to my dear Chris

hey, my baby boy, I love you soooooo much, and you sure know how to make us all laugh! you have ever since you were little, always wanting to see people smile and laugh, maybe you should be on America's Got Talent! haha :) You are so amazing at math too, just like you're mama! I remember once when you almost fell off the stage at the State Convention and I had to watch from seat bc the place where we were you couldn't get down to the stage without going out the door and going in another one so I had to just pray that the the ladies would see you, oh, I was so glad when you didn't fall! :) you were only 3. I think you are so special and I am proud of you for standing up for your beliefs. Are you helping your daddy fix grandma and Papa David's sink? I know Papa Mike loves to have you hanging around and helping him do things on the property. I hope you understand how much we all love you. Mama is always so sad when she has to discipline you but I have to bc I want you to grow up to be the best Chris you can be, I want you to be loving and caring, to know how to study and learn well, to be able to clean well and take care of babies, to help others in times of need, I want you to have compassion and above all else I want you to know Jesus, I want you to search the scriptures and understand them, I want you to be a Spirit-filled God-fearing man that walks in all the ways God has planned for your life. I know things get crazy here and maybe we don't seem to pay much attention to you sometimes but we love you and I am so blessed to get to be your mama. if you ever need to talk to me I am here or your daddy. remember when you taught yourself to swim, you are so smart. I love when I see you taking care of your brothers and being so caring with them, like the other day when you thought someone from church was leaving with your baby brother, Kayson and you were so worried, I was glad to see how concerned you were and how much you cared. When you rescued Keegan from the pool, he just has no fear, jumping in like that! I am so glad you had already got in and rushed to him like you did. It was a brave thing to do! Speaking of brave, I am so thankful that you are my spider killer! you are my hero. :) I get so scared when I see a spider and and then you come in and rescue me and kill it and I don't have to be scared any more. :) Thank you so much! The more you help with Kayson, the more he wants you. It is so sweet when you carry him and rock him. Love, your Mama!

Dear Kirsten,

To my precious baby girl, I want to tell you how much you mean to our family, just how precious you are, you are so smart and beautiful and such a huge help to me. Wow, you are growing up so fast, into such a pretty young lady. I pray you will always feel free to come talk to me about anything. Your attitude the last few days has not been pleasant and that just breaks my heart everytime you act that way. Cayden's teacher at VBS told me that you have been so great at making sure everyone is with you and together when I come to pick y'all up. I think Keegan is missing y'all this week! He is about to drive me CRAZY this am, even Kayson is fussy! I type this and then Keegan picks up a Bible and starts singing "Hallelujah"! :D just has to share! You are such a talented artist! I love your paintings and how creative you are and your attention to detail! I hope we can find a way for you to go to that music camp at IBC, we will see! I wish I was a better mother to you. I know we need to do our nails, maybe sometime soon we can get some crackle nail polish! :) Maybe this next year we can spend more time in the kitchen together, cooking and talking and making delicious memories! would you like that? Do you know how much I love you? I remember when I used to braid your hair, little braids everywhere with beads. I remember when you came home from kindergarten with a chunk of your hair missing. Oh I love you so much! Love, Your Mama!

Letters

I have decided to dedicate my next few posts to my babies. I want to write each of them a letter and share some things with them. I really want each of them to know just how precious and special they each are, that they each add a unique dimension to our family. It doesn't matter how many I have, there is a piece of me missing each time they are not all with me. It seems so quiet when even one isn't home. Each child is so unique and different, each has their own ways of bringing joy to our family. My prayer for my babies is that they would grow to love God and give Him their all, that their lives would glorify Him. I pray for wisdom in what they need and how to raise them, I pray for the strength to discipline when needed and for Him to tell me when mercy is more important. I pray that I know when they are lying, or disobeying, that they would not get away with things that need attention so that we can take care of the issues at hand while hopefully they are tiny ones before they are damaging, hurtful and dangerous. Oh, I love each one so much, I tell them all the time, I want you to be the best person you can be. I have always said that one of my parenting goals was that others could enjoy my babies, I never want people to think oh no here come those Derr kids, I want people to know that my babies are taught to be polite. I've told my boys before, you may be boys but you will be MY polite boys! :) So for the next few posts enjoy my thoughts too and about each one of my precious, priceless blessings!

Night Night Prayers

I never really thought much about how to teach a child to pray or needing to tell them more than oh, just talk to God, that's all prayer is and I never thought much about night night prayers being anything more than the now I lay me.....Lord bless so and so and so and so till one day when #s 1+2 were little and I realized they really didn't understand how to pray or what prayer really was and I wasn't sure they really got the point of prayer. Then I thought you know how can they see that prayer works, that prayer changes things, that God really does hear their prayers if their prayers have no substance, if they are always the same empty words?? What about the scripture Matthew 6:7 "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they thing that they shall be heard for their much speaking." All this really bothered me so I started praying about it and God spoke a plan to me and I brought it all before Glenn and he liked the idea and so our night night prayers forever changed! We now gather as a family and start with Glenn as he is the head of the house (except the occassional night that he decides to let the youngest go first and we pray backwards) and he prays out loud whatever he feels led to pray about, whatever he needs to speak to God about (pg of course! afterall there are little ones present!), never the same rote words, always from his heart. then we follow by age oldest to youngest in the same fashion, speaking all of us one by one from our hearts. It really has been a wonderful thing and amazing thing to watch, such a blessing to see their prayer lives developing, their faith being built up. I know it sounds so simple but it really is one of the most amazing times we have as a family. When we first started Kirsten and Chris didn't know what to say, I know they mainly just listened but over time I could see them gain confidence and really start to open up to our heavenly Father, and we have got to see their prayers answered. I will never forget Kirsten's ending prayers after my miscarraige when I got pregnant again with Keegan, "and please don't let this baby die in mommy's tummy" through the WHOLE pregnancy! and God did protect and Keegan is here with us! and the almost nightly prayer, "and help us have good dreams, no bad dreams" and I watch it get answered bc it is on the nights that that part is forgot that there are sometimes bad dreams but not (that I remember) on the nights it is prayed. Since this is the only way Cayden remembers night night prayers, we have watched him go from baby coos during everyone's prayers to holding his hands together while we say a simple prayer for him to repeating the simple prayer after us to adding his own words as he repeats the prayer, to saying and adding all on his own to now saying his own prayers from his heart. On nights when for some reason (life happens) we haven't done our family prayers he will come out of his room, "we didn't pray!" and he won't go to bed till we do! and now Keegan has started repeating his prayer and even saying parts of it all on his own. It is sooo sweet to see. and Chris, he still will name everyone by name, thanking God for his family and asking for sicknesses to be healed. It is such a blessing, memories that I will always cherish!

weekends

I have a list of thoughts/topics to blog about and I just write down whatever pops into my head as it comes but then if I write about everything in the order of the list sometimes it is weeks (sometimes several) before I get to sit down and type about it and then sometimes I have forgotten what I originally wanted to say or it just seems so obsolete at the moment bc that is soooooo not how our lives are going at that moment. Well, this is one of those times. See, I wanted to write about how we let some thins slide on the weekends and try to take time to just enjoy each other, especially since Daddy is home on the weekends. Some things that we (in theory) work so hard on throughout the week, I choose to not be worried about on the weekends, however, these last few crazy weeks have found these things creeping into our weekdays too. I think it is the summer syndrome!
Our weekdays:
1) no TV in the am (start school packets (that mama set out the night before) when you wake up!)
2) no mouth (pacifier) except at bedtime and naps
3) patch on 2 hrs daily (Doc said we can skip weekends)
lately, though, we have been very lax on the weekdays and have had to use weekends to get things done that didn't during the week. We will be out of town the next two weekends and won'y have those days to play catch up. O-well, I guess that's just life.