Huge Bj's Haul large family life Thanks Giving

lazy sunday

i don't know what it is about Sunday's but it's always a lazy day. other then church we literally do nothing else. today we didn't go to church, i feel bad now but we were dead tired, it has been a rough couple of days to say the lease, little girls have been really sick and they are still coughing, i had dinner ready so all i had to do was place it in the oven, Saturday's is a day where i make dinner for Sunday so when i get back from church i am not struggling to make dinner.

all day i have spent hanging out with the kids watching TV in bed, it feels good but to be honest after a while i have to get up and do something.

for dinner today we had a Sheppard's pie, it was truly amazing i tried this new recipe so make sure you look out for that as i will be posting a video on what i did different.


so when we were moving we had to leave alot of things behind especially big girl toys like princess kitchen and princess house, i had only bought this particular frozen castle last Christmas and they kids broke a few pieces of it, so it made me see how flimsy it was, so i told my husband i wanted to build a custom barbie house for them, i had attempted to make one for cher when she was little but she was not a girly girl and preferred being a tomboy lol, so this year i am going to attempt creating a custom barbie house from scratch, and whats even better i am going to take you along with me.

well guys i had a dishwasher to load, and a bubble bath calling my name. so until tomorrow.

as always y'all stay safe and be blessed

R~

being thankful even when you feel like you can't

one thing that i am struggling with the past few months is not being thankful for what i do have and focusing on what i don't have or what i want to have, i have a set mind on what i want and where i want to be but in order for that to happen i know i myself have to change my ways, now the sad part is i know a few people who will read this and feel a pleasure knowing i feel down and then i know there are a lot of people out there who are going through the same thing and feel they can relate to this post.
one of the most things i am grateful in life for is my husband, now before you go and think my kids are not number 1? let me explain!
before my husband came into my life i was just lost, i was a single mom and was living in the shadows i was trapped, everything i did was wrong, according to everyone, if i spoke i caused an argument, it doesn't matter what i did or what i said i was always in the wrong and i was always estranged from everyone, i did not belong and i was not accepted,when my husband came into my life he showed me that i was important and i was special, at least to him, he opened the door to another level he showed me the way to believe in myself. he showed me that there is life and life can be beautiful and amazing, he made me see the light, i was reborn especially in my faith, god was real like really real. this man that god had sent loved me for me, never judged me or made me feel like i was nothing,he made me his queen. i am proud to say that for the past 15 years he has stuck by me no matter what and we are still going strong. that's why when i have to give thanks i have to go to him first, as its cause of him i am so passionate about my beautiful kids. my kids are my every day blessing, there are days when i am going to loose my mind and its really not them its more the situation, like every mom out there, there are times when i go to the bathroom to give myself a ''timeout'' and then its all good. sometimes just asking the lord to help me through this has worked wonders,my oldest child, my beautiful daughter saved my life in so many ways, i didn't know what love was really about till i laid eyes on her, when times were hard and depression was bad she made me smile no matter what people had to say about me. every time a child was born i was always worried if i would have enough love and time for each and every one, but as soon as they were born it would be falling in love all over again, there is no such thing as not having enough or not having enough time, believe me you just do it.
there is not a day that goes by that i don't think of our baby we lost, he would be walking around here and would almost be 12 now, but i know god had his reasons., there is always something that don't feel right or someone missing and then it hits me. another thing we struggle with is how bad we would love more kids to our family but cant, its hard especially when you know what your heart wants and needs.
some days its hard, when you know you need to talk to someone and there is no one, you have no family to talk to or call, my husband and i share everything but there are some things that only a real friend or family member would understand, being strong all the time gets tiring some days.


our goals as a couple and family is to own a home not a regular home our home, one thing i know we do all the time is live outside our means meaning we buy things and do things that have no meaning or necessity so for us to achieve our goal we have decided to budget and cut down all our spending and so far its working, it has been super challenging going into target and walking away especially from clearance items (lol) so its a learning process, by now the kids would have about 15 gifts each under the tree, and i don't have not even 1 under there, we have decided to cut from 15 to 5 each, i have a few just haven't wrapped them up yet, it has been super busy and i seriously haven't had much time to get out.

so what am i thankful for and need to make sure i never forget
my husband, who tolerates all the crazy i do and all my emotions, my kids whom make me a better person and teach me motherhood on a daily basis, i am grateful i get to stay home with these amazing kids to make sure they are safe and i owe this to my husband,.
instead of wanting ''my house'' so much be thankful i have a house to live in, as much as we want more children be grateful for our beautiful 6, instead of wanting certain things be grateful for what i have, so there it is, some confessions of a mom who just like you struggles.

y'all stay safe and blessed

R~

Thank's Giving Dinner

so not sure if your kid's do the same or maybe its just mine every year i get food request for what they want for thanksgiving you know coming to think about it its not just the kids its my husband too, so i taught i would share with you our meal plan for thanks giving day and hopefully give you some ideas too? you never know.

so this year we are going with turkey breast rather then a whole turkey as we always waste the turkey we are not big fans of turkey.

                                                        turkey breast
                                                        old bay wings
                                                        BBQ ribs
                                                        mac and cheese
                                                        mash potatoes
                                                        rice and peas
                                                        dinner rolls
                                                        cranberry sauce
                                                        stuffing
                                                        pumpkin pie
                                                        cheesecake
                                                        Oreo cookie dough cheesecake


and that's whats for dinner in the Bryan household. i am more then sure my husband will be catching some of this on camera so stay tuned for that. i would love to hear what y'all are having so please leave me a comment down below and let me know whats cooking in y'all kitchens or if your not doing the cooking.

as always stay safe and blessed

R~

CHICKEN ALFREDO RECIPE LARGE FAMILY

Hey Guys!!

today i wanted to share yet another recipe with you guys. this one is a nice hearty one and fills all those little bellys up :-) here is my version on chicken alfredo i have done it like this for a long time and we like it this way, all the kids eat it too so thats a bonus, i have a video posted on youtube so feel free to check that out.

https://youtu.be/ONYTf7fbWpA       check it out here


 so for this recipe you will need:

1 1/2 cups of cooked chicken breast
1 1/2 cups of carrots
1 1/2 cups pf frozen peas
1 cup of broccoli
1/2 chopped onion
3/4 cup of parmasean cheese
1 jar of alfredo saice
salt pepper and garlic powder
your basic rue bachamel' sauce

make your rue sauce like you would do for your mac and cheese, add your jar of alfredo sauce and add all seasoning and veg, add chicken and let everthing blend and cook together for 10 mins on low heat, mix with penne or your favorite pasta. check out the video for more on this recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe Large Family Living

hey guys!!

So its holiday season! which means it's baking season right?
there is one personal favorite recipes that i use for chocolate chip cookies and all the kids including my husband LOVE, like they will try to eat the whole batch in one go. now this batch here makes a larger batch then 24 i think all together it makes around 40? well depends on the size you wanna make them.
so i already made a batch and i wanted to share them with y'all. so let me tease you guys just a little with some pictures then i will post the recipe :-)

don't they look good?

i use whatever plastic container and lid i have empty that day to store them in, not that they last but i gotta try.

so here is my recipe, i found this recipe a few years ago and i tweaked it to my taste and use it ever since, when i am making to gift or freeze for another day i will sometimes double this recipe there has been occasions where i have actually tripled it.

1 cup of butter

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

2 eggs

3 tsp vanilla

3 cups of flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp of salt

2 tsp of milk

2 cups of chocolate chips

2 tsp of coco

just mix all these together and size them on how big you want them, after that bake in a 350f oven for about 10-12 minutes and BOOM you are done. you will have some amazing cookies that everyone will love.

i hope you have enjoyed this recipe, i hope you give it a try and please let me know, i would truly like to hear your feedback.

as always guys stay sage, god bless you.

from my family to yours.

R~

AMAZON BLACK FRIDAY WEEK!!!!!!

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LARGE FAMILY BUDGET MEALS UNDER $10

one thing sometimes we all find hard is budgeting especially when you have a large family to take care of, sometimes you find yourself having no budget after you pay what you need, so along the years we have always stuck to a budget and we find that it really works well for us, so every Monday i will be posting a video on YouTube how to feed a large family of 8 on a tight budget, our goal is to keep it under $10 so for this week i went ahead and showed you how we make our roast chicken that feeds us all, so make sure you check that video out and keep an eye out for those videos every Monday .https://youtu.be/k0dLQHTvcvU
so make sure you check that out and even post your own favorite recipes that you love and are all in budget, what is your budget for meals? we would really like to know your tricks to surviving. well i hope y'all enjoy the video and i hope y'all subscribe to the channel.

Minestrone family tradition MY WAY

Growing up every Sunday my dad would take me to my grandfather and there he would cook this very large pot of Italian minestrone, he would also cook multiple things on Sunday but i have to say this soup was my favorite ever. my husband only likes certain soups and this one sadly he does not like, the kids and i love it and its a great way of getting a whole bunch of veggies in them without them complaining. so i taught i would share with you my minestrone soup my take, and hoping you will enjoy it as much as we do especially with winter coming up.

we use a very large stock pot so make sure you have a big one.

for this recipe you will need:

cauliflower

cabbage

squash

carrots

zucchini

potatoes

sweet potatoes

cans of tomatoes 

can of tomato paste

small ziti pasta

seasoning - salt and pepper- chicken stock depending on how big your pot is

 

so the amount of veg you put in the pot is completely up to you, i always use like a whole cabbage and use half to make the soup and half to store in a Ziploc bag for another time. 

you will start with putting the tomato paste in first and ''browning it'' then add your chicken stock half way and add all your veg leave behind the pasta for now. when you add your veg add the rest of the chicken stock, when your veg are all cooked and tender then add the pasta and turn it on the lowest burner and let it cook for about 10-15 minutes, always see if it needs more seasoning. now in our family we always add Parmesan cheese to top it off, it makes it oh so yummy and we really love cheese in this house.

so this is the final result, i had to use shredded carrots as that's all i had in the house and i did not want to head out just for carrots, so that's a good example that you can put any vegetable you want, you can also puree it or just mash it up a little so the kids don't know about all the veg. either way you do it you will love it if you enjoy soups, OH did i mention its a good slimming soup too? 

hope you guys enjoyed this recipe from my kitchen and i will be posting more recipes 

as always stay safe and blessed

R~

Friday Crafts with Cher make your own craft paint

Friday Crafts with Cher make your own craft paint

What's Going on? Why so much budget ???

if you follow us then you know we are not ones to put our self on budgets even with a large family, we do watch what we buy but have never been too strict on it, over the past few months we have made some pretty drastic choices in our life, and have decided to turn things around, more than a 360. our path involves god as our leader, now if you know us god has always been number 1 in our life we have always tried our best as a family and as individuals to follow him and choose his path.

so let me just get to the point, the last few years we have certainly been living way beyond our needs and means, i mean we took a pretty expensive vacation that we could of put a lot down on our house, we bough a brand new min van along with a lawn business, add all your other means to that, and next thing you know you feel you are drowning and overwhelmed, so we have decided to live within our means and purchase our home cash or almost have it paid for,
as y'all know we did just move to Florida not even quite a month ago, but one thing that we have not been saying is Florida is our middle state meaning this is where we chose to stay until we find where we want to purchase our house, our goal is not to stay here more then 2 years, to be honest i hope its not more then one, but we shall leave that in the lord's hands.

we have some personal projects we are working on and praying they take off.

as far as moving we do like it up north but the problem with raising a family well large family it tends to be really pricey and that's why we moved down south to get a breather from that type of living.

we have been looking into Utah and Wyoming but i am not sure we would ''fit in ''  so we have given our self a few months to decide what state we want to buy a house in, research everything and take a few trips there to see how it is, yes its crazy but until you find your ''place'' you have to keep looking.

so again to the budget, i normally go to the grocery store, including Sam's club or Costco's or bj's and just spend and next thing you know i have spent $300-$500 on groceries and after a week I'm confused as to why we need more, i have realized that we are wasting too much and spending too much, a few years ago we decided to make everything from scratch and we saved so much money that we bought then our car cash, so i know that we are wasting and spending way too much.

our plans and goals?
live week to week, only buy what i am cooking for breakfast lunch and dinner and make everything from scratch, the past 2 weeks my grocery bills have been under $50 yup and that's for 8 of us!!! crazy right? i have only bought what i need for that week and used a lot from my pantry and made a lot of things. what we saved has gone in our 'moving funds' and 'van funds' why van funds you ask? well we have decided that paying $600 a month is outrageous for a car so we are going to trade her in and purchase a 14 passenger with no debt, we hope to do this by march, (not new) and save that money towards out ''moving funds'' our ''moving funds'' also get all the change we collect from that week, once we get the van then we can focus more on that.

i will be sharing some recipes on here and on our YouTube channel on how we save, i will also include my meal plans and what i will be cooking that week and the cost of everything and how saving is going, i hope that i can help someone along the way, i know our family has been over spending and we all are participating in this.
the kids love to travel so this is all adventures for them, yes it could be 2 years away but for the kids its like a treasure hunt believe it or not.

before i leave you i want to clear something, we are planning on buying our house ( still not decided where) in cash, it will obviously be a fixer upper and that's what we are looking for to make our own. we have seen so many houses going for under a hundred thousand and even under fifty thousand in some states, so we know potential is out there.

we ask you guys for prayer along this journey and we are so excited that we have taken this step to climb all the way up the right way.

you can subscribe to our channel right here and support us.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUYPkOUWsypvEc_1a6rTXzQ

as always stay safe and blessed

R~

grocery haul done by Shaq

Meet The Bryan's: Long Monday

Meet The Bryan's: Long Monday: today has been a really long day and there has been multiple times where i just wanted to breakdown or just walk off, my 3 boys have been at...

Long Monday

today has been a really long day and there has been multiple times where i just wanted to breakdown or just walk off, my 3 boys have been at it like tom and Jerry, they have not stopped, now yes boy's do fight and have days where its like WHAT!!! but seriously today was on another level, and what made it worst i had no energy for some reason, well i know what going on its just a regular day for a diabetic, and if you have it you know what i am talking about.
i also had some paper work that needed taken care of for there home school for the kids which i just finished printing right now and its gone midnight, i haven't had a day like this in forever so i think i felt it more. i have to say it was a blessing my husband was home today as he really helped out a lot with the kids.
Madison has been going through some screaming sessions which is so not her, so that makes it worst, i think people think when you have a large family your house is always loud and noisy and to be honest that is not always the case, sometimes the house is so quiet you wouldn't even think there are 6 kids in the house,
every year around this time i always get excited about the holidays but this year for some reason i am not that excited, i guess it could be due to that we are in Florida and its still 80 degrees out there, no boots no jackets so we are not used to that type of weather, i think we are all missing our fall clothes and fall weather.
my husband and i were talking that within the next 2 years we will obviously move back up north somewhere but right now we need to be here, this is where the lord wants us.
today was the first time we went to the library and i have to say it was so different from what we are used to, we are all trying to adjust to a different atmosphere and i think some of us are finding it harder then some, i know we will all adjust soon.

i have so many emails to get caught up with, i think a lot of people think that i have ignored them but life has been so hectic with trying to get caught up, my husband getting his job and i am really trying to make a go at this YouTube thing :-) along with blogging which i have some new things coming for you guys, so stay tuned.  homeschooling is not that bad but sometimes it can be hectic along with 6 kids.

well i will leave it at that and i will have some new things for you guys this week so stay tuned and don't forget to head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel its called bryanfamilylife  so guys as always stay safe and god bless y'all thank you for reading my blog.

R~

How Florida Is Different??

Wow just wow, that's what we have been saying!! 
So living in the north for 10 years you become a custom to every one's behavior and how people act, if your from up north you know what i am talking about.
So Maryland has a tendency to be known as a very rude state, well the people are not very friendly?!

We all heard about Southern hospitality at some point Haven't we? Well when we got here we were not prepared on how much hospitality you actually do get.

All the neighbors in my circle came knocking wishing us well and introducing themselves, Wait What? that never happened in Maryland!! everyone holds doors for you, everyone talks to you without actually wanting something, well 99% of them :-)
it has been a very different atmosphere that's for sure. 
do i like it? i think it takes a while to get used to your different environment and certain parts of me does miss certain things, but everything is positive so i cant complain as much. another things that i am trying to get used to is, things are slower here compare to Maryland, everything was a face pace every day battle there here everyone is laid back and things work slower, a lot of people around here keep telling me that Jacksonville is a planet on its own. i am starting to see that, i do love the laid back part and i do like how mostly everyone is nice, i am just trying to adjust to a different lifestyle.

i met this amazing officer, she was hilarious and even gave me her number, she loved our family  and we truly loved her, the friendly atmosphere that comes with people is a blessing is this crazy scary world. 
Now don't get me wrong. there are some things that have made ms shake my head and look twice, i have even laughed,  i am not sure if the lord wants me here for a long period of time but slowly slowly he is revealing his path for our family. 

in the past we taught we wanted to settle down and build roots but now we are discovering that until we find our ''ROOTS'' we will keep searching even if it means travelling ( the kids love that one) for now we will be here for the next year or two making memories with amazing people we meet and learning new things every day of our path.

so we hope you come along with us and our journey and join us on this adventure.

as always stay safe and blessed 

R~

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Jacksonville MOSH Museum

Our first school field trip of the school year, we took the kids to MOSH Museum in Downtown Jacksonville.

The kids had an amazing time and so did we actually,we spent the whole day there and got to enjoy many things, especially about the body, what smoking does to your body especially lungs, kids got to experience how winds are when they get to hurricane strenght.

as you will see through the pictures the kids had an amazing time, i will also include the video on here to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKP0k3uYthM be sure to click the video and check out our day, i hope you enjoy the pictures of our family and i hope you enjoy the video. Don't forget to like share and subscribe that would truly help us.
as always stay safe and stay blessed

R~