Featured blog to apear on homepage by checkbox?

Hi, I just wondered if there is a way to set a blog post as a featured blog post to appear on my homepage, maybe there’s a checkbox for make featured in homepage or something?! at the moment (in the code below) I am just showing the last 2 blog posts

Code to query my blog posts

<?php query_posts('showposts=2&date=ASC'); ?>
			<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
			<?php get_template_part( 'home', 'news' ); // Returns home-news.php) ?>
			<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

home-news.php page

<li>
	<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><h5><?php the_title(); ?></h5></a>
	<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><span><?php echo get_the_excerpt(); ?></span></a>
	<h6><?php the_time('j M Y') ?></h6>
</li>