The Stanzel’s

Sorry. No excuses but here are some pictures and video's at last!

We have been really enjoying seeing Ellie's personality more and more these days. Yesterday, she spilled some noodles on the floor then goes and gets the broom and dust pan and "cleans" up the mess then takes to dust pan (with nothing in it) over to the trash and dumps it in there. It was very funny and very cute. Then today I wanted to change her diaper and clothes before her cereal marathon (she eats like 2 bowls of cereal and it takes her at least a half an hour every day). She grabs my hand, make grunting noises and tries to pull me up. I was laughing too hard to resist so I followed her to the kitchen where she temporarily lets go of my hand to open the cupboard and get out the cereal. No, she does not have any independent or stubborn streaks whatsoever (and by the way, if she does she got those from her dad:)  One more cute thing. In Hungarian there is a little rhyme song you sing when you are swinging. Ellie can't say the words but she started humming the song by herself when she was swinging. Video to come later on that one. She also added the word apple to her vocabulary this week and got one big molar and is working on a second (no she still doesn't have all of her front teeth yet...weird). More pictures and videos to come.

Okay so we have had some interesting weather here these days. Last Sunday it was -9c (not warm, I think around 15 degrees f) especially for a Californian girl like me. My face was frozen about 5 seconds after we left the house and it was hard to breath. Then two days later I am wearing flip flops and a sweatshirt because now it is 14c (around 57). That's nice! I really hope it stays warm because Ellie is loving going to the park, and mom enjoys it too!

Yes, I can officially say it that after almost 15 months Ellie sleeps through the night- and oh is it nice! All of the sudden a few weeks ago she slept 7 hours straight and we said okay that's it, she is ready. With that there was no more nursing at night and she now sleeps from around 8pm until around 7am. It's glorious! And, I must say, looking back, I would do it again this way next time. There were no screaming nights, no letting her cry it out, nothing. We waited until she was ready and just like that she did it with out tears shed by any of us! I was so afraid we were going to have to use some method to train her to sleep but we didn't and we are so grateful!

Love, One Happy Family (for about 4 months until the new baby comes:)

Sorry its been a while. We have been hanging out with my family a lot and visiting with people. We visited our friends Chris & Annie and their two boys on Saturday. We spoke at my home church on Sunday and were really blessed to meet new people and old friends. We celebrated my nieces 2nd birthday by decorating cupcakes, eating pizza, and going to the children's museum.  On Monday night, we made Hungarian food for my family (11 adults and 2 kids). We made hus leves, rantot csirke, uborka salata, es rizs. (Sorry, no accents on this computer). It was fun and they all loved it. Last night, we shared at my mom's home group which was really cool because my old principal is the leader and my high school youth group leaders were there also. We are going down to Redlands to speak at Greg Opean's church on Sunday and then are going to my brother's in Idaho. We are really excited to visit with both my brother's families. We will try to post more pictures soon (as soon as we get some batteries for the camera and take some anyway.) We miss all of you at home and can't wait to see you! 

We arrived here on the Central Coast of California a few days ago and are enjoying our time with my family greatly. Just wanted to share some pictures and will try to post more later. The first are of the rest from Texas, then some from my Dad's ranch, the next are at my mom's and finally picking out a Christmas tree. Miss you all!

We arrived on Tuesday to the welcoming arms of my grandparents and aunt & uncle. My amazing grandma put all of the holidays and things I loved from my childhood together for one week of fun! We planned on going camping for a few days but sadly, the weather turned cold and wet right after we arrived. We had Thanksgiving dinner, set off fireworks, made rice krispy treats, colored easter eggs, watched footbal and movies, went on walks and bike rides, took Ellie to the park, made bubbles, and ate Mexican food, waffles, and steaks. We celebrated Balazs and Ellie's birthdays and went to the Houston's First Baptist Church (it is enourmous!). We are leaving tomorrow for California and will update more after a few days. We miss all of you in Hungary very much!

We left Pecs on Sunday after Lili Neni prepared lunch for us at Geza and Lili's. It was Ellie's first train ride and we got a slight forshadow of how the plane ride would be as she refused to sleep. She enjoyed herself walking all over the train and visiting the people. We left Budapest for Paris on Tuesday way too early in the morning. When you travel with a child you are treated like royalty! They let us go in the front of the ticketing line, the front of the security line and we got to board the plane first. It was very cool. On our flight to Paris a nice Hungarian guy gave us his seat next to us so we would have one for Ellie. Balazs got her to sleep easily and our first flight was great. We arrived in Paris with just 20 minutes until our flight to Houston. I got searched twice, Balazs never...apparently I look scarier (not really, he was holding Ellie). We ran through the whole airport and made it just in time. We were the last to board and the guy gave us an extra seat for Ellie (turns out Monika was right, the baby bed would have been much too small for Ellie so the extra seat was great.) The flight was long but Ellie did really well considering the circumstances and the people around us were very patient. My grandpa and uncle met us at the airport and we drove home. All in all, the Lord really blessed us with every detail while we traveled so thank you for praying for us.