His Glory!

It has been a fun and busy week here for our family.  I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is almost November!


Tonight was our annual trunk or treat event at church.  We LOVE this event so much because we truly invite the whole town to come and worship, eat hot dogs, and get lots of candy!

Yes that it snow on our coats and in our hair!  It snowed tonight for our trunk or treat.  CRAZY!!!! I love these girls and I love seeing youth show up to church to serve others.  It blesses my heart.  I never ever envisioned myself as a youth leader but here I am loving it.

This is my grandmother who got moved to a nursing home on Friday after some foot surgery.  She will be there for several weeks.  She is something.  Most of the time she is sharp as a tack and knows everything and everybody.  Then there are times she has hallucinations and bless her heart they are very real to her.  My parents are doing an exceptional job of caretaking for her even if she is not always the sweetest patient!  HA!  They continue to show me the example of honoring your parents even when it is not always easy.  Today Hope and I had a great visit with her.  She loves her Jesus and thankfully is very happy at her new facility as her foot heals.  I told her as a left today to show the nurses her princess side and not her big bad wolf side because she certainly has both:)

Here is our sweet Dorothy with her piano teacher who was dressed as Audrey Hepburn!  Last night was Hope's fall piano recital and she played Somewhere over the Rainbow dressed as Dorothy.  I held my breath her entire song and despite a few wrong notes she kept her poise and did great!

The concentration.... :) I love that Hope loves piano and that our home is full of music.  the boys do not always appreciate her practicing but we love it!  I pray she uses this love of music for the glory of the Lord one day.

While Mike and I were enjoying a night of music at the recital, my brother, my Dad, my nephews, and my boys were out in the rain watching the Hokies.  They are die hards and stayed most of the game!!  Tech won and my boys made memories with their Pops.  They were drown rats despite the rain gear because it was basically a monsoon!

Mike was on the road a ton last week doing what he loves doing-teaching, meeting with other educators and visiting kids in his program.  Here is Mike last week with the Governor of Virginia at an award ceremony for an award United Way received for their work on workforce development in our schools through the Ignite program.

He called me when the ceremony was over and said for a moment sitting in the Governor's mansion receiving this award with this organization, he felt grateful for how far God has brought him.  He never dreamed as a kid from a small town in Arkansas he would have a PhD and be where he is today.  Just a reminder that God can always dream bigger for us than we can and that HARD WORK pays off.  Mike Robinson is not perfect but that guy has always worked hard at whatever he does.  He is a good role model for our kids.

This past week was Kyle's first scrimmage for basketball.  It is almost that time of year which makes all five of us soooo happy!  We joke all the time that when I dated Mike I refused to watch basketball with him because the guys shoes squeaking on the court drove me bonkers and now here I am a referee-yelling, basketball-loving Momma and coaches wife!  I still have a lot to learn but that does not keep me from yelling and cheering!  :)

This past week at our after school program at church we carved pumpkins with almost 100 kids and youth.  It was loud, crazy and wonderful all rolled into one.  We have the most amazing Wednesday afterschool program going on at church.  God has called some great folks to teach and lead and we love that our church is rocking every Wednesday after school.  My youth taught the elementary kids the pumpkin carving prayer and then helped them carve a pumpkin.  Here is Hope with two of her favorite youth ladies!!

It has been a busy but pretty great week in our household.  The days are full and parenting is NEVER easy but we are thankful for seeing God working in our church and in our family.  May everything we do be for His glory!

Our Night at VT

What an amazing Hokie weekend we have had!  It is hard to come back to reality after such a wonderful and touching weekend.  A little over a week ago we received an email asking if David could participate in a special ceremony for the VT men's basketball team.  We love Coach Buzz and all the players so of course we agreed!

Friday after school the boys ran off of the bus to get into their shirts and bowties for the big Tip Off Banquet.  That was the first event of the evening.  The boys and I went to this fancy and wonderful affair.  We even got picked up from the parking lot in a golf cart:)

David of course wanted a picture with every player-here he is with Justin Robinson.

He talked Devin Wilson into sneaking him into the locker room for a quick tour and he also talked him into face-timing Seth Allen in Hungary!  These guys are all so kind and wonderful with David.

David thinks he can shoot just like Justin Bibbs.  :) The players all looked so professional!

David loves Ahmed Hill but when he asked David if he liked his hat David said "oh no!"

My pictures are once again out of order but not only did we have a magical night with the Men's basketball team but we stayed and went to the football game with Pops, Clayton and Uncle chad.  We love Cousin Clayton and these two are so sweet together.

My boys ready for the kickoff!!

Friday night after the tip-off banquet at 6:00 we headed to the 9:00 Hokie Hoops Madness Event!  Mike, Pops, GG and Hope met us there for that event and here are our three babes out past their bedtime.

David was chosen to be one of ring bearers for the special presentation of the basketball teams NCAA rings.  We had no idea who he would present his ring to but lining up Coach Frank Beamer was a few spots ahead of him also as a ring bearer. Coach Beamer is a class act and we all have so much respect for him.

This is the moment my heart was so happy!!  David got to present Coach Buzz his NCAA ring for making it to the Big Dance last year.  Each player and coach had a ring bearer and it was an amazing ceremony.  Dave was the Buzz's Bunch representative!  This picture is so precious!

We all love Coach Buzz and so admire the way he coaches on and off the court.  We have been faithful Buzz's Bunch participants since he came to VT and we respect what he has done while at VT.  We were in awe that David was chosen to present him his ring and to be apart of something so awesome Friday night.  It is a special Hokie memory none of us will forget anytime soon.

Sweet September

September has certainly treated us well.  It has been freakishly hot here in Virginia which has meant my garden has kept producing summer crops.

One of the absolute highlights of the month was traveling to Radford on a Friday night to watch my Dad, Pops, receive the Virginia High School League merit award for keeping the clock at football games for FIFTY years.  Fifty years.  We all attended the game to watch him get his award and be recognized during halftime.  Pops certainly has provided the lesson to our kids to serve in your community and he has certainly served well.  We were all so proud of him for this award!

Another sweet September moment was watching these two cuties head to Marion's homecoming.  Sweet Emme attends Abingdon and she came and went to the dance with Kyle.  She is a sweet girl who loves Jesus and the Hokies!  They looked awesome going to their dance together coordinated in royal blue. 

My pictures are out of order but here are 4/5 of the grandkids with Pops at the game where he received his award.  He had no idea he was getting the award and that we were all coming to surprise him.  We are so proud of ourselves that we kept it secret for a few weeks leading up to the ceremony.

Another picture of the homecoming duo taken by Hope.  She took some great pictures of them!  They went to eat before the dance, then attended a youth group after party we held at the ballroom. 

Because of Emme we have attended some volleyball games this season.  To be so little this girl can serve the ball!  Kyle and I are still a little clueless on volleyball rules! Ha!

Kyle has finished golf season and is now training and getting ready for basketball.  He has worked hard in the off season to get ready for the season.  He has been blessed with some great coaches and mentors in his life to help him. 

This past weekend was the Robinson boys annual fall football trip.  This year they traveled to Birmingham to watch Louisiana Tech play UAB.  This is now two years in a row where the bulldogs have lost on a last second play when the boys have traveled to watch them play.  Bless their hearts.  Despite the outcome of the game they did make memories and had fun together. 

The last four weeks I have led a bible study for our youth girls at church based on 1 Thessalonians.  It has blessed my heart to watch these girls dig into the word and complete their weekly homework assignments.  We have laughed, learned, and had fun studying Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonia.  This past week we had to memorize this verse about our the need for our love to increase and overflow for others.  I know teenagers these days have a bad rep for always being on their phone and being self-absorbed but these girls who faithfully show up each week to study and to discuss their homework bless me and encourage me. Youth ministry is not glamorous or easy but I love sitting around a room with open bibles and open hearts to pursue God with some awesome Jesus girls.