Robinson Ramblings

Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace, good will to men! Today is the day we celebrate the birthday of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah! Rich and I spent the first Christmas Eve and Christmas morning alone since our first Christmas together. It was wonderful!!! We are heading over to Hollie's house to celebrate with the whole family this evening. Originally the family was getting together on Christmas Eve but schedules became so complicated that we changed plans. It has been a wonderful laid back, yes, even a romantic Christmas! I babysat Henry and Jack on Thursday and then Becca and I took the boys out for a late lunch (she got off early), to the library for books (we found more train books) and then over to our house for the evening since Brent was working. We had such fun. Both of the boys are very sweet and love coming over to Nana's house. Jack took his second nap of the day at our house (he has a cold) and Henry rested while watching an Elmo DVD. ...

Wow, Christmas is almost here and I haven't sent out any cards or wrapped any presents yet!! I am finally feeling better. I have had a sinus infection for over four weeks. After two prescriptions and many days of feeling awful (I only missed one day of work, though), I am getting my energy back. My allergies have been acting up as well so I am really enjoying my Christmas break from school. Here are some favorite pictures of Henry and Jack from Thanksgiving. Jack is a happy guy (most of the time) and loves to play with his brother!

"O taste and see that the Lord is God, blessed is the man who trusts in Him." God has truly been gracious to us this past year. As I meditate on how He continues to meet our needs and how he lovingly reminds us that He is all that we need, I am thankful for everything that has transpired over the year. We enjoyed a time of fellowship, thanksgiving, and lots of food at the Watsons this Thanksgiving. Hollie and I still spent most of the day together at her place making food. Hollie tried a number of new recipes (vegan style) - they were delicious. Becca made homemade bread and rolls and other goodies , Kelly made a yummy dessert, and Rich and I made turkey, dressing, and salad.

The farm had a great petting zoo and fun places for the preschool set to play (such as the feeding trough filled with corn!

Brent, Becca, Henry, Jack and I went to Linder Farms to pick pumpkins and have all kinds of fall fun!

The tree has an owl in it and he is saying a couple of lines from a book (each week or two the saying will change). This time the quote was from Dr. Seuss. The kids have to try and find out which book the quote came from. They have done awesome with this quote. This is the quote: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

I LOVE MY JOB! My school is awesome - the principal, the teachers, the kids, the parents (ok so I've just met a few but they have been awesome), and the PTA (had our first meeting yesterday). I am so thankful to the Lord to have the opportunity to do what I love. We are getting starting to plan for our Scholastic Book Fair . It will be a lot of work but we can earn lots of needed BOOKS! We are going to decorate with a "hero" theme & I'll take pictures of that in October:) Anyway, here are the pictures of what I've done in my library. The flags with the numbers on them were already there & although I like them, eventually I'll take them down & put up more reading and book related displays. I was able to use a lot of my things: puppets, some instruments, books, characters from books, posters, etc.

Tomorrow is Labor Day - I am so glad to have a day off:) Of course, I'm going to school to work and get ahead start on the week. I will also take pictures of my library and post them tomorrow evening. It looks very inviting, if I do say so myself. The younger kids especially like all of the displays. This is such a great job for me & I'm so thankful to the Lord for His direction. I am posting a picture of my trio at church. We sang for the last time together two weeks ago on Sunday morning. Joy Cukurs and her family (the gal in the middle) moved to Seattle last Monday. Joy, Elaine, and I have been singing together for a few years but Joy and I sang together with another lady for several years prior to that (Elaine hadn't moved to Meridian yet:). Anyway, I will really miss Joy because she was such a wonderful, Godly friend and prayer warrior and I loved singing with her! We will all pray for each other and keep in touch via email & facebook. Last Sunday we had a fare...

Henry became very attached to Greg (especially) and Alice. They camped with their daughter and son-in-law right next to us. Greg would talk to Henry and give him little cans of apple juice to drink and other treats. He really made "H" (Rich's name for Henry) feel special. Whenever we couldn't find Henry, we checked over at the next campsite & there he would be! After visiting with Alice a bit, I found out that they loved the Lord with all their heart and we shared our testimonies with each other. We had such wonderful fellowship with them during the next few days. These dear folks kept inviting us over to eat their food. On our last morning camping, Alice held Jack while Becca fed him some of their delicious blueberry pancakes. MMMmmm!! We did share our dutch oven beef stew with them - it was delicious (it was a group effort so I can say that). We are going to use our dutch oven at home this year. We want to become more adventuresome and get so that we can do m...

We had such a great time camping in the wild!! We borrowed a generator so we could still have power (we had to have lights on our gazebo & in the camper). The area was beautiful, we had great company, and we met fun people. 'Course, this Nana enjoyed spending time with her grandsons:) They enjoyed the camping experience, too! Henry slept in the camper with Nana and Papa and the last night Jack joined us as well. It was a bit too cold for him to stay warm in the tent.

We are back from our camping vacation & as soon as I locate our camera, I'll download some pics. We had a wonderful time! Yesterday I met the Meridian School District library coordinator at my new school & she trained me on some things. She is wonderful and will be such a help to me this year! I spent the rest of the day working on the library. It needs alot of cleaning & organizing. I wish that I could have Sara come and help me brighten it up but I'll have to do it on my own with lots of help from her art blog!!! She is such an inspiration!! It is so exciting to be able to get back into an elementary school setting. My principal is extremely supportive & eager to have me make the library "my own." That is a great feeling. Books, music, art, and children - can it get any better than that? I would love to teach the children about the best book of all - God's Word! That would make it perfect!! However, I can teach them to love good literature and lo...

Last Friday was the last day of Glory Children (summer school for children with autism) - it was a great six weeks and I am missing the kids and staff a great deal! Our theme this year was to "Put on the Armor of God" and I was reminded anew of how important that is in my own life. Eph. 6 says in verse 14 & following to " Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God ." It was so exciting to hear (and see) how our students were understanding and applying God's Word to their lives. Although not all of them could verbalize the ways that they were growing in their faith, we could see it in their faces (and in...

I've been looking through a lot of pictures lately & it is fun to see how much Henry has grown up. He sure loves his aunties & they love him right back!

I tried to get these pictures in chronological order but they refuse to move & I don't want to start over again!! I love seeing these three moments in time with Kelly & Henry - Henry loves to play music with Kelly!

Jack is very good with a ball (he is definitely Brent's son & Henry's brother - balls are very important in their home)!!

On Tuesday evening we had a fun birthday party for Jack. He really enjoyed himself - he seemed to understand that he was the center of attention & he needed to "pose" for the camera!! What a happy guy!