I was so thrilled to have a space of my own to decorate for Christmas this year that I thought I'd post some pictures from decorating day for you guys.

Enjoy!

Holidays are the best

And here I am again - two months have gone by without a post...

Woops.

Anyways, nothing super exciting happened to us between the last post and this one - just working, living, and growing.

But lately things have started to get very exciting because if the upcoming holidays. Last year the holidays were sort of clouded over with the pending arrival of our little bundle of joy, so this year we really get to focus on the reason for the season and just be thankful and joyful that we are where we are and that we have a very happy little family.

Now for each of our updates:

Jack: He can walk! Now - I say he can walk because he can - we have him on video taking a few wobbly steps across the room. But most of the time he just chooses not to. Crawling, afterall, is simply easier. I haven't gotten him to take any steps for a couple of days now, but we're going to keep trying. He's also doing this very funny thing of trying to imitate words that we say. So far he can "say" "Poopy" ("peeeee"), "It's hot" ("ssss haaaa"), "Book" ("boo") and "Laura" ("lelelelaaaah"). The big news, though, is that we're preparing for his first birthday party in about 2.5 weeks! I can't believe that he'll be 1. Crazy how fast time goes.

Lisa: No real big news for me. I've been sick for the past week, and am actually looking forward to going to work this afternoon. Tomorrow we get to take dinner over to a friends' house that had a baby last week. I am SO excited to meet this little guy! Sometimes I think that I missed my calling to be a OB nurse - the whole pregnancy/birth process absolutely astounds and fascinates me and I always get so excited when another friend is expecting (there's going to be another small group baby in April!!) Besides being sick and loving babies, my main focus at the moment is getting all of our holiday plans made and Christmas shopping done. I am super excited about Christmas this year - Jack's first Christmas that he'll be big enough to open his presents. Can't wait :)

Tim: No real big news for Tim, either. We've been really thinking and praying hard about his going to seminary in January, and I think that it's going to work out. It will be very good for him I think because he's been kind of "stuck" in the doldrums that is State Farm for awhile now and could really use a good refresher on the bigger issues of life and faith. I'm very excited for him. But we could definitely use your prayers as he struggles to find satisfaction in his current job.

Well that's about it for us - like I said, just working, living, and growing. But loving every minute of this life together.

Til next time -

P.S. - The picture is of our little JACK -o-Lantern on Halloween. We had a great time!

We're moved!

Well, we moved into our townhome on August 1st, and we are loving every bit of living here! Having an upstairs and a basement, a fireplace, a back patio, and our very own washer and dryer is awesome! I really feel like we have a "home" now. I'm in the process of hanging things on the walls and really putting a personal touch on the decor, and it's a lot of fun.

Jack is loving the fact that he is finally able to get around! He is crawling like a mad man, up the stairs, into the fireplace, behind the couches, under the computer desk, and all sorts of other places he isn't supposed to go. One of his favorite things to do right now is crawl over to the back sliding doors in the kitchen and shake around the vertical blinds that are hanging on it. Hey - it's the simple things in life, right?

I am really getting into my job at Eastview. With more experience comes more confidence, so I am feeling more and more confident in what I do every day. I am learning so much about what it takes to be a missionary and go on the field both for the long term and the short term. It is not for the faint of heart!!! I am able to interact with awesome, awesome people all over the world on a daily basis, and for that I consider myself lucky. I am always kept busy and am making some really good friends, too. All in all, I am 100% glad that I took this job. Praise God for making my job decision so clear!

Tim is still at State Farm, and is still in the Quote and Bind department. We're crossing our fingers that he is able to post out for a different position within State Farm, and transfer out of Quote and Bind. He is very good at the job, but (understandably!) it is just not even close to what he wants to do with his life. So please pray with us about that!

I am really getting excited about the fall weather coming, because that means football games, sweatshirts, autumn leaves, and holidays!! As a matter of fact, I think I'll go get out my fall decorations right now :)

Happy fall!!

moving

Sorry, it's been a while since the last blog (assuming anyone is reading this), but here goes.

Lisa mentioned last time that we had a 90% chance of moving. Well, make it 100% because we are moving into a townhouse in TWO DAYS! I am so stoked to be moving into our own place, and we are so grateful to Lisa's parents for letting us live with them for 7 months to pay off a lot of debt. We're in a much better position financially than we were this time last year.

Other than that, not much has changed. Jack is continuing to grow and we are very proud of him. I'm still at State Farm and I'm planning (keep your fingers crossed) on taking a seminary class in the fall. Lisa is still at Eastview helping the church and bringing in extra income for our family.

I finally feel like we are just starting to get our feet on the ground after a long time of being up in the air.

Summertime

Well... July has begun, so I feel like I should put up an update with what is going on in the Stanek family.

I am finally starting to really get the hang of my job. Today I had someone ask me if I would "volunteer" to help do something for someone else, because they knew that if I was doing it, it would be done right. That felt good. Feeling confident at my job is helping me feel confident in other situations, too. I think that while I was staying home with Jack, for whatever reason, my confidence level was slowly on the decline. Confidence in what, you ask? Mostly just in everyday social situations where I have to interact with others that I may not know very well, or in things that I need to do that I haven't done before, etc. I didn't really have a problem with that until after I had been at home with Jack for about 3 months. I noticed that I was significantly more withdrawn than I used to be - probably getting a little too used to not having much daily interaction with people.

But regardless, working is good for me. Working part time is good for my family too, because we rarely have to find a babysitter for him, and we aren't losing the majority of my paycheck to child care costs. So all in all, I am very happy with my job.

Let's see... what else is new....

Jack just got his first tooth on June 30th! I thought the teething process would be a lot more "painful" (for me) than it was. Jack wasn't extra crabby or anything - the only thing I noticed was that he slept a bit more than usual, and even that could be attributed to his growth spurt. So it was quite a surprise when I put my finger in his mouth and felt a tiny sharp thing poking out of his gums!

He's also rolling around the floor from front to back and back to front, until all of a sudden he's all the way on the other side of the room! I think he will be crawling any day now.... That will be interesting - and very exciting, Jack is so ready to be able to get around!

In other news, there is a 90% chance that we will be moving into a townhouse in the beginning of August! We are super excited about that, but there's no lease or anything yet, so I'll give more details later on...

Happy 4th of July!

Happy First Anniversary to Us!

One year ago the Tim and Lisa Stanek family began!

This has been the best - and most eventful - year of my/our life, and we are having a ball.

Congratulations to us for one whole year of marital bliss! =)

furniture

Well, now that Lisa is working, we are looking seriously at places to live. We found a great townhouse close to our old apartment, that would be an awesome place to live. It has a fireplace, it's large, has a partially finished basement, etc, etc. We are also looking at a "luxury" aparment behind Buffalo Wild Wings. They call themselves luxury apartments, but I wasn't wowed. They are nice, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't use the word luxury to describe them.

We are also starting to look at furniture. We went to furniture row yesterday to look at head boards, coffee tables, and kitchen tables. We found a bunch of nice stuff that we really liked, but we are waiting to purchase them. While we were shopping, a sales guy made his sales pitch to us and kinda just stood there, waiting for me to break the silence. In a sales environment, the first person to break the silence typically loses. Well I wasn't going to break it, but my awesome wife said something like, "if you want to leave, you can, we may be a while." My hero.