some questions

I started out this morning by asking the babies some questions about God and how they see the world, kinda testing to see if we are teaching them all that we should be. I wanted to find out their views of God, man, truth, knowledge and ethics. So I started with Chris by asking him what do you believe about God? "He gave us Jesus, made Heaven and angels, there is only one" He was a little stumped at first, like, unsure of what he thought I wanted to hear bc he wanted to answer correctly but I was just like just tell me what you think, the first things that come to mind. I didn't want to put answers in his mind, I wanted to know what he was thinking. All that to say that my babies answers are there own. :) what do you believe about man? "God made him out of dirt" what do you believe about truth? "the Bible is truth and always will be, no matter what people say" how do we know what we know? "the Bible says so" how do we know what is right or wrong? "bc our heart tells us" to which I was thinking uh oh do I need to clarify how we decide morals so I started my question so if my heart says, and before I could say anything else I hear, "no, God tells us, He talks to our soul and our heart and the Bible tells us too" I didn't need to continue my question about if your heart says one thing and mine says another does that mean it is wrong for me and right for you, he answered it on his own. Then it was Kirsten's turn, I did them one at a time so they didn't influence each other's answers. God - "He's all powerful, only one God" man - "God created them from dust and His own breath, I believe the Bible" truth - "in the Bible" knowledge - "God told someone to write the Bible" ethics - "we know it in our minds, the Holy Spirit tells us" I am so glad to hear to talk about the Holy Spirit and watch her relationship with Him grow! on to Cayden, God - "we pray to God, only pray to God" he talked about how we say our night night prayers, he really likes night night prayers. man - "God made us" truth - "we should always tell the truth" knowledge - "our schoolwork" I thought since I get Bible-based curriculum and he is only 5 that was a good answer. :) ethics - "God" Now Keegan, who entered the room about this time announcing that "Jesus died like a dinosaur", God - I thought about not asking this question bc he already compared Jesus to a dinosaur! lol he still had an answer though, "go to church" he really loves to go to church :) man - I had to tell him that God made people, God made you and me (he is only 2, well almost three!) to which he says, "God made Chris-y too!" truth - I just told him to always tell the truth knowledge - I asked him who's your teacher and he pointed to Kirsten and I was like no so then he points to me ethics - I asked how do you know if something is wrong? he pointed to me, so then I asked, what does mommy do if you get in trouble? he said, "spank" yep, I think he understands that concept well! :) And then there was Kayson, lol, he's just one but bc Kirsten said I needed to question him too, I did and he actually *answered* every question! I have no idea what he said but he sure was telling me all about each one, even pausing his jabbers so I could ask him the next one! I love my little family and feel so privileged to have the chance to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord our God! Our wonderful Saviour! How blessed we are to be able to homeschool and make sure they get these most important foundations early on!

100 things I believe in

1) God, the Almighty, my heavenly Father, omnipotent, omnipresent and all knowing
2) The Bible - the infalible word of God (see above)
3) Jesus Christ, my personal Lord and Savior who died on the cross for my sins to save me from eternal damnation! yep, I said it.
4) Holy Spirit, comforter, guide and imparter of truth
5) tongues, a personal prayer language, powerful
6) family-integration in church, I am really loving this new journey we are on! :)
7) homeschooling - we love it
8) large families - define it how you will :)
9) modesty, I mean, seriously, girls, cover it up!!!
10) discipline - let your children know who's in charge and stand firm, make them take responsibility for their actions and teach them obedience!
11) Easter
12) Christmas (my favorite holiday!)
13) Bibllical submission - wives to their husbands, husbands to the Father, nope this is one female that is NOT a feminist!
14) murder is wrong! Yes, that includes abortion! We do not get to decide who lives and who dies, who has the privilege of being born and who doesn't, that is God's decision!
15) pumpkins! :) I love them, all bright and orange, I just love decorating with them.
16) church membership
17) paying tithes, the whole 10%, sometimes it may seem impossible but if you will take it off the top, no matter what, God will bless and provision will come from unexpected places, Godplaces! :)
18) family, family, family!
19) government - order in all things
20) that the government needs to get their noses out of our business!!
21) marraige is defined as one man and one woman joined together for life
22) divorce is a dirty word!
23) friends, we were meant to share this journey together
24) facebook isn't to the blame, the people who use it wrong are to blame
25) generosity
26) SNOW! too bad it doesn't much here in Tx!
27) baths not showers, cleanliness by immersion! not by small little drops coming out of the wall! :)
28) speaking of immersion, let's add baptism to this list
29) and speaking of baptism, let's add standing up for what you believe in to this list!
30) CHOCOLATE! :)
31) that this list is harder to make than it at first seems like it will be, seriously, 100 things?!? :)
32) smiles - give them freely
33) exclamation marks bc seriously, shouldn't we be excited about life!?!
34) question marks bc how else will you find out necessary information?
35) a good story
36) some good country music!
37) if I change the word things in the title to people than I can list each person I believe and this will go a tad faster :)
38) Honey, my Honey, Glenn David Derr III, my DH, just learned that stood for dear husband! :)
39) Kirsten, my oldest, my only daughter, she is so beautiful and such a great help, I am so blessed to have her!
40) Chris, my clown, the one who believes in a good laugh but will protect me from all those evil bugs!
41) Cayden, my middle one, oh, my, you never know what's he's thinking, what will pop outta of his mouth next!
42) Keegan, my two yr old, such a strange child, I was told today that he is an entertaining child, I'm still trying to figure out if that was a compliment or not as he was running circles around her children who were minding their own business, riding their toys when she said it!
43) Kayson, such a sweet, happy baby boy!
44) music!
45) you need to be careful what you're allowing into you're children's minds
46) entertainment is NOT just entertainment!
47) Horror movies are NOT ok! they are not fun, they are evil.
48) halloween should be taboo in your home
49) park days
50) mommy dates
51) courtship - teens have no business dating!
52) abstinence till marrraige - maybe you should consider not kissing till your wedding ceremony
53) Biblical judgement, if the Bible says it is wrong, then, it is wrong!
54) on the other hand, there are times when people just need to mind their own business!
55) LOVE!!!!!
56) Hymns! I love them, well most of them, if they are sung right, wow, some powerful pretty words in the old hymns
57) poetry
58) It's a slow fade, look up the song on iTunes
59) the virgin birth
60) Don't mess with my family, especially my children!
61) Heaven
62) hell
63) Dancing, tastefully, even an infant will move to the music!
64) laughter
65) TRUTH!!! liars will find their place in the lake of fire! God hates lies! the truth fitly spoken in love will set free!!!!!!!!
66) go to the source
67) adult time!
68) PRAYER!!!!
69) annointing with oil!
70) obedience
71) eating meat
72) reading well, everyone should
73) not every person is good, there are those that mean things for evil and while I think in most cases we should believe the best of people, there are times that we need to be aware of wolves in sheeps clothing
74) black friday shopping, it's fun! but children don't belong in the stores that day!
75) good strong names, go ahead ask me what my babies' names mean :)
76) kisses
77) hugs
78) affection in general
79) No electronics day, we have one once a week
80) sometimes good people need assistance, even government, and that doesn't make them bad people
81) sometimes you just need quiet
82) flowers, I love flowers, mini roses
83) living in the country
84) the CROSS!! PTL! thank you Jesus!
85) butterflies, they are so beautiful!
86) SLEEP!
87) naps
88) fun!
89) boys and girls are different! they are made different in the womb! its nature, not nuture, a boy is a boy is a boy and vice versa!
90) courage
91) nail polish! :)
92) broccoli
93) chips and dip and comfort food!
94) it's not the holidays without lumpias!
95) some people change
96) the Trinity!
97) breastfeeding, natural = yes, always easy = no!
98) the creation as laid out in the Bible, God did it in six 24 hr periods!
99) a day of rest! God did!
100) finishing well! yea! this one is done! :)

Bad Looks for Large Families! :(

posted this status on FB yesterday upon leaving Wal-Mart: "How do you explain society and why we get bad looks in wal mart for having a large family to an 11 yr old?" Which prompted a discussion among my friends as to why people stare and maybe cause they're curious, I don't mind the curious stares and have even answered the curious questions, usually when people are staring out of curiousity and you catch them staring they will smile or look slightly embarassed or say sorry or something of that nature and you know they aren't having mean thoughts and then I smile back or say that's ok, or have the babies say hi but they were very few smiles for my babies yesterday, maybe cause it was monday, remind me never to visit Wal-Mart on a monday again! lol The question of are we a large family also came up in some of my friends comments, we starting getting all the are you done yet, oh you have such a sweet family, why would you need more, don't you know what causes that, just how many more are you going to have etc when I was pregnant with #3!!! yep the norm in the US isn't even 2 babies per family!! So by society's standards we are a large family, even though quite often I still think of us as a little family! How's that for irony. So I decided to tell my whole Wal-Mart story in this comment that I posted: "yesterday was a no electronics day, so everything I was doing was on my phone and I didn't feel like typing a long comment from my phone. :) so here goes, my kiddos were being (by my standards) distracting at times and the afternoon had already been a rough one (eye appt before that and the glasses place giving me the run around and explaining everything to me 2 or 3 times, I mean do I look stupid?) but I needed groceries, so we found ourselves in the middle of the frozen food aisle, we had already been through most of the grocery section as we had started at the milk and on almost every aisle there was someone (never the same someone) with a not very nice, shall we say scowl, for us and some of those times my kiddos were actually behaving! and mind you, while my boys were frustrating me, I have seen far worse behavior by others children, like I said, I have pretty high standards and expectations for my children's behavior, I had also already ran over the foot of the one that kept trying to run around the buggy (he had already been swatted for this after having been sternly spoke to several times). I did get a good laugh on one aisle (might have been what actually got us ALL out of Wal-Mart in ONE piece! lol) I was giving Chris the "eye" for not getting Kayson's stroller out of another lady's way fast enough, she had 2 kiddos of her own with her, and she goes "oh, I understand!" and we both just laughed, it was a good tension breaker! :) so we are in the freezer aisle and Chris and Kirsten were being a tad louder than I wanted and this old lady shoots us a look dripping with disdain and that was the last straw! I looked at my olders and said, "look, everyone is looking at us! they already look bc we are a big family and now they are looking bc you won't behave, and they're NOT smiling! and I'm getting a headache and I just can't handle it today! so just be nice so we can get OUT of here!" The looks on my babies faces when I enlightened them that we are indeed a large family were good! wish I had that on video (not my rant, but their looks! LOL). so anyways, this must have stayed on Kirsten's mind the rest of the store and she must've known better than to ask before we were all checked out bc as we are walking out of the store (thankful that daddy came by on his way home from work to help us load up! He got their right as we started checking out! I was soooooo thankful for a friendly face!) she starts asking about big families and why would people stare and why would anyone else care how many babies we had and how can you control how many babies you have (I skipped that question!) and I said that society thinks you should only have 2 or 3 babies, which prompted the what is society question and I found myself stumped as to how to explain society in 11 yr old understandable terms. that prompted my status, searching for how I can explain what society means and why it seems to dictate so much of what people do and believe. Sorry so long but that was the reason behind my status. :) thanx for reading if you made it all the way to the end. love you, my friends." and so I leave you with this question, "How do you explain society and why we get bad looks in wal mart for having a large family to an 11 yr old?"

Our First Service

This morning was our first service as Hallsville Family Fellowship. I know it's been a few weeks since I have posted and I neglected to tell you that we are starting a Church in our home. We are so excited to see what God has in store for us. We pray that He will guide us through all this. We all worked really hard to make our house presentable. I see God's blessings and hand upon us. We got up this am and the kiddos cleaned their rooms, we had breakfast and did baths (bc cleanliness is next to Godliness :) right?) and lunch was in the crock pots, Honey worked on his sermon some more and we were ready to praise our God. My daddy came to our first service (mama is still with my Meme and Papa, she took them to Santa Fe last week) and he made our bulletins. Since it was just us this first Sunday, Honey decided we would watch a video sermon and he would preach his on a future Sunday. We started with prayer and went right into P&W. Oh, I so enjoy hearing all my babies singing and watching them fell free to express their love for God. Even my two year old was singing "power in blood, power in blood"! So, precious! We enjoy being not so...ummmm...formal. :) We then had an old testament scripture reading, we read Deuteronomy 6 aloud. We are still learning how we want the order of service to go, forgot to take up an offering this am. Then as we settled in to watch the message, the little boys sat at the school table (yep, it's in my living room!) to color in coloring books, daddy sat down to hold a sleeping Kayson, Honey sat down with the DVD remote, pen and paper for note taking and I and the two olders sat on the floor with a big pile of socks for sorting (no sock sorting will not be a weekly practice, LOL, but it seemed like a good way to keep hands busy and minds listening). Occasionally someone would have a question and we would stop the video and discuss. We had Bibles open and Strong's out and us three adults were engaged in a time of scripture searching and you could see the older kids watching us discuss and I know they were listening. We ended in prayer and had lunch, Roast, potatoes, greenbeans and a store bought pumpkin pie tart thing. I so enjoyed our time in the Lord this morning and really look forward having other families join us. Daddy headed home after lunch and we watched Flywheel together as a family and then had "quiet time". Thank you, Jesus for all you have done for us, thank you for the opportunity to serve you and for us to worship you together as a family. Amen!

more church visit, a lake and a birthday!

So much has happened since I last wrote to you. I will start with our visit to the Presbyterian FI church. Did you know that they don't use grape juice for Communion?!? ok I know, go ahead, laugh at me but that was an experience for me! I'll take grape juice from now on, thank you very much! :) Either way, praise Jesus for what he did for us! We owe our lives to Him. Jesus, I love you! I was thankful also not to hear another sermon on Romans, lol, nothing against Romans but that was starting to get a little, ummmm, shall we say thought provoking? now, I don't consider myself superstituos or anything (I believe in a WAY bigger GOD!) but if I heard a 4th sermon in a row on a passage from Romans I was about to go home and disect the chapter and try to figure out what God was trying to tell me! :) fast forward to this weekend, it has been a BUSY one but a funfilled one! Kirsten turned 11 on Saturday, wow, my baby girl is 11 already, that just doesn't seem possible, where, oh, where does the time go?? We took the kiddos to a pumkin patch, ok, I confess, that was for me! Don't get me wrong, they enjoy picking out the pumkins but I'm the one that wants the pics in a sea of orange! :) They get to pick them out but once we are home, I confiscate them all for decoration! :) Kirsten chose Red Lobster for her bday dinner and I surprised her by asking her bff to join us! :) Then Glenn took the girls for a shake and Kirsten got to spend her bday $ on art stuffs at Hobby Lobby while me, the boys and my bff came home to watch the Rangers lose! So glad they won the last two nights though! GO RANGERS! :) Then Sunday we went out to Church at the Lake with my sister's church in Texarkana. That was such a restful day, Roseanne and I with Kirsten, Cayden and Keegan took a walk along the lake. Kirsten collected shells and bird feathers, we saw a lake urchin, sank in the wet sand (once I stepped and sank at least 6 inches! that was a weird feeling), saved a little fish that was out of water, and enjoyed taking our shoes off and walking in the water! :) Then I got baptized in the lake, that was a first for me. I have been baptized before but not in a lake. Kirsten got baptized too. Then we finished the weekend off with a trip to the zoo yesterday. Honey took a vacation day and we just enjoyed a family outing. I love times when we can just relax and enjoy being a family.

thoughts on last week's sermon

Hello all, it has been 2 weeks since I posted, oops. We did visit another family-integrated church last week, one right here in Longview. The message was based on Romans 1, what is it with Romans? we have now heard threee messages in a row at three different churches on Romans! Romans 13, Romans 11 and the end of Romans 1. What struck me about the sermon we heard Sunday was the pastor spoke about the mentioned sins(covetousness for one) and how these things are not to be present in the lives of believers. The closest I've heard to a hellfire and brimstone message in a very long time! Some times I think the church needs more of those! Now I'm not saying we need them every Sunday but i am saying even Christians need to hear that there is a Biblical standard that we are supposed to live by. We have God-given mandates and expectations that we are supposed to uphold and strive to live by (perfecting holiness!) I thought about all this when the pastor said at the end of his message that he wanted to make it known that he didn't see any of these things he preached on as problems in their church and I had the thought that maybe those things aren't issues in the church because he has the courage to take a stand from the pulpit against them! If more Christians knew where their pastors stood on the hard/difficult subjects and knew that they would be held accountable for them, then maybe more Christians would feel the need for change and for living more Godly lifestyles. This leads my mind to thinking about other areas as well, our men, our husbanda, what if they were encouraged to be the spritual leaders of their homes by their pastor and friends and wives. What if they saw respect in the eyes of their wives and children? What if wives were taught the Biblical mandates for submission and in turn taught their children to respect daddy? What if men really loved and cherished their wives as Christ does the church? What if we really grabbed ahold of these concepts and ran with them to truly have GOD as the center and foundation of our families?! What if our children understood that obedince was expected and disrespect would NOT be tolerated? These are just some things to get your brain moving, some of the things I am thinking about. We are heaed this morning to visit another family-integrated church and will try to post an update before next Sunday! Today's church is a presbyterian church. :) I have never been to one before. We are driving all the way to Nacogdoches (an hour and a half) today. Almost there so I will tell you more later! :)

the next FI church

This weekend we found ourselves in FW and decided to visit another FI church in Desoto this morning, Covenant Community Church. We wanted to visit a smaller church than last weekend. This one meets in an office building that houses a bank too. When we pulled up, Kirsten said, "I didn't know a church could be in a bank!" The kids were so excited to have their Aunt Roseanne join us too, as was I! :) We walked in with our zoo and immediately felt welcome. The first thing I noticed was that they had an area baby gated for the mamas and young ones. Then we turned the corner to find a seat and we were greeted with a roomful of couches! Very homey, I loved the atmosphere right away! One of the couples moved off a couch so we had one to sit on. I must aside here: I learned something about one need that a church should always meet, The scriptures says not to forsake the assembling of the saints and I always thought that we went to church for learning first and then for fellowship but today I wonder if I had that backwards. I must confess that I was feeling pretty broken this morning when we arrived and I didn't hear much of the sermon but enjoyed so immensely the fellowship that I left there glad I went and full of the feeling that God was with us and did indeed still care about us, I left there with renewed hope. That is how we should leave church, changed! I love that service included old and new testament readings. I loved how the pastor gathered the children around him to discuss catechism with them and pray with them before the sermon. After the sermon we all ate frito pies and just visited with one another, I think we were spoke to by every person there, I have never visited a church and been able to say that. Our children felt so at home and Kirsten even exchanged email addys with the pastor's daughter! :) Kirsten was begging to go back next Sunday! That would be an awfully long drive though. :) I love love love the idea of having lunch every sunday, I love walking into a place where we do not feel out of place because the size of our family. Cayden got in front of one of the moms when we first arrived and of course our first reaction was "I'm so sorry" and she responds "you don't need to ever apologize for children here", it was so refreshing to hear. I even gained a Facebook friend today! :) I also love that homeschooling in FI churches seems to be the norm. I loved how at this church everyone truly seemed like family, they were all laid back and accepting, really just made us feel so welcome. I do not know what next Sunday will bring but I know that we were blessed to be in His presence today with His children and truly enjoyed this Lord's day.