just some pix

He eats now!

We love the phony smile look - O the pre-teen years what fun!

Bobby and Lil Ms. Thing


Yes he really is that color.

Steph drowning in Awana stuff - but she's still smiling!

Trying to convince his Aunt that he is 6ft. tall.

Proof that he really will do school work

Lori playing with Bear. Bear loved her because she would sneak her food ALL THE TIME!!!

Baby doing what she spent the whole weekend doing to Bobby - eating his head off

I'll leave it up to your own imagination

Geoffrey and Baby doing what dogs do best. She so wants to play with him and all he wants to do is be an Alpha snotty dog.

Geoffrey kissing Steph - of course he remembers his first mommy.

sleepy boy!

Sleepy kid and protective doggy!

Two very exhausted boys after a long VBS day.

Forgotten God

I loved the book. I am so blessed by how bold Francis Chan is about the things we so easily taint of the things of God. May God continue to pour wisdom, discernment and love upon this man.
I want to first say that Francis and I differ in our beliefs on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When I first sat down to read the book, I finished half of the book. Once I realized that we still hold our different opinion, I had to let God do some business with my heart. I realized that I would not be able to give the book it's full due with the way my heart was secretly thinking. I am so very blessed by his ministry that I knew until God fixed my slightly irritated heart, I wouldn't be able to receive all the GIANT nuggets that the rest of the book would hold. So the interesting thing is as I let God do business with my heart I began to really seek Him on some powerful truths about the Holy Spirit. What a journey this has been - one I am most grateful for.

I think one of the most profound things Francis talks about is the lack of the Holy Spirit in our Churches today. You see what we do is we put people in ministry according to what we see in them as their natural abilities. So whether you are someone who is saved or not, abiding or not, you still can function in the task and duties of your ministry. There becomes no need at all to really pray, to really seek God for His strength, for His empowerment of His Spirit. People are not fasting and praying at all. Look around at some of the churches that we know without a doubt are not Spirit lead. They grow, they seem to succeed, all the ministries are thriving and fun - they are a well oiled machine, yet there is no Spirit of God any where close to running their church. I think you get the picture. In fact I was so convicted when I read this because I know I am guilty of seeking people for ministry that I see are "gifted" yet knowing NOTHING about their real heart and private worship with God. So this happens so much of the time and then we wonder why we are not seeing real modern day miracles / signs and wonders / freedom in worship / 100 - 1000 of people coming out for prayer meetings. Well this is the reason. May God shine His light powerfully on this veil of deception that we all have allowed the enemy to win with. It's time to rip that veil!!! We have been given power like no other and yet we choose to crawl like the Caterpillar instead of flying like the butterfly. may we all become desperate for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. May we all stop the compromise that taints the name of God. May we all see our sin and repent before a Holy God so that THEN we can have healing from our bondages and live the remaining years of our lives in the restoration of His love.

Go get the book and read it!

And to expose our hearts to truth and consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of life within us and, if persisted in,to grieve the Holy Spirit into silence.
A.W. Tozer

This is a painful truth that we ought to really take a look at.
How many times have you gone to Church to hear a great message or even read it for yourself and in the moment you are encouraged, exhorted and often reproved but you leave and do nothing with it. Well this is exactly what his quote is stating. We always want to know the will of God yet when that prompting inside of us happens we more times then not neglect it. In case you weren't sure, that prompting inside of us is the Holy Spirit who has been sent to live and dwell inside of us as believers to empower us to do the very will of God. So let me ask the tough question here do you really want to know the will for God for your life?

Did you know??????

Francis Chan has a new book - okay let me tell you when I got this phone call yesterday from Heidi, I could barely contain myself especially when she told me that it was about the neglect of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Well let's just say Bobby was ever so sweet of a husband and drove me over to Life Way THEN and there is was in all it's beauty - this brown book with a really cool graphic of a dove made out of pages of the Bible. very cool!!!
I grabbed it and let's just say I wanted to scream in excitement - I wanted to give Shabach!!!!!! for fear of having the workers there ask me to leave I somewhat contained my excitement. Okay I'll be honest I was sort of loud. Shoot who cares, I was excited!!!!!

Forgotten God
Reversing Our Tragic Neglect Of The Holy Spirit

If you already have your solid reading of the Word of God time and you have some extra time you may want to grab this one.

Obama to Address our Children

So it seems like everyone is really up in arms over this President Obama addressing the children September 8th. Well Let me offer possibly a different perspective. First let me go on record as saying that We at the Richardson house hold do not hold the same political views as our current President. Yes we too see that he is taking our Country straight into Socialism. Yes we see that the greatest help we give terrorist against our country is our tolerance and our President is giving us a fast one way ticket in that direction. So without turning this into why I do not agree with President Obama let me offer this up on the table. We do not want to be raising ignorant children who can not defend why they believe the things they believe. I will be allowing Aaron to view this speech. I will record it watch it live myself, then I will sit down with Aaron and have him watch it. I will be ready with many questions for him to consider as to why what our President is saying, even though it may seem good, why exactly it is not God's good. For us as a family we will approach this the same way we will approach the conversations as to why other religions are wrong and therefore are doomed for hell. You educate your kids. You give them the truth from the other side then you help them understand why it is against the Word of God and therefore can not be apart of our belief system. Tell me this have you ever seen a situation for a child where they were always told this is right that is wrong and never giving them any grounds for either, other than saying it's against God. Have you ever seen any of those children grow up to not rebel or to not completely walk away from their faith that they grew up with in their home. Or even have you ever seen any of those kids be able to effectively give an account for the things they say. The answer is no you haven't and neither have I.
Ok so fine we are all mad that this speech is going to happen. So what we need to do is get over it and turn this around in a way that brings truth. To stir up all this hate and bitterness is not productive at all. Help your kids win by grounding them with knowledge. Don't make them ignorant - please we have enough of those walking around. Let's give our kids a far chance at becoming young adults who can take information that sounds so good, perfect, loving, and kind and see it for what it really is and then be able to debate it with others who come against their belief systems. If we don't start this process with our kids we will raise yet another generation that so easily gets pulled into wrong teaching.
This my friend is the teaching of our children that blesses the Fathers heart.
1Peter 2:5
For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

Ok let me have it I know you are hot under the collar now.

it's been a year????

So It never seems to be the best conversation to have with anyone, so this is always my safe place to get it out and prayerfully feel better. If you choose to read this I'm just letting you know that it will surely be a bit all over the place. I just need to get this out. So this time last year I was spending every minute in the hospital with my dear friend Donna. Having just gotten the news that she would not be with us much longer. From the day we got that news in the hospital, to the day she went to be with our Lord Jesus from her living room, it was 7 weeks. 7 of the most difficult, complicated, insane, tender, loving, fulfilling, agonizing, painful, intimate, endearing, frustrating, horrific, beautiful moments in my entire life. How each one of those words can perfectly describe each day of a 7 week period is beyond me but they do and how perfectly fitting they are. I remember that day so vividly. It was a 'k' Tues. and I was missing a time of celebration with all my 'k' sisters to say goodbye to our dear friend Carrie who was leaving to move to Santa Barbra. The group was preparing to celebrate and I was at the hospital with Tony kissing my girl up before she was wheeled into surgery. Tony and I shared a really nice meal together, talking and opening up to one another in what was an eye opening surprising conversation so ordained by the Lord. As we went back up to the surgery waiting area, we barely sat down when up walked Dr. Brown with the look of agony. When he sat down and told us that she would not make it and all the words that came after that, I had no idea that breath was able to be sucked out of you like a vacuum. The many hours that followed are a bit to painful to even write about but they are forever in bedded in my heart and mind. The irony in one place a celebration to a dear friend because she is moving away but laughter is the thing in the air. Then across town the very opposite of a celebration is happening because we will be saying goodbye to a friend who is moving away in quit a different fashion. I wonder why the Lord chose it that way. I do know that His way is always best, and I do not doubt that.
I miss my friend. I know that what we shared together in friendship is a rare, treasured gift. But SHOOT sometimes I get a bit self focused and grieve the lose and hate that I won't have THAT friendship again.
I miss our phone conversations through the night hours. Now I know she would have been perfectly able to go to bed at a normal time but she hated that I was not capable of doing so. Therefore, we would talk all night seriously all night. We would pray, we would solve every single issue that Children's ministry ever had. We would share everything we had studied in the Word that day with one anotherand often would end up doing a phone Bible study together. We would grieve for our friends who didn't share our love for prayer, worship and studying the Word of God. We would try to come up with clever ways to encourage them in the very things that we found the greatest joy in. Gosh what I would do for another one of those all nighters.
I think most people would find it interesting to know that Donna and I didn't get to go out and date. In fact Donna and I never once ever shared a meal together alone in a restaurant. I remember one Mother's Day all her and I wanted was to be together alone shopping at Walmart. We did get that wish and well let's just say it got interrupted after 1 hour from a husband that was wondering when we were coming back. lolololl ahahahaha - that still cracks me up. Tony Thompson you are a funny man. Bobby was outside playing with the kids and you were in the house watching some sporting thing alone. Good grief! Donna and I laughed about that all the way home that day well after she said a few other things first. We knew that our friendship just wouldn't ever have the luxury of dating.
I'm gonna continue this later - I have hubby calling and he's gonna be off to baseball in a few so I need to spend a bit of time with him before he's off being Mr. HR hitter.