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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Family Fun

School is officially back in session (bummer!), but we are on the last year homestretch and the end is in sight!!  We can survive one more year, right?  Well in order to do so, we’ve been trying to fit in as much family time as possible to keep us sane, and we’ve had a lot of fun!  One weekend we went to Fern Ridge reservoir and the girls had a great time swimming with their dad.  That is another thing I can’t believe we didn’t discover until now!  All this time we have been living 15 minutes away from a beautiful lake with awesome playgrounds, campsites and swimming/boating opportunities and we had no idea.  Guess we’re going to have to make up for lost time now!  We also went to a Eugene Emeralds baseball game.  My work was giving away free tickets to employees so I signed up and we took the girls to the ballpark!  We ended up not making it till nearly the 8th inning, but it was still really fun to be there.  (And to be honest, I don’t know how long the girls would have lasted anyway.)  Other than that, we have just been enjoying family time at home and getting together with great friends.  Life is really busy with Nate going to school full-time and continuing to work for the law firm part-time. He continues to serve on the Moot Court board & is the tutor for the first year’s Torts class.  Since coming home from our Lake Powell trip, I’ve been working 3-4 days a week covering a nurse’s maternity leave and the girls have been rotating between daycare & their friends’ house while I’m gone.  They’ve been unbelievably patient with all the bouncing around and, as always, are so easy going.  I think working has been harder on me, as I hate leaving the girls so much and am still learning how to balance work, managing all my duties as a wife & mom at home and trying to spend quality time with the girls.  I also got called to be the first counselor in the Primary presidency which has been fun, but occasionally time-consuming. Thankfully Nate has been super supportive even though he is overwhelmed with things to do himself.  Our lives are crazy right now, but we’re trying to keep our priorities in balance hopefully we’ll be able to get through it!  Wish us luck!

The girls in their weekly game of tea-party in the hamper-turned-fort while I sort laundry :)
 Great friends Logan & Keadon
 Swimming at Fern Ridge (Yeah, they were topless) :)

 Sage slept through the baseball game...all 30 minutes that we made of it!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Blackberry heaven!

I have a new-found love in Eugene…blackberry picking!  Blackberries grow wild here and I have just recently been introduced to the fantastic opportunity of picking them.  Where has this been for the past 2 years we’ve been here?!!  My great friend Teresa took me to a huge field near Mt. Pisgah where blackberry bushes are in abundance.  We spent a couple hours one afternoon & I got a bucketful of delicious, free fruit.  After that I was hooked!  The next Sunday afternoon we went as a family with our good friends, the Johnsons & brought home another load of deliciousness.  The kids had a great time, although I think they all ate as many berries as got put in our buckets.  Nate didn’t have a bucket, so while I was on the other side of the bush with ours, he started using his shirt to load up the berries.  Sage saw this fine example and followed right along…except that she put the berries down her shirt where they got lovingly smashed against her tummy.  :)  Her skin was literally dyed purple for a few days…not to mention her shirt!  Kenna did a great job picking, although she came away with quite the battle wounds.  The one downside of blackberry picking is that the bushes are mean!  They are thorn-laden and of course the best berries are on the inside so you have to sacrifice your arm to the thorns to get them.  Both girls came home with giant scratches all over their legs and arms, but of course never a complaint.  We all had a really fun time!  When we got home, we washed and froze them and are now enjoying endless blackberry shakes, fruit parfaits & cereal with blackberries.  Now I want to get more to make some jam.  This could get addicting…





Sunday, August 21, 2011

A Very Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday Nate and I celebrated our sixth anniversary!  This year was especially awesome because it fell on a Saturday – that way we were able to spend the whole day just being together.  In the morning we took the girls to Lone Pine Farms and had a great time.  Then we came home & our sweet neighbor came over to watch the girls just before nap time.  We put them down and were able to head out early for a long date with shopping, eating and going to see X-Men First Class (which we both really liked!).  When we got home the girls were just about ready for bed again and then we had the whole evening to spend together.  What a perfect day!

Anniversaries are always a perfect time for me to reflect back on what our years of married life have brought and the adventures we have been through together.  Overall I can say we have had it pretty dang good!!  We have been blessed in so many ways and Nate has made my life so much more fulfilling.  He is the most wonderful husband and father I could have hoped for and I am so thankful for him.  He makes me smile like no one else can, is supportive of all I do and works so hard for our family.  He loves his girls and makes us his number one priority, which means the world to me.  I am so grateful to be married to my very best friend.  I love you Nate!

Feeding the goats at the farm - the girls love it!



 Our farm fresh produce haul

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pictures!!

While we were in Utah, I took advantage of being close to my friend and amazing photographer, Jennifer, and had the girls’ pictures taken.  My mother-in-law, Susan offered to come with me to help out so we decided to make a date out of it!  We invited my sister-in-law Nicole & decided to get ‘Wolfley women’ pictures taken, too!  The night before, Nicole ran with me to a couple stores to find a cute headband for Sage to wear.  One of our stops was Kohl’s where we didn’t find a headband, but we did make an unplanned purchase of matching shirts for the 3 of us adults! :)  We were running out of the store when Nicole stopped & said, “Ooh, these shirts are cute…and look, they have them in 3 colors!”  We ended up trying them on right there over our shirts & then bought them.  Susan was a little surprised when we came home & said ‘here’s what you’re wearing tomorrow’!  Overall, the photo shoot was not especially successful.  Jennifer is a very talented photographer, but there is only so much you can do with goofy little girls!  Kenna was constantly doing cheesy smiles, putting her hands in her mouth, lifting up her skirt or shirt, looking around and basically doing anything but smiling nicely for the camera.  What a turkey!  Sage was pretty good, but just distracted and no amount of treats or bribery seemed to help.  It was an adventure.  Thank goodness we had 4 adults there to help out…and it was still rough!  I can only hope this phase passes quickly!  The pictures ended up turning out pretty cute despite of the lack of cooperation.  She definitely captured some of the goofiness, but luckily a couple turned out great.  Here they are!

Sage 21 months


 Makenna 3 years


 My girls!






 The Wolfley Women :)



Monday, August 15, 2011

Summer Craziness!

Am I allowed to blame my serious lack of blogging to a seriously busy summer?!  Holy Cow, where did the summer go?  Nate starts school again a week from today and it is a very sad realization.  (Although I can't be too bummed because we have an awesome trip planned for Labor Day weekend!  Gotta always have something to look forward to!)  Anyway, because it is probably going to take me weeks to get caught up, I thought I'd just start with the pictures.  My thoughts will be soon to follow (hopefully!).  In my defense, I have to say I haven't been totally slacking on the blogging - I finally finished and printed my 2010 family blog book (which I LOVE!).  However, I started my blog in May 2010, and so that I would have the entire year in our book, I back blogged January-May.  See, I've been working hard! :)  Anyway, for those few of you that actually read our humble little blog (our Moms & Dads!), here are pictures from the past 2 months.  Enjoy...there are A LOT of them!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Softball Goodness


This summer Nate has been playing on a City Rec softball team made up of a bunch of guys from our ward.  He has had a great time and they ended up doing really well. They played just about every Monday and it was a perfect opportunity for Nate to release his pent-up energy from the “Monday work grind”.  The girls and I tried to go to as many games as possible to watch Nate, but unfortunately a lot of them were played after bedtime.  At the few games we were able to go to, the kids had a fantastic time watching their dads & playing together, and I enjoyed hanging out with the other wives (and of course watch my studly husband)!  All around good family fun!







Monday, August 8, 2011

The big 2-8!

Happy 28th Birthday to this handsome guy


We LOVE you! 

-your girls :)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Camping at the Coast


This weekend we went on our first real camping trip as a family!  We went with our great friends the Stockdale's to a campground in Florence, just off the coast.  It was a little bit chilly, but we had a great time exploring the campground and playing on the beach.  The girls did great sleeping in the tent (I was a little nervous!) and had a really fun time roasting marshmallows over the fire (I think that was their favorite part!).  We stayed two nights & had a great time.  It was a perfect camping trial – now we’re definitely ready to do it again!!