Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Questions and Answers

Please read on below for the latest round of questions and answers. Thank you for your comments, I enjoy hearing from you!



I know that you don't let your children watch television, but if there were a particularly interesting event of learning value during the London Olympics, would you let them watch it on your computer or no?

In general, yes, we occasionally allow our children to watch educational, newsworthy, or otherwise important clips on the computer. Think: documentaries and the like. None of us are much into the Olympics, however (as in, not at all), so I doubt we'll be watching any of that, simply for a lack of interest. If we were to, one requirement would be not to watch half-nude athletes.





I wish you would get your husband or one of the kids to take a picture of you, I would love to see you in all your pregnant glory. I bet you look awesome!

Ha - that's a bet I'll take up any day, because it's a guaranteed win for me! But I agree, I'll have to have one of them take a picture of me before baby is born.

Are the other children excited to be having a new little brother? Anna's not going to be the baby anymore!

Yes, they are. It's been so long since the last baby boy! For the girls, it's a new experience. For the boys, they feel like they are scoring for their "team". Plus, they love the idea of putting the little guy in "real" clothes like jeans and polo shirts, like a mini-man. Anna will still be the youngest girl, and as such, a baby in her on right. It was (and still is!) the same with John.

I was wondering if the women in your congregation will bring meals over. In our churhc, when someone is ill, recovering from surgery, or has a new baby, we take turns taking meals over. Maybe this is just a Southern tradition.

Typically, yes, us ladies bring meals for at least one week following a birth. Same if mom is sick, etc. - we recently had a mom with severe morning sickness, and took turns bringing her family dinner twice a week for three months, until she started feeling better. I remember having meals brought to us when we had our older kids, before we started the church. 

However, with the size of our family now, and the fact that my husband is the pastor, we have specifically requested that people do NOT bring meals to our family. Cooking even one meal for us is a major expense and time constraint. Plus, with my husband being the pastor, some people who could not afford to make something might feel pressured to anyway, or feel bad about not participating. Instead, I will once again ask ladies who would like to help to come over for a Saturday of pre-cooking and freezing. That way, we are supplying the ingredients, but I still get the help and save much time.


I do have a question, you wrote on your blog that you let your babies sleep in the same bed with your husband and you. I think this is wonderful, and once I have children I would like to do that too. But my husband is afraid that if we allow them to sleep in our bed, they will want to sleep there "forever" and will have a hard time sleeping on their own once they have their own bed. How do you and your children handle that? And do you allow your older children to come and sleep in your bed if they want to? If they had a bad dream or are afraid for example?

Well, they might want to sleep there forever, but they won't mind moving out, either. Even our oldest kids still love to take turns sleeping in Dad's spot when he is gone overnight. But obviously, they don't scream or have fits if I tell them "no". 

We have not had problems transitioning them to their own beds. For the longest time, we kept adding on to the family bed, until I think we had three mattresses laid wall to wall in one bedroom. When that got too tight, we moved all three boys to their own bedroom at once, which they never got upset about (they were ranging from 5 to 2 years old at the time). Since then, we only ever have the youngest in bed with us, with the next youngest either in a toddler bed in our room if they are not ready to move to the big kids' rooms, or straight in with their older siblings. It's not as difficult as it seems when they are just babies - they really do grow and mature a lot as they get older.

As far as coming into our bed during the night, that is always an option, but it almost never happens. Our kids tend to never have bad dreams - I'd say between all of them, we get woken up for that reason maybe once or twice a year? (Throwing up in bed, or asking to have a drink of water, are a lot more common, however...) Sometimes Becky wakes up early in the summer (it gets light at 5 am right now), and then comes into our bed to sleep for a couple more hours. It's all good - they grow so fast! Sleeping children are angels.


I noticed in your list of hobbies you like to cross stitch. I am a fellow stitcher and enjoy looking at and admiring the work of others. Would you mind posting pictures of some of your work sometime? What kinds of designs do you enjoy stitching?

So funny you asked! I had forgotten all about my love for cross-stitching until I read your comment! All joking aside, I don't spend near enough time on it these days. In the past, I used to make elaborate cross stitch pictures. These days, projects have to be short and quick, such as stitching a child's name across his/her towel in a cute alphabet, or putting a quick design on a dish cloth for a gift. Another relatively quick idea is to make a quilt, with some of the squares being cross stitch pictures along a common theme. I'll have to take some pictures sometime and post them.

I'd love to do some canning this summer, but really don't have any equipment. Is there anything special that you need besides jars, lids and tops? Thank you!

You will also need a large stockpot for the boiling water bath, with a rack in the bottom so the jars don't sit directly on it. Alternatively, you could use spare canning bands as a makeshift rack. Other useful tools to have on hand are a canning funnel, and a jar lifter. I did a canning post here.  Don't let the lack of equipment deter you - most of it can be found easily and cheaply (even free) through craigslist, freecycle, or thrift stores.


You have a great pool! I've wondered before if your kids are allowed to swim in it for fun, or if it's strictly for baptisms only.  

My husband and I both laughed out loud at this comment. Having a pool is SO much work, and SO expensive, no way would we just sit and look at it and not go swimming in it! It's literally like having another child (or two). With our climate, the kids going swimming 6 months out of the year (me: three, when it's like a jacuzzi), so it's worth the time, trouble, and money. 

We no longer baptize people at the house, as we are now set up to do baptisms at the church building, but when we did, we would use the spa for that. The filter in the spa can be run separately from the rest of the pool, so it was easy to run the filter for a few hours and heat just that part, even in the dead of winter, and have it looking perfect.

When you have the time I'd love to know how you go about teaching your children about the Solar System and dinosaurs? Much of the information on these topics seems to contradict most if not all of the Bible teachings regarding age of the earth, human development/evolution and so on. Do you teach it at all? (If not, how does that go with state rulings etc regarding set curriculum for home school?) Do you teach it as another theory that other people believe but is wrong as it contradicts the Bible? Or do you have a way or explanation that allows what is known to fit it into the your teachings of creation? What about Biology? High school biology (in Australian public education at any rate) covers evolutionary theories and the development of man from apes. Also curious how you view scientific findings that show humans evolved from a lesser species, or that dinosaurs are considerably older than the age of the earth as told in the Bible? My grandfather in law would view them as being deliberately placed by God to test faith. How do you see it? I mean no harm by asking and not looking to discuss the rights/wrongs in the scenario, just how it is done in a situation where the majority of that science would be deemed wrong. I'm not looking to challenge your faiths or beliefs, that is not my place and would be rude, I would just like to know how you handle teaching children when so much information on those topics contradicts your teachings? 

None of the things you mention (solar system, dinosaurs, biology etc.) contradict the Bible. Therefore, we teach them as part of science, from a creationist point of view. Our kids love the seminars by Dr. Kent Hovind, as well as the Moody Science Classics with Dr. Moon put out by the Moody Bible Institute. Even we adults are fascinated by them. Nature all around us bears witness to the Creator, so that there is no contradiction, as science falsely so called would like to make people believe.

Evolutionary theories are just that - theories. There is no scientific way to prove them. Being raised my entire life to believe evolution, I now laugh and shame my head at myself that I ever believed the nonsense that was taught me, and how ridiculous their claims are. 

As far as homeschooling requirements, we enjoy religious freedom, and are therefore under no constraint to promote one theory over another.


I was just wondering, I've never met a German Zsuzsanna, but it's a rather common name in Hungary--it's the middle name of my daughter as well. Where did your parents get this unique-to-Hungarian spelling for your name?  

I am only half German. My other half is - as you may guess - Hungarian. Since we kids all had my Dad's Hungarian last name, and we grew up there, our parents gave us all Hungarian names. I didn't move to Germany and learn German until I was almost 8 years old.

Does your church have VBS? We just finished VBS last week and had 130 children enrolled-84 were non-members. We had 2 of these non member families visit our church today. If you don't have VBS, why not?

No, we do not. Personally, I like the idea of putting on a fun program for the kids like that, and maybe one day we will. I think the part in VBS that my husband/pastor does not like is the "S" - school. If we were to put on any program like that, it would be one for children to attend with their parents. We also would do it as a benefit to current members, not as an outreach program, because of the fact that we NEVER take anyone's children without the parent or guardian present. But since kids are already in all the services, they hear hours of Bible preaching every single week, so the only benefit to this would be to make it fun, memorable, and special. Not like there is anything wrong with doing Bible crafts and having related snacks, along with a sermon specifically geared toward children. Like I said, I like the idea, but my husband does not.


12 comments:

  1. My goodness, how did I miss this? I've been waiting for another one of these!!! I'm so bummed to have missed the chance!

    I'd love to help make baby meals! :)

    Love the info, as always!

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  2. Diana, you didn't miss it. I switched to answering questions that come in every couple of weeks or so, rather than responding to them in the comments. So ask away if you ever feel like it! :)

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  3. I thought you said, a while back, that your babies didn't sleep in your bed. That they slept in their own large bed, and you slept there with them.

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  4. I'm so glad you did this ! Thanks a lot for answering all those questions.

    I still have a question, I hope you answer it if you will ! I wanted to ask you about salvation. I know the plan for salvation, I've learned it from your husband's sermons. However, I don't think I have ever seen it on your blog (I could be mistaken). How do you deal with soulwinning ? Do yoy often go door-to-door soulwinning? Do you preach the gospel in your personal life ? Why don't you on your blog ?
    I'm not trying to be intrusive, I'm just curious about it, and I hope I don't offend you.

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  5. questions about life death and sex:

    how do you plan to teach your children about sex? about death? my dad died a few months ago and it was an interesting, hard experience. thinking about heaven and all when young is a lot different than seeing this and going to visitations all throughout my life. how do you guys plan to handle your own death--meaning, cremation, embalming, etc? i was always taught the rapture, but im still here and my dad is physically dead.

    how do you plan to teach you kids about sex? and also some questions for me: is it ok or not to have sex when menstruating at all, even towards the end or beginning? and do you have to wait 7 or so days after to have sex again? ive read that in the bible and it would make sense bc thats when ovulation is. what do you guys do. and has there ever been a time when you did not want to have sex with your husband? just wondered. as im sure it happens in life, and ive been through that. by the consistency of your pregnancies it looks as though you have never been troubled with this, but i just wondered. i got married later in life and just wondered if id just be single, so i missed out on many of these sex topics it seems.....like mucus plugs, bloody shows, and even the proper understanding of the hymen....

    serious topics, but if you'd answer, id appreciate it! or you could send me an email, if this is too sensitive....but it seems all things are covered on here. I'll just use the fake name Renee on this question......thanks for your help!! :)

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  6. That's a dangerous offer! :) Here are two things I'd love to hear about sometime: I'd love to hear what products you buy from Azure standard (I'm working on an order for July, but still find the sheer volume of products overwhelming), and I'd love to hear about toy/clothing storage - how do you keep them from overwhelming your house? So far we're only storing clothes for 0-6yo boys, and they've already taken over a room and a half. Loved reading your answers in this article!!

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  7. Thank you for answering my questions! (I would have guessed the half-nude events are out, they're off limits in our house as well, although the opening ceremonies are popular and we have a friend in them this time around!)

    Oh dear, what would you do in the summer if the children weren't allowed in the pool! We currently have 'little Phoenix' visiting right now (relatives a plenty) and they're missing their pool in OUR hot weather, ha! And I believe we'd rather like to have it about too!

    And, of course, they're all your darling babies, always, no matter how many how many you have and whether they're boys or girls!

    God bless you, Dad, the six, and most especially the seventh as his time joining the outside wild world begins!

    Mindy

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  8. Are you and the kids enjoying summer since I know AZ can be very hot and do you have anything special planned or any trips you plan on taking?

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  9. I was wondering if you'd mind sharing your thoughts on circumcision?

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  10. I second the question on toys and clothes storage. We recently moved into a small two bed one bath apartment with three small children and I am overwhelmed with where to put things and what I should get rid of. We don't have the space to store it all, but I want to be prepared for more children and not have to rebuy everything. Thanks

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  11. Regarding VBS, the trend now is what is called "multi generational" VBS which incorporates the entire family. We ran one and it was very successful. Try Group (http://group.com/childrens-ministry/vbs SKY, for example)

    MG

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  12. My apologies for the length of this, but I have so many questions for you, and I would honestly appreciate the time you spend answering these.

    Further queries about your teaching methods. Do you mention any of the scientific teachings like evolution or Big Bang, and how in depth? I mean, do you go into what evolutionists etc have found to believe what they do, or is it more "By the way, some nutjobs think that the universe was created by an explosion, how silly are they?"

    If you take more of the second approach, I'd be interested to know why don't you allow your children to see both sides of the story? If you are so sure that the beliefs on which you base your lifestyle and teachings are the right ones, and the way you teach is so strong they will never stray from that path, why don't you educate about the other beliefs, knowing that despite the information, your children will always choose what is right?

    Have you, yourself fully researched (by fully I mean to the point where you could briefly and accurately explain the concept) evolution and atheism, including information which those parties present as evidence against creation or religion? Why/why not?

    In addition, are you aware of what is involved for a scientific theory to become called that? http://www.notjustatheory.com/

    And lastly, you say that you are a NT believer, and OT laws were suspended with NT - how come so much of your quotes as far as lifestyle come from OT, which as far as I understand is nullified in Galatians chapter 3?

    If you feel that these are too many questions to address at once, or in public, please let me know, I'd be willing to send you my email to allow correspondence.

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Your KINDLY WORDED, constructive comments are welcome, whether or not they express a differing opinion. All others will be deleted without second thought.