Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Pardon Me


Pardon me for not sharing this ultrasound sooner. This was our latest ultrasound that was taken on 12/8/08. I hope when I go to the doctor next week I can share an updated picture of our third blessing. This is a profile shot of our little peanut:)

Christmas 2008 Highlights

As the Christmas decorations come down and our house tries to resume order, I have been thinking about this Christmas season. This has been a wonderful Christmas-lots of family time, very little traveling, and overall we have been healthy except Mike's stomach bug last week. I have so enjoyed this break, that I just had to make a list of our Christmas highlights (these are in random order!)

1) Hearing David say "WOW" for every present he opened.
2) Watching my 80 year-old grandfather play Wii with my boys!
3) Relishing a few small bites of peanut butter fudge at my Mom's house. I am not suppose to eat peanuts due to Kyle's food allergy during pregnancy, but those few small bites were worth it!
4) Watching my husband and son read from the bible Christmas Eve.
5) Hearing my brother lead Christmas carols Christmas Eve. My brother has a beautiful voice that I grew up hearing very often in church. Now it is a treat to hear him sing.
6) Kyle's Christmas Eve shenanigans (read previous post). It was annoying at first, but I know Mike and I will always remember that night!
7) The fact that Mike and I bought each other the very same CD because we both like this song right now. I will post more about this later on.
8) The fact that Mike bought me the new Beth Moore bible study, Esther. This is significant in our home right now because IF this baby is a girl, that is one of the names that I have been lobbying for. Mike doesn't dislike Esther, but there are lots of other girls names he prefers. He knew buying that bible study will fuel the Esther fire in me and he STILL bought it:)
9) Seeing my boys in their cute Christmas jammies Christmas Eve/morning.
10) The potato casserole that was served on Christmas Eve-I make the exact same casserole, it just tastes better when someone else makes it!
11) Seeing David become quite the rocker with his new guitar.
12) Watching David box on our new Wii. I will try to capture a picture and post it:)
13) Dressing up and going out on a real date with my husband. We had party to go to for a friend of Mike's at work, and we had a great time. There was adult food, adult conversation, and the kids were at my parents for the night!
14) Wearing my first maternity anything to the party mentioned above. I am really not showing, but it was fun to buy and wear something maternity:) I will post later on about my first maternity buying experience with this baby. Wow, times have changed. I certainly do not want to wear anything resembling a tent, but I really do not care for anything skin tight either.
15) Last but not least,I heard a pastor speak on Christmas Eve about God's plan for his son. God could have chosen that his one and only son come to Earth in the most glorious palace with the wealthiest people, but instead God chose for his Son to come to Earth by the most humble means-to a young, poor couple born in a stable. I have heard the Christmas story a bazillion times, but that point sunk in to me on Christmas Eve. God could have chosen for Jesus to come in a blaze of glory and wealth, but he humbled himself for us.

Happy New Year! May 2009 be full of blessings for you and your family:)

Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas 2008

This is one of the pictures that Kyle took in the middle of the night of their new water slide:) He was so excited about this that he took several pictures of this one. I wish my camera had a timer on it to know exactly what time this picture was taken:)
David and his beloved guitar:)

Kyle reciting John 3:16 on Christmas Eve from the bible. On Christmas Eve my boys both sang and signed Happy Birthday Jesus-they were so precious!

We are beyond exhausted, but that is Christmas with two wild boys! We had a wonderful few days visiting with family, eating good food, and celebrating the birth of our Savior. I realized that my morning sickness is going away a bit, and for some odd reason other people's cooking tastes really good!!:) If only my Mom could come cook our meals for the next 6 months or so....

Anyway, I just had to share some pictures from Christmas. This has been the best Christmas due to my boys excitement and also because we have had nothing major on the agenda. To have two odd weeks or so to do nothing but be together is a very wonderful gift.

On Christmas Eve day, my boys received a Wii, and frankly I haven't seen much of Kyle. He played so hard yesterday on it that he wore out his socks! Kyle has really made this a memorable Christmas. Christmas Eve we got home around 10:00, but Kyle had a hard time going to sleep. After finally falling asleep, he woke up at 2:00 a.m. and went and checked out what Santa had left him. He was so excited that he didn't go back to sleep until 3:15 or so. Then he woke up AGAIN at 4:00 and came and told me everything that Santa had gotten him. He couldn't rouse any of us up to come with him, so he grabbed my camera and took pictures of everything that he got. He opened up all the stockings and took pictures of the contents and then packed them again. Mike finally made him sleep on the couch until he woke up again at 7:00 a.m. and we all joined him!

David made Christmas memorable due to his new guitar/microphone. For about a month or so, David has consistently said that he wanted Santa to bring him a guitar. Sure enough, there was a guitar with a microphone under the tree for him. He has made us belly laugh with that thing! He is adorable on it and really looks like a rocker:) I don't think the pictures will do it justice! He also got Better Batter Baseball and is so good at it already:)

Even though we are worn out from Kyle's house prowling Christmas Eve, it has truly been a Christmas to remember:)

Friday, December 19, 2008

Slow Learner

God clearly knows that I need repetition when learning. This week I have been focused on that 1 Samuel verse (read previous post) where it clearly states that Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Well, I must not have gotten it the first go around.

Yesterday I had the day off from preschool. I had a list a mile long to accomplish and my morning sickness kicked in right during the first stop. My last stop of the day was to go to Kyle's school to volunteer at a Christmas function. I had to be there at 2:00, but I skidded into the post office to mail something at 1:48. I figured I could still make it until I saw the line at the post office.

Oh my, it was a mile long despite all registers being open. I took my place in line and watched the clock. I finally realized that the outer two lines were moving along, but this sweet couple in the middle obviously had the line backlogged. Several postal employees were trying to help this couple. They had all their items laid out on the counter, papers flying everywhere, and they just seemed to have no clue.

Well, here comes the heart lesson. My foot started tapping as the clock inched towards 2:00. Kyle's has the type of personality that would be stressed if I said I would be there at 2:00 and I was not. He gets very nervous about issues like that. Anyway, I kept watching this poor couple. They had no clue what they were doing and really had created quite a stir at the counter. I was standing there wondering why they had not put that package together prior to the post office, or why they didn't have the supplies they needed before the post office. I was pretty frustrated with them by the time I got up to the line beside them.

As I smugly put my neatly packaged item on the counter with a smile, I glanced at that couple. The Dad caught my eye. He then said, "Sorry for the mess, our son was just sent to Iraq for the first time and we are trying to send him Christmas presents. There are specific packing rules for military overseas, and this is the first time we have mailed him something."

Oh dear... my heart literally pounded. Here I was all frustrated at these people for clogging up the post office lines when I need to be somewhere and God love these people. They just put their one and only son on a plane to who knows where to fight for my freedom. I have no idea how much my package was that I sent- I just shoved bills at the clerk and got out of there. Oh dear, once again I had to learn that heart lesson the hard way.

See, my heart is so tender to those people because I too have sons. I cannot imagine the anguish and pride in their heart that their one and only son is gone this year for Christmas to serve our Country. Their faces stuck with me all day long. I know on Christmas day as I am loving on my sweet boys I will think of these people. I know they live here somewhat locally and I wished I would have gotten their names or even their son's name. I was just to appalled at my own behavior to think straight. I am not a big tattoo fan, but perhaps I need to tattoo 1 Samuel 16:7 on my forehead-God is clearly trying to get me to understand this message this Christmas season.

"The Lord said to Samuel, Do no consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

1 Samuel 16:7

Thanks Lord, I think I have it this time:)

By the way, I was not a minute late in Kyle's eyes for the party. His class was one of the last to come in and he never noticed that I was eight minutes late:) To him, it looked like I had been serving hot chocolate the whole time!!!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

It happened...

I should have seen it coming. I was attending a Christmas function last night and another Mom came up to me to congratulate me on the baby. She then asked my age and I should have known right then and there where this was headed. I told her that even though I felt 90 today, I was truly only 33. I thought that was more Christian than what I really wanted to say!! HA!:) Thankfully God's grace saved me once again from saying something my grumpy, nauseated self wanted to say.

Anyway, we were chatting about who my OB was (a cool dude I really like by the way and I have never ever ever had a male OB), and she then piped up and asked if I was worried. I knew exactly what she was getting to, but I wanted her to say it. She then asked if I was going to do all that testing, and I politely said "no." She then replied with an "oh really, I would have thought with your high risk situation that you would have to go to specialist or something."

I will not share the rest of the conversation even though I pray God's grace and not my venom came forth from me. I took that opportunity to explain to her that all that testing means nothing to someone who views life as a gift from God and to be cherished as such. She shook her head in agreement with me, but frankly I just wanted to SCREAM!!!! Why could she just not have said congratulations and moved on? Did she want me to break down and sob that I might have another David?

This is also frankly ironic that this woman would imply that having another David would be a negative thing, because today I was cleaning out a drawer and found my Beth Moore bible study on King David. (I had bought a gift card for a teacher and had "temporarily misplaced it")! Anyway, I started the bible study right after David's birth and just recently finished it with a group of women here in the community. David can be a challenge to raise, but not due to his Down Syndrome as much as his red-headed adamant self!

Reading the account in the bible where David was chosen by Samuel to be the next king truly brings me to tears. David was Jesse's least likely son to be chosen as the king. But 1 Samuel 16:7 says it all- "The Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

No wonder this sweet woman was all worried about me having another child with DS. Man cannot get over David's imperfections, but the Lord looks only at our heart. For David that is wonderful news, because his heart is only full of love. Yes, David has a chromosomal abnormality but just like King David he can be fully used to serve God.

I will choose to go to bed tonight with that knowledge in my heart versus the grumpy "can you believe she said that" attitude that I would really like to hash out with Mike all night!!! I too need to remember that God looks at the heart-perhaps beeping at that sweet old man that wasn't responding to the green light fast enough for me today would qualify as one of those teachable moments for me that God looks at our heart. Hopefully this sweet old man has hearing issues and didn't hear the loud beep of my Honda Pilot this morning. Wherever he is, I pray that he will understand that I just needed some Gatorade to get through the morning and I really meant no harm:

Monday, December 15, 2008

Had a bad day



You know, sometimes life is just difficult. The Christmas season is truly magical, but lets be honest-it is exhausting!! Two weeks ago when I was so sick with pregnancy and bronchitis after our big Thanksgiving trip, My Mom felt sorry for me and came and decorated our tree after Kyle assembled it. It was beautiful, but one day last week I came home from preschool ready to sit beside our beautiful tree and read a book and lo and behold, look what I found. Yes, the tree REALLY fell down. The stand actually broke and down she fell.

I couldn't even respond. We actually had to take it all apart and borrow an extra tree from my parents. Since my pregnancy sickness is not going away and actually getting worse,I begged for mercy and pleaded to just be done with it. Mike called me a scrooge and away he went to retrieve another tree. Last night I finally put the new tree up:) It is beautiful and so far so good it has not toppled over:)

It has been a rough few weeks around here. I have been pretty sick and bless Mike, he has been filling in the gaps. The kids had the stomach flu over the weekend and lets just put it this way, our comforter is at the dry cleaners:) I have never done so much laundry in my life:)

We are excited about the upcoming Christmas break. We have nothing on the agenda except family and Christmas during the whole two week break. It sounds heavenly to me and in the meantime I will be on Christmas tree patrol checking that base and waiting for another topple:)

Monday, December 8, 2008

The Gift of the Unexpected

Today I had an appointment with my OB doctor. I am officially 12 weeks along and I was so excited when the doctor chose to do another ultrasound. My checkup went very well with low blood pressure, slight weight lose due to sickness, and good results from last month's blood work.

The doctor did an ultrasound to confirm the due date of June 29th. Little Peanut came on the screen and I know this is my third go around and this was unexpected for us, but big crocodile tears rolled down my face. I was just so in awe of God's plan that he chose to bless us at this stage in our life with this blessing. I feel that I appreciate this gift so much more because of it was so unexpected.

While I am confessing to tearing up over little Peanut's picture, I also have to admit tearing up over the bible story of Jesus' birth today at preschool. My preschool class is on letter J, which is so appropriate to spend the next two weeks before Christmas break studying Jesus and his special birthday. I had a CD for the children to listen to that told that special story over 6 sweet little Christmas carols. I told the children to listen to the story and then sing along with the songs if they knew them. Most of the children did of course, and to hear that amazing story of two young, humble parents making room for the King of Kings birth in that stable paired with the voices of 7 sweet four-year olds singing just did me in. I was so moved and touched. There will be very few events that I attend over the next few weeks that will come as close to holy as today. If you need a little touch of the true meaning of Christmas, come by my preschool room any morning to truly be blessed. These children may have a list a mile long for Santa, but today their hearts were totally focused on the Savior that came to Earth as a babe to change us all forever.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Thanksgiving

Mike and his brother Daniel with all the boys at the football game. It was chilly at the game, but we had a tailgate party for Kyle's birthday with chicken tenders, french fries, and a cookie cake that we smuggled into the game.

The boys at the table eating Thanksgiving dinner. Kyle was too busy to get back outside to play:)

Kevin and David played well together-here they are at the football game:) We always wondered where David's red hair came from until Kevin was born-clearly that is a Robinson trait:)

All the Robinson boys-Andrew (11), Christopher (8), Kyle (6), David (4), and Kevin (3).

I am finally coming out from under our piles of laundry from our trip to Louisiana to post some pictures from our trip. Kyle and David had fun playing with their cousins and Mike is always thrilled to get to see a Louisiana Tech football game. I was not too whiny a traveler this time, except I did get really sick on the way home. Poor Mike!