Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday baby girl! Hard to believe that you are 4 years old today! How the time has just flown by! Before I know it you will be gone! I love you with the depths of my soul and I will thank God for you always! Thank you for being a ray of sunshine daily and always smiling :-)! Have a sweet 4th birthday and keeping shining!!!

The weather again.....

Garretson is dismissing at 1:30 today. It has been raining/sleeting most of the morning and doesn't seem very pleasant outside! Colby was suppose to have his kindergarten open house this afternoon but that got postponed due to the weather, so needless to say he was upset that we didn't get to go and tour the school! Why is it that this just doesn't seem right at this point of time? We are just days away from May 1st, this is just CRAZY!!!! I just want (and I know that my kids and husband will agree) this to be over with and it to finally be spring! WILL IT EVER COME????????? :-(

My baby

I can hardly believe that my BABY will turn 4 on Tuesday! I FINALLY went and had her pictures taken last Friday! They turned out so good! Here are
Keara's 4 year pictures! Be sure to enter Cathi Bottelberghe in the customer name field! I hope that you enjoy them as much as she enjoyed having her picture taken! She is really living up to her nickname Smiley, huh? Enjoy my little piece of Heaven here on Earth! :-)

D.A.R.E. Graduation

Briana graduated from her DARE program on Monday night! Hopefully she learned something from this valuable program and will live a drug-free/violence-free life! It was fun to watch her get up there and receive her certificate and all that! Enjoy!

Receiving her certificate and free t-shirt
Briana and Kara
Checking out the other girls' stuff

Comments

I have had some of you email me and ask me about leaving comments. All you have to do is click on the comment button at the bottom of the post and it will take you to the comment page. You don't need to sign up to leave a comment if you would like to leave a comment as anonymous that is okay also. Just go ahead and type in your comment, then click on publish your comment. That should be all that you would have to do! I would LOVE to hear from all of you! So go ahead leave your comments! I will be posting more tonight! Have some more stuff to share! Anyway....I do have a headache this afternoon so I am going to TRY and post more tonight! We will see how the head feels after dinner! Have a good night and if I don't post tonight I will again this week! Remember this is my 3 day work week! Tomorrow is fake Friday for me! YEAH!!!!! Blessings!

Cathi

Our day yesterday....

WOW! What a day we had yesterday! We got so much done outside that it was amazing! Today we attempted to get some more work done but it is just a smidge colder today than yesterday! Maybe it will warm up this afternoon but it is cold this morning! I have included some pictures as to the things that we did! We got the garden tilled up and set up(almost :), we still need to put the fencing up) and we started the landscaping around the house. The kids all pitched in and were great helpers! It turned out to be a very productive day! Tomorrow begins another week! Thankfully I only have a 3 day workweek (lucky me!!) I can't believe that April is almost over with, how fast the time has been flying by! Anyway...have a blessed Sunday!

Cathi

More pics from yesterday

3 years and counting!!!! :-)

Today I celebrate my 3 year anniversary since I was diagnosed with breast cancer! I can hardly believe that 3 years has passed by! I am amazed at the goodness of God and how it has all come together for me! Not only did I find myself but most of all I found Jesus through it all! I am counting my blessings and asking God to continue to grant me many more years here on earth, although to go home would be even greater than anything that could be given to me here on earth! Here is my prayer for today!

Father thank you so very much for the blessing of life you have given me today and everyday, I pray that you will grant me more here on earth and when it is time for me to come home to be with you forever I will come with open arms! Thank you for Your strength and Your grace each and every day! Amen!

Keep the faith loved ones, God is watching and helping us thru the battles! I love you all and am thankful each and every day for all of you who are in my life! Blessings!

Cathi

My chef's

The girls and I decided to make 2 more pans of homemade granola bars! The first batch yesterday turned out to be very delicious so we decided to make 2 more with differnet flavors! Yesterday's batch that I made was chocolate chip granola bars! Mikayla's batch was coconut granola bars and Briana's batch was peanut butter granola bars! They each measured and poured the ingredients into the bowl and I stirred it up for them! They were so happy to get to make something themselves! They turned out to be yummy also! We had them at snack! They are very simple to make and use many every day ingredients in our cupboards already! Click here to get the recipe! Enjoy! Have a blessed Sunday!

Cathi

Another quite night to myself!

It is just another Saturday night to myself again! What a day it has been with the kids and I! We did some cleaning, baking and just relaxing as much as we can! Keara is feeling a bit under the weather tonight and I am not sure what is going on with her! Her temp is slightly elevated but I am sure that come morning she will be fine! My goal tonight is to crawl into bed a little earlier than last night and relax either watching tv or reading from my bible. I am studying the book of Nehemiah with my Sunday School class at church. Also completing my study with a group of women on the book of Daniel, what a powerful book that is, and it just so happens that Daniel in the Lion's den is the theme tomorrow for children's church that I am doing with Briana for 2 & 3 year olds. Should be an interesting morning! Jason comes home tomorrow from his trip to Atlanta so hopefully he took some pictures that I will be able to post on my blog on Monday! He will arrive back home around 6pm. Hopefully his plane ride will be smooth as he really hates to fly. The children and I have been blanketing him in prayer all weekend so hopefully he will feel God's presence around him tomorrow morning!!! :0)
Okay it is now 9pm and time for me to sign off! Have a blessed Sunday! Love to you all!

Cathi

As I sit here at my computer tonight with nothing but peace and quiet in my house I reflect on life. I have been reading a blog over the past week that has made me cry but also rejoice at the work of the Lord in this family's life. When I get down on my knees at night with my own babies to pray, I lift this precious family up in prayer also. In reading their journey I feel like I know them. I encourage you to read this blog Bring the Rain It will move you as it has moved me in the last few days! Life is so precious, I try to cherish each moment that I have with my children and some days that is very hard for me. My walk with the Lord hasn't been for very long only just a couple of years but it has been powerful and moving to say the least! He is a very vivid part of my life. He is who I think of when I wake in the morning and He is who I think of before my eyes shut for the day and all the moments in between! He is my saving grace and I encourage all of you to find Jesus in your everyday life! He is there waiting with arms wide open! I suppose I should go off to bed now, my weekend is about to begin with no husband until Sunday evening, the children could prove to test me beyond my limits, but am hoping that is not the case! Have a wonderful weekend and may God bless you always!

Cathi

Crazy Weather!

Only in South Dakota it would seem! This is what our weather is doing! After raining most of the day, it was snowing by the time we got out of school! The roads were not so nice and the visibility was awful! I just hope that my dear husband got out of Minneapolis before the bad stuff hit there. I did see that his flight was delayed by about 20 minutes or so but will have beautiful weather there instead of what is going on here! I have included some pictures that I took shortly after we got home! You can hear the wind howling thru the windows and it just looks horrid out! I will be really surprised if we have school tomorrow :( !!!!! Enjoy? ;)

Cathi

Never ceases to amaze me.....

How fast time can really go by when your children are growing up! After much time sleeping on an air mattress and then on just a mattress on the floor, Colby finally has a big boy bed. It is not complete yet but will be when Jason returns from his trip! Colby was so excited to come home from church last night and see that his bed was moved into his room and ready for him to spend his first night in it! He is so funny sometimes! And he didn't even fall out of bed last night at all! Next it will be Keara to get a new bed and finally move out of the toddler bed stage! Then I will really know that my children are growing up way to fast!

Anyway.....it is time for me to get ready for work, they are calling for a blizzard around here starting tonight into tomorrow! Crazy I tell you what! It is April 10th for heaven's sake! I will post more soon! God bless you all!

Cathi

Crisis is over!

Okay I fixed it, I guess it needed to do it's thing and get the incline back down and then it ran fine. UGGGG!!!! Guess I am a handy "man" of sorts! Too late now for me to do my workout as we are going to be leaving for supper and clubs at church in about 20 minutes. By the time we will get home tonight it will be bedtime for me! Anyway....my crisis is over, thank heavens! Have a good evening!

Cathi

MidWeek Crisis!

Just when I get myself siked up to get on my treadmill and walk/jog, it doesn't work :-( I am not sure what is wrong with it but it sure does upset me as it took me all day to make myself ready for this part of my day (I really don't like to exercise). The last one on it was of course the soon to be teenager! I hope that she didn't do something to it! Hopefully DH will be able to fix it after church tonight! Perhaps I should go and run the gravel road in front of our house to get my exercise in AND my daily dose of sunshine as it is shining beautifully here!!!! That is worth a smile on my face! Onward ho.....I will let you know the outcome! Hopefully it will be all okay! Just another thing to "sweat" about (ha, ha no pun intended)! God bless you!

Cathi