Earth to Planet Stanek????

Wow where have we been??? To quote a favorite movie of ours "Lovin' life 24/7" (anybody seen Elizabeth Town?) Heres a brief summary of our lives over the last few months.

We have had quite a year so far. Lets see where to begin. The beginning of the year was rough no work, no real security in where our lives were heading. Lots and lots of prayers later I began working full time as a CNA at Valley View Estates a local long term care facility and have learned so much there. Joe switched gears for the first time in our marriage and became a stay at home dad for a couple months. He took on the many roles of playmate, chef, housekeeper, and errand runner. I experienced the pressure of providing for a family and knowing what I made never seemed to be quite enough. What a tremedous blessing that has been to our family. We have literally been able to walk in eachothers shoes and been able to appreciate eachother so much more. That is an understatement. We went on our first family vacation to The Museum of the rockies AKA "The Dinosaur Museum" as a reward to Savannah for finally mastering that potty training!!! What a big girl! And then in May we went to Washington to visit the Sagan's (our wonderful friends that moved away) for three days and they showed us the ropes. Somewhere in there Joe started working nights stocking shelves at Super 1 Foods a grocery store in Hamilton. Practically the same week he started there in April we got all kinds of calls for masonry work. Feast or famine right? SO he suddenly had a very busy schedule. I cut back on hours a little and he worked everyother night stocking shelves and every week day doing masonry. He slept every couple days. I'm not exaggerating. We did that for the entire summer. I worked 6 days a week (still do) mondays off and tue-friday 5-9pm and weekends 2-10pm. On week days we'd pass eachother on the way out the door give a quick hug and kiss and then be off to either work or child rearing. I know! It sounds crazy doesn't it. Joe turned 28 so we celebrated by doing kid stuff and spent the day at Qwivals (an amusement park) then I turned 26 and he orchestrated a surprise BBQ for me and gave me a bike for my B-day. Around the spring sometime we planted a garden and named it a successful learning experience. We finally bit the bullet and started that food storage. We ripped out the ugly juniper bushes in front of our house, and we got a puppy named Nitro. Joe impressed us all by pulling off a "Tour of Homes" home on little sleep and made it through smiling. Chase has a love for eating food off the floor or off of his sisters bed (see picture). Savannah is learning her letters, and is full of imagination. Chase is beginning to talk and among his first words used to communicate are eat "eeeh" and hungry "uuhry". Hes is really good at saying no and giving his sister advance notice before he retaliates physically by saying "owie" before he pulls her hair. That one makes me laugh so hard and I really need to hold it in. We went to 2 parades, braved the roller coaster at the fair and caught a chicken. Savannah had a Cinderella birthday party complete with a Cinderella cake (courtesy of our local Baker and cake maker Grandma Stanek). The cake was such a big deal to Savannah we planned the party around it. She talked about it for 2 months previous to the big day.

That pretty well brings you up to date I think.

Its been pretty nuts but I think we lived life to the fullest and enjoyed almost every minute of it.