So, obviously, I’m more than a little behind on blogging. Life has been totally crazy for quite sometime now– that being said, my fabulous Kaden turned 8 at the end of June… Eight is great!!!

Kaden Douglas Woltje, born June 27, 2003

Three of the most important men in my life.

Getting stronger!

Hanging out with big brother

Such beautiful blue eyes

Cruzin' around in my automobile... brother beside me at the wheel!

Lovin' summer

My beautiful baby

Cutest cowboys in the West!

Grandpa Woltje's solution to droopy drawers-- bungee cord suspenders!

Such a cutie!

Happy Easter!!!

A little spit never hurt anyone!!!

Blue Ribbon Boy!

Lovin' on Baby Bridget

Pedaling his heart out!

Still lovin' on Bridget!

Beautiful smile!!

Being goofy!

Jedi Master Kaden

Ready for school-- first day!

Renyer's Pumpkin Patch

A Frightfully Happy Halloween!

Love you so much, Kaden!!! You light up my life!!!

Day 22: A beautiful Sunday afternoon, with my beautiful family! What better day for a cook out and what better dessert than Strawberry Shortcake? Such a great day– full of love, blessings, and– now– memories!

Day 23: The Pajama Crew! Monday mornings bring groggy children to my house! A little cuddle time and few cartoons go a long way to starting a great day!

Day 24: Warm and sunny… great day to play outside! Such a day calls for a special treat– POPSICLES!!!!

Day 25: A great husband knows a great way to start my day: a sausage/egg/cheese sammich and an iced coffee– oh yeah! Gonna be a great day!!!

Day 26: Look at that precious angel! I am so blessed. I love watching children sleep. There is such an innocence on their faces whilst they slumber!

Day 27: Rain, rain, go away…. and don’t come back too soon, ’cause prom is this weekend!!!!

Day 28: I remember being 17 and getting ready for my first prom. Feeling like a princess and not quite recognizing myself in the mirror. This beautiful girl is my niece, Michaela Christina Haverkamp. I was 12 when she was born and am having more than a little trouble with the fact that she is growing up so fast. This girl is amazing. She is wonderful with children, who seemed to be drawn to her on an instinctive level. She is responsible and trustworthy. She is true friend through-and-through. I could continue to list her attributes, but my recitation would never come to an end. This girl is part of my heart and I pray God blesses her in all she does throughout her life!

A month has come and gone since my 29th birthday. Hard to believe. Much has happened and much hasn’t. Time has passed quickly and yet gone slowly. Life is an amazing gift from God. In the end, I hope to look back over my life and see that I have used my gift wisely.

Well, there’s really nothing better than a walk on Sunday evening with the family, especially when the weather is absolutely perfect. ‘Course, this was right be for some MAJOR thunderstorms rolled through! We let the kids pick what directions we were going, and that direction was usually determined by what blocks had retaining walls beside the sidewalks! Fun times!

First Monday of the month??? That can only mean it’s time for a 4-H meeting! The boys are very excited about their first year in 4-H. They are taking market pigs and dairy this year. We are starting small with such busy schedules…

Believe it or not, Kaden was the winner of our home March Madness contest. He was very excited since he was actually lagging a little behind Noah and Jason early on in the competition. I was so proud of him!!!

Great weather equals happy kiddos– here are two of my favorite girls just before we headed outside to enjoy the great day! My very own Bridgeridoo and Miss Kinley, one of the daycare kiddos!

When you’re smilin’…. When you’re smilin’, the whole world’s smilin’, too… Kaden’s Spring Music Concert was made up of songs inspired by books. It was a great evening and Kaden did a phenomenal job playing the mallets!

I love spring time! These daffodils were cheering up my backyard a couple weeks ago.

My little girlies! Mariah and Bridget were very excited to go to the Kansas Koyotes game, but not because they wanted to watch football… the highlight of their evening was watching the Koyote Girls dance at halftime!!!

What a great week! I am feeling so blessed lately. I think it’s just a new awareness– viewing the world with my spiritual-eyes wide open!!! Have a great one, Ladies and Gents!!!

The Woltje house is a house divided. Jason is a KU fan, and I am K-State. We have let the children choose their allegiance to whichever school they prefer. Noah cheers for KU during basketball season and K-State during football season. Kaden cheers for K-State whole-heartedly and the girls still vacillate between the two. March Madness has brought our differing opinions to the forefront. I snapped this picture on Sunday morning (before KU lost to VCU). Noah, Mariah and Bridget were marching around the house chanting ‘Rockchalk Jayhawk’, while Kaden was sitting on the stairs plugging his ears!

I started couponing last fall as a means to save on our grocery bill– and, boy, have we saved! But every good couponer has to have the right tools… coupon binder, stacks of coupons, scissors, calculator, etc. and the NUMBER ONE couponing tool, you may ask yourself???? Dr. Pepper, of course!!!!

On Tuesday, I took the girls to their dentist appointment. This picture is very deceptive. It makes it look like Bridget is laying still– she wasn’t!!! In fact, the hygienist wouldn’t do the fluoride treatment on Bridget because she kept sticking her tongue in the way. Both girls got new toothbrushes and had their pictures put on the ‘Perfect Check-up’ wall!

Noah brought home a baby cabbage this week. When it is mature, we’re supposed to take a picture of him with his cabbage and weigh it. I’m thinking it’s a contest of some sort… I have never weighed a cabbage before.

Poor Mariah! It’s so hard to listen when you are five, but a lot less owie’s occur when you do! This one was from climbing out from under a metal shelf up at Daddy’s shop… Yowch!

Awwww… grocery shopping. Not one of my favorite tasks, BUT couponing has made grocery shopping much more fun. After all, I NEVER would have come home with this much food in one trip and not spent over my budget it the past!

SOCCER SEASON!!!! Saturday was our first set of soccer games. Kaden’s team tied 1-1 (Kaden was in as goalie when the other team’s one was scored.); Noah’s team lost 2-1 (Noah played goalie for half the game and no goals were scored on him.); and Mariah’s team won 8-1… as Mariah said, “Our team scored EIGHT goals! I got a lot of them…” I do have to thank God for the gorgeous weather for Opening Saturday– we have been to MANY and soccer game in early April and frozen our bippees off! Thank You, Lord– it was very nice of You to give us such a great day!!!

We just celebrated Noah’s 9th birthday last week. He was actually due to be born on April 1st… I have always said that Noah’s first April Fool’s joke was to be born 10 days early!!! Here’s a few snapshots of my dear boy through the years….

I decided several weeks ago that I wanted to do Project 3-6-5. After all, I may not have time for scrapbooking, but surely I can snap a picture everyday. I thought it would be neat to use the last year of my 20′s as my project beginning/end. I’m posting daily on facebook and thought I would post a weekly blog. On fb, every picture has a short caption. I thought I would include a few more details in my blog… so here goes!

I have to admit that this is one of the most creative birthday presents I have received in a while. Our dear friends, Clifford and Dawna gifted me with a large quantity of my favorite beverage. I had been warned that if I didn’t supply them with any good gift ideas that something like this might happen!

For those of you who do not realize it, Noah’s birthday is the day after mine. He turned 9 this year and is the proud owner of a 24″ mountain bike (among other things). It was absolutely gorgeous outside on his birthday, so I guess it was the perfect gift for the perfect day!

Soccer practice also kicked off this week. Our three oldest love to play the sport. Here is Mariah taking a breather after a three-on-three scrimmage during her first practice. Great day, but very windy!

You have just been given access to a little behind-the-scenes (or counter) tour at Distinctly Digital of Kansas (Northeast Kansas’ premier computer repair shop! Yes, we are VERY busy these days. I count seven computers in this pic that were in for repair and the counter on the opposite wall looked pretty much the same!

Well, it’s been a very busy week. And unfortunately, busy weeks don’t always end in healthy meals. Case-in-point, the kids’ dinner consisted of Totino’s pizza and chips… I think this was Thursday night. They were hungry and tired and so supper was about a ten minute affair and off to bed they went!

Mmmm… a Hot-Water Chocolate Cake! Family fave! I made it to take to my Grandpa Hug’s 90th birthday celebration. It was a wonderful afternoon of chatting with family and eating yummy food! Happy Birthday, Grandpa!!!!

And what Saturday would be complete without a trip to pick out 4-H pigs?! Kaden is a little skittish of Oreo, his Hampshire market pig, but I think they’ll be best buds soon! Noah didn’t get to go with us, but we picked out a nice Crossbred for him… it has yet to be named.

Well, that is a synopsis of the first week of my 29th year of life. Tune-in next week for the installment of ‘Week 2′… I know, this stuff is riveting!

For Kansas’ 150th Birthday, I decided to feed the daycare kids sunflowers for snack… okay, not really. But I think you can see where the idea came from! FYI, all you need is one package of twinkies and a dingdong to make this sunflower cake. I embellished it with yellow frosting and chocolate chips, but you wouldn’t have to. It sure was yummy!

The kids thought it was yummy, too! Here they are wishing Kansas a ‘Happy Birthday!’

We used our January snow days as an excuse to put our Christmas presents to really good use! Here are the boys playing air hockey.

The girls had their own game, but the boys have a hard time playing spectator– they each had some advice for their sisters!

Afternoon was movie time. I think we watched ‘The Christmas Carol’ that day… Jim Carrey is an awesome actor!

A couple days later the daycare kids got in on the action– I think those table top air hockey and fooseball games were about the best $12 bucks I’ve ever spent!!!

I will be the first to admit that I do set goals at the outset of each new year. I don’t really consider them ‘resolutions’, but more to be guidelines for my life as I live another year. I like to look at the previous year and evaluate– ‘yes, I’m glad we did that’ or ‘no, what in the world were we thinking?!’. I also consider all the blessings for the previous year– this past year’s are too many to count!

So as the new year dawns, I have set the following goals…. I want to continue to walk closely with Christ, specifically, even on the busiest day, I want to fit my life into Christ and not the other way around! I want to continue in my fitness journey… it seems that each year, I get a little closer to my goals– and ultimately my goal is not a waist measurement or a number on the scale. I want to be the healthiest wife I can be, the healthiest mother, the healthiest friend, and above all, the healthiest me to serve God. Those are my two major goals for the year, but….

I do hope we complete our house remodel, finish paying off our consumer debt, take a little more time to relax…. Are these realistic expectations? I don’t know. I’ve never been known for being realistic!!! But I do know that all things are possible through Christ, so my thought is…. heaven’s the limit!

A few of my blessings…

Day 21: The earliest evidence of celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25 is found in the year 354 in Rome. It was only later that the December 25 celebration was adopted in the East, with the exception of Armenia, where his birth is celebrated on January 6.

Day 22: Of the four gospels, only Matthew and Luke give accounts of Jesus’ genealogy. It has been traditional to assume that Luke’s genealogy traces through Mary and Matthew’s through Joseph since at least 1490.

Day 23: Melchoir, Caspar, and Balthasar are traditional held as the names of the three Wise Men. These names apparently derive from a Greek manuscript probably composed in Alexandria around 500 A.D., and which has been translated into Latin with the title Excerpta Latina Barbari.

Day 24: In the 15th century England, it was recorded it was the custom at Christmas for houses and parish churches to be “decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green”. The heart-shaped leaves of ivy symbolized the coming of Jesus, holly was seen as protection against pagans & witches, its thorns & red berries represented the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus at the crucifixion.

Day 25: “So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”

Merry Christmas to you all!!