Three cheers for summer!

Ready for the pool!

Fearless Grace

Grace on the water slide
Ben loves the pool too!

Ben at 8 months

Some milestone's for Ben this past month:

--He got his first tooth

--He's crawling, fast and furious

--He rolled off the bed....and thus,

--He finally found a good nurse who can infuse him

--He got the nickname in the nursery, "Busy Ben"

--He's trying to wave

"Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired!"

Some of you other parents please tell me when this ends?! We are getting NO SLEEP! When we had Grace, she was sleeping through the night at 9 weeks! We read all the books and followed all the tips and tricks. With the second (Ben), those tips and tricks have gone right out the window. If we let him cry it out G wakes up. If we let him cry it out he may hurt himself in his crib. We are such WEAK SUCKERS now! Consequently, we now get on average about 4 hours of sleep a night.

I've been trying to get up and work out @ 5am, and that is going horribly. I'm getting even less sleep! To top it all off, I've gained weight since I started working out. I keep telling myself that muscle weighs more than fat.

My how the tables have turned, when I married Becca I required very little sleep and she needed about 10 hours a night. I used to give her a hard time about how much sleep she needed, and how moody she was if she didn't get it (snap dragon). I have to say that my lovely wife has handled this lack of sleep A LOT better than her pathetic husband. If I didn't know any better I'd say that I'm PMSing. Needless to say, I'm sorry honey. For as much grief as I give my wife, she is a much stronger wife/mother than I could have EVER imagined.

PS-We have bunny ears on our TV, and so far it is totally worth it, but we'd still like to watch less of it.

Trip to Colorado by the numbers

1
way-too-close encounter of a massive torando while driving through Kansas (see video...don't worry, we are all okay)!

4
adults in the minivan

1
impatient, over-active, non-napping, won't-stop-talking, "are-we -there-yet?" toddler in the minivan

2
baby boys, who combined, traveled better than the toddler...in the minivan

15
looooong hours of driving...EACH WAY

1.5
rack of ribs devoured by the the two of us at the Hickory House in Parker (Kirk's favorite restaurant in all of CO)

3
hours packed-full of fun at the Denver aquarium

1
'birthday party' for Uncle Ben at Little Ollies (another fav. eatery in Denver)

2
mega-huge dogs that kept G highly entertained at 'Uncle & Mrs. Karna's.'

2
love birds getting married on a beautiful day in Estes Park

3
shots of espresso in our already Venti lattes for the drive home

Weekend in review: PRICELESS

View pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/beccarobbins/2008_0526memorialweekend

View video:

Grace & Ben's dedication

Thank you Lord for our children!

Before the weekend ends, I just wanted to say what a blessed weekend I had with my daughter. Saturday started off wonderfully, my thoughtful wife let me sleep in because she new I wasn't feeling well. As soon as we ate breakfast as a family I decided to get Grace out of the house so mommy and Ben could sleep. Grace & I went to Starbucks, where daddy had some much needed coffee, Grace had organic chocolate milk, and we split a low fat coffee cake. It was such a beautiful morning that we decided to sit outside on a table that G picked out. Every time we eat outside G thinks we are having a picnic. I proceeded to sit down and started to ask my daughter various questions about her morning when all of a sudden our VERY talkative daughter decided to tell daddy, "Can we just not talk and enjoy the beautiful trees?!" As we sat there on the bench I could completely feel the Lord's presence. I just stared at Grace and was so thankful for our family. It dawned on me while sitting there looking at her happy face that she didn't have a care in the world. She could careless how much money daddy made, how much debt we have, what type of clothes she is wearing, or what type of home she lived in. She was just happy to be there in THAT moment. I just had to get that off my chest before the work week begins. Also, I hope all of you mothers had a blessed Mother's Day! Thank you Lord for our children, and how much we learn about your love for us through them!

God Bless,

Kirk

PS-We had both Ben & Grace dedicated at church on Sunday. It was the best Mother's day gift. This is a family picture from that morning at church.

Please Pray For Us!

Today will be our first day without TV?!?! We have decided to give it a try. We aren't a family that watches much TV, but we do have our couple of programs that we enjoy watching. We just want to spend more time together and in the Word. It is also a cost we can do without. I hope you all have a blessed week!

Regards,

The Robbins Nest

Getting our Ducks in a Row

A few of the many ducks we came home with

This past weekend, wii attended our first (of what wii expect will be many, many) national Hemophilia conference. It just so happened to be in Little Rock, so wii packed up and made the trip south for a few days of....well, to put it mildly....information overload!

The conference was at the Peabody Hotel, where wii stayed. Wii met tons of other families effected by bleeding disorders and lots and lots of drug, pharmaceutical and home health care companies, all vying for our business. We're dead tired (physically and mentally) so I'll keep this post short with just a few highlights:

• Experiencing "The March of the Peabody Ducks."


• Reconnecting with a girl I knew growing up from all those summers at Hemophilia camp.


• Watching and laughing as we found Grace successfully slurping grits through a straw.


• Learning new research & development of longer acting Factor VIII products for Hemophilia A Treatment.


• Eating at a little pizza joint in the River Market District with awesome pizza and $1.89 pint drafts!


• Being acutely reminded of how BLESSED we are to have such wonderful insurance
  
• Oh yeah, and if you didn't catch on already, I should mention our biggest highlight was that we won a Wii (and 5 games) in a raffle drawing!!!