal planning as well as shopping list tool for free!  Monday through Friday breakfasts are all the same at our house in order to streamline our mornings: oatmeal, yogurt, granola, and milk.  Sometimes there is the rare breakfast cereal, juice, or fruit that is on sale, but there have been no complaints about keeping our breakfasts simple and hearty, so I don't plan to alter the breakfast menu.  Saturday and Sunday breakfasts are much more exciting and include fruit smoothies, eggs, and all sorts of breakfast delights that I don't have time to cook/bake on a school/work day morning.

In addition to a streamlined breakfast menu, this year we are trying something new for lunches.  Our weekly lunch menu is the same every Monday through Friday, rotating daily, of course, and the children are in charge of making lunch in teams.  One teenager and one younger child daily take over in the kitchen around 11:00 in order to prepare lunch for everyone else.  This frees me up to continue teaching and to work one-on-one with children.  The kids rotate partners as well as days of cooking, but the goal is that they learn to prepare a variety of healthy lunches that include a vegetable, fruit, protein, and carb.  We rotate the lunch menu every month and the children help in making up the new menu and putting together a master grocery list.  To explain further, the Monday lunch menu stays the same for a month and the Monday kitchen staff (teenager and younger child) stays the same for that month so that they can get proficient at putting that meal together.  The Tuesday lunch menu is different from Monday, but it also stays the same for the month.

Managing suppers is one of my biggest challenges.  I'm searching for ideas here, so feel free to send them my way via email or comments!  Things run more smoothly when I plan ahead, like way ahead, and cook up all the meat I will need for several weeks ahead of time, browning several pounds of ground beef or baking several pans-full of chicken, cutting it up and freezing it for soups and hot dishes.  I often try to double or triple recipes so that we can have a meal of leftovers or stick an extra hot dish in the freezer.

I also struggle with grocery planning/shopping and managing the grocery bill. Any ideas that don't take excess time?  It has been a prayer of mine to find joy in showing love to my children through feeding them.  I do love to see them enjoy being well fed, but I feel like this is an area of slow-learning for me.


Laundry

Most of our Colombian Brewed is responsible for their own laundry, even the littles, though they need/receive more help than the bigs.  This has been a great help in managing the day to day work load and it teaches a valuable life skill.    

School Work

I love teaching my children at home, but there is no doubt that it is a huge amount of work each day (like all day).  I try to streamline things by having older children help with younger ones in the subject areas that they enjoy most.  For example, our sixteen year old son is great with math, so he is the math tutor/corrector if I am unable to help immediately and there is a math crisis.  Our 14 year old loves reading and shares her expertise by helping the younger kids in reading or researching things for me (how to projects, research for school topics, current events, etc.)   Our 13 year old daughter is great organizing activities for the younger kids and helping them make wise free-time choices, so I often find her helping them play.  Learning to work together and for someone else's advantage is a wonderful life lesson.  We have used a variety of curriculum options to try to make homeschooling more beneficial for the kids and less intense for me.  Curriculum and instruction methods are being constantly reviewed to see if there are opportunities for improvement.  How can I reach and teach each one best, this is my challenge.

Marriage
My husband is my best friend.  I love spending time with him.  We don't often have time to get away for dates, but we absolutely enjoy doing life together, even if it means running kids to soccer or dance and catching up with one another after the kids go to bed.  Early bedtimes for the kids are helpful for finding time together alone.  Thankfully, by the end of the day our kids are usually exhausted and ready for rest.  Recently we have been able to get away very early in the morning or after the littles are in bed in order to get some exercise walking or running together.  Running is my favorite, but then we can't talk to each other as much during our get aways. 

I am entering the world of technology in order to stay connected with my sweetheart.  Quick emails and texts help us function well as a team.  I also make sure Nic knows what is going on at home by keeping him in the loop with our daily family calendar on Cozi.  I can add events, addresses, and reminders for him.  It is great that he is able to understand and be a part of our schedule even in the midst of his own busy work schedule.  He is an amazing husband and father!  How do you find time for your marriage in a larger-than-normal family?


Faith
Over the years we have incorporated Bible teaching in our family life in a number of ways.  We have at times been involved in Sunday School, Wednesday night classes, and Sunday services within church, as well as having Family Bible Time together in the mornings, during supper, or after supper, and as a special weekly lesson at home.  Each schedule has worked for the season.  This year we chose to be involved in our church's Sunday morning service together as a family.  Following the service, the younger children attended Sunday School and the teens attended a family integrated Sunday school class where parents were the disciplers and mentors of their own children.  We really enjoyed this approach.  We also simplifed our schedule by opting to do Wednesday night Bible classes at home with just our family instead of driving to church and getting home after most of our kids needed to be in bed.  We studied The Young Peacemaker by Corlette Sande and have found it to be a wonderful study.  We also changed our Family Bible Time to supper time this year.  I personally prefer a morning Family Bible Time, but for this season we needed Nic to lead us and supper was the time he was most available.  We have been reading through the gospels together but are considering using an inductive Bible study tool like Balancing the Sword.  One of our good friends leads his Family Bible Time using Balancing the Sword and gave a good review of it here.  We have been so thankful for the fellowship of great friends who also love the Lord and His Word!  Living life with other believers has been such a sweet blessing!


***If you have stuck with me and read all of this, bravo and a high-five to you!  I would love to hear suggestions or other ideas for living large, logistics for managing a larger-than-normal family!