My Two Cents....

So I posted this video a few days ago and I got some interesting feedback. Some comments and a few emails. I thought I would share with you some of the things I thought about it. First of all, I do believe in God's will for our families. I dislike birth control strongly. To be perfectly honest Im not exactly sure that it is the evil some make it out to be, but Im going to go with my gut and say that God told us to be fruitful and multiply and God loves children so preventing them just does not seem like a good idea. THIS IS MY OPINION. I dont look down on people who use birth control. I will share this with you though. I think a year of birth control right after I got married is partially responsible for the fact that I have not been able to concieve and there is no doctor in the world who can convince me otherwise. I have never been regular since coming off of the pills. Why is it we say "trust God" so easily with most of our lives but hold back family planning? Do we think God cant take care of us? Does He need us to step in and make sure that this is under control?
Now the part about the quiverfull movement Im not too impressed with. Although there is a lot of lip service given to understanding that God sometimes does not have big families planned for couples the action is not always there. I believe I might be a rare breed. I dont have a problem telling people that I have not been able to have my own child as of yet, but we are trusting God. Some people though do not want to discuss their infertility. Understandably so. I dont believe that infertility is always a curse from God. I dont put it past Him, but sometimes (I personally believe a lot of the time) it is a means to another end. I always knew I wanted to adopt a child and maybe more, but if I'd been able to have biological children easily maybe I would not have adopted the five children I have.
Having a lot of children is certainly a blessing, BUT having two or three children with the proper heart is just as much a blessing. Sometimes having no children is what was meant. I think this is a very RARE for married people as there are so many children out there who need to be adopted into Christian homes, but if God closes all those doors then you go on with your life serving Him. Some in the quiverfull movement believe it is all about the amount of children you have. I have honestly met people who thought they were serving the Lord having as many children as possible. Unfortunatly you need to take responsibility for those children and raise them to be God - fearing responsible adults.
Im not sure if Im just rambling or if any of this makes sense. We are "quiverfull" minded in the sense that we want all the children God will give us, but we also understand that this might be it. I get really sad when people tell me they are done having children. They just decided that two or however many was it. I dont judge those people. I dont condemn them. I just get kinda sad.

One more thing to add. I pray daily for more children. I have a infant swing that I look at sometimes and imagine another baby wrapped up tight swinging away in it and I pray for that baby. I pray hard. My stomache gets all knotty and my heart swells. I long for more children. I desire more children. I look at the ones I have and they make me so happy that I can just imagine three or four more would be icing.

January 10, 2006

This was the day I got to hold my baby boy for the very first time. I was really questioning whether I would ever have a newborn to hold and call my own. He was and is so perfect and I love him so much more than I could ever imagine. The fact that he is now a year old just makes life that much sweeter. Its worth every midnight feeding and fussy day. Its worth waking up twelve times the first week to make sure he is still breathing. He is walking and laughing. He is throwing fits and learning NO! He has four teeth two on top and two on bottom. He loves to shake his head and say "nonononono". He can throw a ball across the room. He likes to dance. He is learning how to give things to us when we ask and he is learning how to sit quietly for small amounts of time. I cant find any of his newborn pictures and the disk I got from Walmart is not loading right in my computer from his first birthday party, but I did pick these pictures out for all of you to enjoy. My blessing. My son!
Happy First Birthday Jonathan David!

Church update

Not a lot of time as we are getting ready to tuck the littles in for the night, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are starting a new church! PRAISE THE LORD! We have the worship leader who came with us and now we have a pastor. He will meet with us for the first time officially on the first Sunday in March. How exciting.

Be Blessed

Busy Week

Well it has been quiet the hectic week around here. My mom had some minor outpatient surgery yesterday and my baby had a birthday the day before that. We are having a birthday party for aformentioned baby on Saturday. Fun, Fun, Fun!
Good news. We have a preacher and are moving forward with our intent to start a church. God has worked all things together for the good and Im amazed. I will tell you all more about the wonderful man of God that has been brought into our mist in a few weeks when everything is a little more permanent.
I have not done great at any of my goals this week. I am drinking more water and the coconut oil has been pretty easy to incoporate into our diets. I only took the Yeast Assasin for one day though. Gotta get back on that. The dishes were done almost everyday. I only swept and swiffered a few days. I did stay on top of laundry though. YAY! So Im doing better a little at a time.
I have two blog posts that I want to get done and hope to finish them today. One is about the quiverfull video I posted a few days ago.
Ok ladies, be blessed!

What do you think...

of this video? Just curious.

HT: Crystal at Biblical Womanhood

New Habits for January

OK so Im forgoing the usual, "This year I resolve to be (fill in the blank)" tradition and starting a new one. I will pick a few new habits to establish every month. Here are my new habits for January.

Health:
1. At least three bottles of water everyday
2. Start taking Yeast Assasin and Tummy TuneUp everyday
3. Incorporate 3-4 TBLS. of coconut oil into my diet everyday

Around the house:
1. Dishes done every night before I go to bed
2. At least 2 loads of laundry a day
3. Sweep and swiffer kitchen everyday

These are the little things I will work on this month. We are also gradually eliminating refinded sugar from our diet. We are replacing with Stevia and honey. For the times we use sugar we are using organic cane juice crystals.

At the end of the month for accountability purposes I will post how the month went with my habits. I will also post weekly to talk about progress being made.
Thanks for reading my blog. I like being able to share the happenings with others.

Our goals and vision

Today Im hoping to do a little catch up with our school. My oldest has a little bit of work I want her to complete before we start "afresh" next week. We are adding subjects starting next week. Latin and History. Science and Sign Language if I can get the stuff this weekend. Then in February we are going to add art and music. Mostly all of this will be fun stuff for the kids. For Latin we are using Prima Latina. Karly will do the bulk of the work, Kelsie will do some drills and memorization and the younger kids will just listen to the CD. I might try them out on memorizing some of the prayers. No major stuff for them. We will do Latin on Mon, Wed, and Fri and then on Tuesday and Thursday we will do some fun sign language if time permits.
Science and History will be done at night when dad is home. Im so thankful for his willingness to be involved. Because of it I was able to pick some of the more involved projects from Story of The World Volume 1 and Mystery of History Creation to Resurection. I think the kids will enjoy them. Once again Karly will do more of the book work, Kelsie will listen to the readings do dictation and review questions along with the projects and the younger children will listen to the readings and help with the projects.
For Science though I dont have the stuff yet we will probably be following the Well Trained Mind Recomendation for 1st year science. Although I keep going back to Christian Kids Explore Biology. It will all be decided for sure by this weekend.
Karly finished First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Child so I will be starting her on Rod and Staff English 3 in the next couple of weeks. I may need to wait until next month but have not really decided yet.
I am starting Adrian and Tamara full force in preschool. We will learn all the letters through this month and Feb and starting in March they will start learning to read. In April I will be starting both of them in Saxon Math K. Hopefully by August they will be ready to start Saxon Phonics K. It helped so much to have Kelsie reading a little bit before we did Saxon Phonics. I only do the K year of Phonics and then we supplement with reading and spelling to help them better their reading skils.
Today as I was having my quiet time I thought about my goals of homeschooling. What I really want is children who grow to be adults who can have a conversation with anyone and be able to clearly present the gospel to an educated person or a illiterate person. I want them to have an answer for what they believe. We are following a pretty strict education program with our kids, but we like it because not only does it require them to be disciplined but it will require them to be articulate and well read. No education is not our primary goal and if God led us down a different road away from Classical education we would go that way. Our primary goal is kids who are made for eternal kingdom work. If our children grow up loving God and cheerfully serving him then we have accomplished our goals. If our children pass on biblical truths and a love of God to their children we have accomplished our goals. If our children's children pass on these things to their children we have accomplished our goals.
Father, grant my request that the number of my descendants in heaven is equal to the number I have on earth.
This is our written family vision. We are hoping this year to elaborate on it a little bit and set some clear goals that will bring us closer to its fufillment. In our home for 2007 our focus will be on God and family. Im excited!