Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Luke!

We love you to pieces and are so blessed to have your calm, loving, energetic, and creative presence with us each and every day!

Thanks for teaching us to sit back and enjoy each day!

Thanks for all your love, cuddles, kisses and hugs!

Thanks for taking the time to teach us about lots of different things. We love your wisdom and knowledge!

Thank you for your gentleness and teaching us to love others before ourselves!

Buddies!

While G is off at Camp Forest Springs for the week, I thought it would be nice if B could get some one on one time with his parents since he is the middle child and doesn't always get that one on one attention. So the P dropped off G at Camp, K here with us and B got to spend some quality time with his parents for a few days!

We have been enjoying K's never ending 'Why' questions, his unwavering patience with his younger cousin Traeger, and his sweet manners. We have spent some time playing at home or should I say fighting at home :O). This time has been a crash course on sharing with others for Traeger. K doesn't go home after 3 hours like his other friends. Monday I was ready to send K back home since Traeger wasn't doing well sharing. I knew that wasn't the answer but whew, one can only handle so much whining and fighting over silly toys. As the days have gone on it's gotten better and we pray that these two will be best buddies over the years.

They enjoyed reading stories together!

We walked down to the river so the boys could see the ducks and play with rocks and sticks!

Buddies.

K- 3 years old Traeger- 2 years old

We drove to the city park to enjoy the beautiful day!

Ataly enjoying the park from her car seat. Soon enough she will be getting in on the action!

Here they are after they finished taking a shower together. Gotta love those smiles!

3 months old!

Ataly at 3 months old - - - - - - - - - - - Traeger at 3 months old

We are so grateful for our sweet Miss Ataly!

She is a laid back girl who likes to "talk" loud to let us know she's around. She's still a great sleeper and an efficient eater! She still has a full head of hair, and it's growing longer (which we love)! When her parents take the time to put her on her tummy, she does well :O). She has found her hands and just the other day noticed her feet! I just love these developmental stages. So innocent, and they just happen. God's creation is amazing! She'll hold a rattle without really realizing it. She is so generous with her smiles and shares her giggles with us too! We love her to pieces and thank God for her everyday!

Ataly's Dedication!

We have been meeting with a small group for about a year and a half. We have made a special connection with them on many levels, one of those being parenthood! Since we have been meeting, we have added 4 new little ones. We decided it would be a special time to dedicate them to our Lord on Father's Day! We committed ourselves as parents to raise our children in a way that honors and brings glory to the Lord. Our prayer is that we would support and love one another and our children with Christ's love and that one day they would choose to call upon the Lord for their salvation and desire to follow Him above all else!!

We are on the far left with Ataly, the Arndts with Finley, the Smiths with Truman, and the Huffmans with Hudson!

Luke and I with Ataly!

Daily we pray that God would live and love through us, that His love would shine and that the kids would feel His indescribible grace.

Hey, hey - the gang's all here!

Ataly was dedicated on Sunday, so the whole gang came in to celebrate! We had my mom and Grandma Jo here Friday night. The Patricks came in on Saturday afternoon and Luke's parents arrived Saturday night! We felt so loved and blessed that everyone chose to come help us celebrate.

Traeger and Grandma Jo reading stories together!

.

The whole gang at Happy Joes!

.

.

.

The boys watching Sunday morning cartoons!

.

.

.

Nonnie just loves her cuddle time with Ataly!

.

.

.

Grandpa and Nana with the kiddos before we were off to church on Sunday!

Contagious!

We find Ataly's smile to be so contagious!

Push-Ups!

Most mornings Luke does push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks.
Traeger's idea of exercising with his dad looks like this...

Car time

Playing 'drums' is one of the ways Traeger passes the time in the car. All he needs is 2 pens and a storage container to keep the beat with the music! He came up with it all on his own. We marvel at his creativity!

Anniversary Getaway!

Luke was asked to speak at Life Promotions biggest fundraiser of the year on Monday night. So we headed south, dropped Traeger off at my parents and then the three of us (we took Ataly with us since I'm still nursing her) were off to the country club where Luke was speaking. It was a delicous dinner and Luke did a fabulous job speaking and encouraging Bob, noting his gifts and the ministries at Life. They put us up in the Paper Valley Hotel for the night. The next day we were able to sleep in until 10 a.m. For anyone who knows Luke and I that was a special treat because we love our sleep :O). Haven't been able to do that for way too long. We took our time getting ready, had a lovely lunch together, enjoyed being outside together while Luke golfed 18, did a little shopping and then it was time to meet my parents to pick up Traeger. We decided next time it needs to be 2 overnights. One overnight was way too short, but we were thankful for the time we had.

At the Life Promotions fundraiser event where Luke spoke.

.

The three of us enjoying the gorgeous day God blessed us golfing 18.

As you can see Traeger didn't miss us much while we were away! He had a blast with Nonnie and Grandpa. Thanks Nonnie and Grandpa for taking the time to love on Traeger so we could get away.

We picked Traeger up and enjoyed supper together. Grandma Jo joined us too!

Reading together!

I love when I walk into a room and this is what I find!

Celebrating 6 years of marriage!

On June 8, Luke and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary! We celebrated in style with Luke working, playing with the kiddos, playing together in the church softball league, dining with the team at one of Medford's finest, "Hardees", and watching the basketball play-off game with Brian Wipf. How romantic, I know :O)?! We were good with celebrating this way ON our anniversary because we knew on Monday we were off for a little anniversary get-away in the Fox Valley!

It has been a wild, fun, challenging and satisfying 6 years together! I praise God daily for blessing me with an amazing man who loves the Lord, a fun, optimistic and adventursome husband who doesn't allow any two days to be the same or dull, and a loving father for our children.

We have done so much in 6 years.....

tied the knot--- June 8th, 2002

Luke graduated from Concordia University and we were off to TX for seminary

we were live-in nannies together for our sweet Miss Elena and Mar'Sue for 3 years while Luke attended grad school

we've traveled and experienced lots of fun adventures together (in Mexico here)

had our first son--Traeger Jace Hatfield

became a Pastor and Pastor's wife together

and have the priveledge to love on the kids in Medford and surrounding areas

(pictured on a mission trip to South Dakota).

became a family of 4

welcomed our second child and daughter-- Ataly Raen Hatfield

and ultimately are on this journey of being followers of Jesus Christ together and desiring for our lives to bring honor to Him.

Praying that we will be able to experience many more blessings and fun times together and walk through the tough times hand in hand and on our knees trusting God to lead on!

Special moments!

I just love Ataly's little body, all that dark hair, the soft rolls, and the special moments to cuddle with her.

We love her to pieces!

Playin' ball!

Traeger was all serious when it came to playin' ball in the kitchen the other night. He put his daddy's hat on past his eyes, had the 'bat' up by his shoulder and hit a few balls that Luke pitched to him (we wondered how he could still hit the ball with his hat being so low but he somehow managed ) . Fun times in the day of the life of a 2 year old boy!

This clearly wasn't one of the times he connected with the ball :O) Good try though. Gotta keep those eyes on the ball!

Meeting of the minds!

Last week Thursday, Bryan, a student from the high school, stayed at our house because his parents were out of town. We enjoyed spending some time with Bryan, and he got to join us on our date night since it was Thursday night and we already had an evening planned before his parents asked if he could stay with us. Instead of ditching our plan, we all went to the Indiana Jones movie, and then when we got home he finished up on a final project for school. Luke and Bryan were collaborating on the best way to execute the project!

Dinner and Puppies!

We had our friends, Chelsea and Jeremy, over for supper and then we went over to their house so Traeger could see their new puppies!

Pretty girls!

As soon as we got out of the van the puppies came running over.

Traeger would run and then the puppies would chase after him. He thought that was a pretty fun game!

Traeger checking out the puppies while they were eating from their mommy and not jumping all over him!

ABC

Traeger is doing such a great job learning his alphabet and mostly by his own initiative. We have a Brainy Baby video that got him started on learning the letters. One day he just started saying some letters and we knew we hadn't been working on it with him, so we traced it back to the Brainy Baby video. He started saying a few letters on his own and then for his birthday we got him an alphabet puzzle. He will pick up a letter, say the letter and then put it with the corresponding picture. He gets E and F / X and K / V and Y mixed up sometimes. We are loving watching his mind go to work. We are so proud of our Traeger!

Our little musician!

The guitar and microphone are new birthday presents. He has added them to his "drum set" that consists of a drum, baseball bat (for stick), and an abc learning box. Gotta love the creativity of a 2 year old!

Play-doh time!

We've entered into the world of play-doh, thanks to Traeger's friend, Simon! Simon thought his buddy Traeger needed some play-doh for his birthday. I wasn't sure if I was ready for that 'mess' to enter into our home, but it's really not that bad! Traeger does such a good job keeping it on the tray for the most part and it keeps his attention for quite some time. As you can tell he is really into it!

Grandpa and Nonnie visit!

Grandpa and Nonnie missed the kiddos and wanted to spend a little time with them. So they made the trek north and spent Saturday afternoon into Sunday!

It was so beautiful Saturday afternoon, so we walked to Subway and ate outside. I just love special days like this!

Traeger loves being read to! Nonnie reading bible stories before bedtime!