Thankful and Joy

 It has been a full and wonderful Thanksgiving break around here.  I love time off together and I love it when our schedule allows for shopping dates with Mike, family night at the movie theatre (boys saw Creed and girls saw Grinch), family time in Radford, and.......


the annual Virgnia Tech and UVA football game!  It was cold, and dramatic and some of us left the game smiling when VT pulled it out in Overtime!! It was such a fun time with extended family:)

Thanksgiving Day was spent in Radford with this strong-willed, hilarious woman and my parents!  She is doing well despite her cancer diagnosis.  She is sweet as pie but can give the nursing home folks a run for their money. :)  She is something else!

It is officially basketball season here in our home!!  Kyle is on varsity and Dave is the middle school team manager.  Hope is also on her Daddy's AAU team and they play in tournaments on Saturday.  This is the time of year when life gets busy but we love every moment of it.  Hope is also swimming one day a week, taking piano one day a week and is learning the basics of volleyball.  I keep reminding myself that one day we will have no one to take to practice anymore and we will miss this. 

Hope recently had her piano recital and did amazing!!!  Piano has taught her so much confidence and we love it.

Recently we had a stock holders dinner at youth where our youth served a dinner for  those who have supported their faith development and they spoke about their experiences in youth.  It overwhelmed me to hear in their own words how God has been working in their lives.  My hearts was so proud and happy that I could have wept tears in gratitude.  GG and Pops came down for the dinner and here are our kiddos with them.  Youth ministry is a family affair in this house and we love every moment of it. 



Speaking of youth, we have launched our big Christmas project through Santa's Elves.  We have adopted 40 kids to shop for for Christmas.  The youth LOVE doing this and it blesses my heart to see how much love and care they put into shopping for our kids.  We will be hosting a party for the kids on pickup day before Christmas.  We are all pretty excited about this.

This month I have been doing a daily bible journaling on gratitude.  Between the bible journaling and spending a weekend at Hearts on Fire with some awesome senior high girls from church it has been a wonderful month.  I have slowly realized that happiness and joy are two different things.  Happiness is dependent upon circumstances and joy is feeling content despite your circumstances.  I am focusing on joy for the rest of 2018:)  Joy is time with family on a break, watching my youth serve so well, watching my kids play a sport they love, and spending time worshipping God. 

October

October despite the rain and sudden temperature change... you have treated us well.  Life is full but life is good.  I am finally OFF of the scooter and trying to live my best life despite all the hardware in my ankle which makes each step a wee bit painful.  I am so so so thankful to be on this side of the ankle drama of 2018, but I have learned so very much during this painful season and I am thankful. 


One of the blessings of the month so far was traveling to Knoxville on a random Thursday night to hear Jen Hatmaker!  I have read many of her books and I have learned so much from her books about widening who is invited to God's table.  One of my favorite Jen quotes is "As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live-we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love.  The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self." 

I aspire to be an includer-one who invites all to God's table to taste and see that He is so good.  I am not always a model christian (hello, road rage...) but I try so hard to boast about God every chance I get.  It was a wonderful and unexpected evening and it blessed my soul.  We also were blessed with Nicole Nordeman's gorgeous voice. 

Our "girls" are getting so big and I love them.  They are funny, they are curious and they make me happy.  We are somewhat concerned Tractor Supply may have mislabled one of our girls and that Felicia may indeed be a rooster instead of a hen.  I cannot even imagine saying "bye felicia" to her but if she is indeed a rooster we will have to rehome her.  We should know in the next month or so if Felicia is a boy or girl by the scientific method of waiting to hear her crow! Ha!

Thankful I had an unexpected night out to see Jen Hatmaker.  I have always shared that I would have loved to have had a bigger family but our kids are at such a good age and because my parents came to help chauffer kids and feed them it was pretty painless to head out of town for a night that was good for my soul.  Mike was out of town teaching his heart out to fellow administrators.

A joy this fall so far has been family and friend time at VT games.  We love our Hokies but spending time together trumps what happens on the field.  We are a dysfunctional bunch but we do love each other and have a lot of laughs.  My brother is the tailgating drill seargent getting us all organized and hyped for the game.  All of our boys are growing so fast.... Pops looks like he is shrinking but our boys are catching up to him.

Kyle was blessed with a great day of ACC football with his friend Jonathan and our friend, Dr. Bill.  They were gone to North Carolina for 20 hours and caught the UVA football game followed by the Va Tech football game.  They had such a great time making memories. 

This has been a busy season with our youth at church.  Each week I lead a bible study for middle schoolers after school on Wednesdays, we then have breakfast club at Mcdonald's every Thursday morning before school at 7:15 a.m., and then Mike and I are leading a study to guys and gals on Sunday nights.  I love every moment of it.  Youth ministry blesses you when you least expect it.... One of our girls admitted at bible study Sunday night that she finally "gets it" and it starting her journey of faith after being involved in our minsitry for several years.  To see these kids fall in love with Jesus is amazing and blesses my heart.  This is a place I never ever dreamed we would be yet here we are surrounded by teenagers....Life is good and God is so very good. 

October you are living up to your hype! 

Hearts Full

Life has been busy and here in the Robinson household but we certainly have been blessed with the addition of six sweet little chicks that we are now raising!  Mike and I are clueless chick parents but we have read a lot, fretted over them and they seem to be growing.  We hope they will be laying eggs by late winter.  We are raising them all natural with organic feed so we are super excited for farm fresh eggs down the road. 


Here is one sweet little chick sound asleep in my hands.  They are curious, a wee bit smelly, but they are so sweet!!

Here is one of our more curious chicks-we named her James Harden after the NBA player!  She is super nosy. 

We always love having kids over and here is Kyle with two friends during the Hokie football game. Raising teenagers is such an exhausting joy...

But I absolutely love it when our house is loud and full of kids.  I love it because it means kids are safe, kids feel welcome here and my job is to listen and to keep the food coming.  Kyle and Mike went on their first college visit this past weekend and it hit me hard.  These are the days.  It is loud and exhausting to have a houseful but I know I will miss this all one day.  (I may not miss the slime making these girls are doing though)

Another blessing that has happened in the last two weeks is our youth bible study at church.  We typically start a new curriculum each fall for our youth, and this semester I am leading Dare Greatly for our teen girls and Mike and our friend, Chris, are leading the guys in a Tim Tebow study.  Hope went into Mike's class and made sure all the guys knew who was leading the study for last week.  They take turns leading these guys and it has been great.  So thankful for these guys investment in our teen guys. 

Preschool is back in session and so far it has been a great start to the year.  We have some funny kiddos this year and despite the fact that I am still on my scooter it is going well.  Speaking of my scooter, I have a doctor's appointment this week with my orthopedic doctor.  I humbly ask for prayers that after being on this scooter for 23 out of the last 29 weeks of my life that this ankle will finally be healed. 

Between preschool, our new little chicks, our youth, and our own kids and their friends life has felt very full lately.  My focus this year is on kingdom building.  I do not want to get distracted on anything that does not bring glory to God's kingdom.  I feel like time is ticking so quickly with Kyle under our roof and our other kiddos growing so quickly that I need to focus on what is important-teaching God's word and pointing all kids to Christ as the ultimate example on how to love and serve others. 

I am so thankful for a full heart!