Winter- still tundra mom! ;)

Nana's Iphone- always a hit

Sierra's new guitar from my mom and dad

Snow storm fun

Making ice cream for the first time

On my birthday, we went to this river because eagles are supposed to live and fish there-

But we didn't see them- so we tried to break the ice by throwing rocks :) 

Handsome boy- loved the 100th day of school- he figured he'd been there 85 of the days!

Sledding with daddy

Weston with his buddies!

2011 wrap up... new years is coming late to my blog!

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years.  My heart is full of thankfulness for all these blessings. There are no pictures of me but that's OK.  These three are my gifts.  I am so full of thanks and praise to Jesus for these precious ones that I get to share my life with!  Merry Christmas again!

Answered Prayer

Sierra is enrolled in Junior Kindergarten!  And she has been approved for summer speech!!! Thank you for praying!  Thank you Lord!

Pray with me?

We are currently working on placement for Sierra next year.  I have requested a few things from the school.  I thought I'd post the letter here too, so that you can pray with us.  Both of my requests could cause a little battle, but hopefully with His help, the school will just say yes.  So pray with me?

Dear Stacie and Rachel,

Peter and I have been considering Sierra's placement for next year. She is showing improvement in speech, thank you Rachel. Her progress is very slow though and we are questioning enrolling her in Kindergarten. Peter and I think Junior K is a better fit. We have several reasons.

1. Educationally, she is not ready to learn to read. She is in the lower part of her class in letter skills. Additionally, much of the reading practice is verbal and will be lost on her.

2. Verbally, she is significantly behind her peers. This will affect her ability to be assessed verbally in every subject. This makes educating her a challenge.

3. Socially she is well adjusted, however her ability to solve conflict and make friends is affected by her lower verbal skills and socially she is a better fit for junior K.

For these reasons, we request Sierra’s enrollment in Junior K for 2012-2013 school year. I think this will give her time to focus on her verbal skills and give her a better chance of educational and social success in the future.


The second reason for this letter is to request summer speech services for Sierra. On moving from California to Iowa, we had a six week break in speech therapy. During the six week break, her speech and language regressed to pre-treatment levels. During the summer of 2012, it is likely for Sierra to regress again in a similar manner. This will put her significantly behind her peers and will require extended speech therapy to make up the lost growth.

For these reasons, we ask for continued speech therapy services through the summer for Sierra.

Our family is sincerely grateful for your help and the education that Alta has to offer our children. We are privileged to live here. Thank you for your help to our family and your continued assistance to us.
Sincerely,
Becca and Peter Bunnell

Back to School

Now that we are settled in with job, home and town we are focusing more closely on our budget.  Peter and I have the opportunity to take Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Academy together at church.  It's  a four month class designed to revamp spending, increase saving and be intentional with money.  His tag line, "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else!"

Today is Peter's day off.  We read the chapters, did the budget and made decisions.  Thankfully things are good for us financially, thank you Jesus!  I was reminded that budgeting is shocking and it's no fun.  There is always something "prudent" to be done and after all the good choices the "fun" money is gone or very limited. 

You know what's shocking, that if you do it the "right" way- first we save emergency fund and work to pay off debt.  Then we focus on a retirement and car fund, then college and house pay off.....

Did you know that I want to take my children out of school someday and go on an African safari,  maybe some train trips through Europe and finishing with the Siberian Rail back down to Sukhbaatar.  You know, just a little trip! LOL But mostly the safari is my goal...  How great would it be to take the kids on a major trip?   

However, there is room for regular vacations, entertainment, Christmas gifts and such, so we are BLESSED.  I am so thankful!   SO SO THANKFUL!

You know where those safari dreams really come true? Heaven.  Can you imagine the safari there in heaven-  no lions trying to eat you, no poop, no disease, no pain, no jetlag... ya maybe that's the best time after all!

cold day

cold, cold, cold.  9 degrees with a windchill= -23  and cloudy.

I'm feeling "blah."   I am cutting caffiene this week.  I'm going to eat clean with my mom to hopefully put her arthritis back into remission.  Pray that works? Thanks. 

So to help her, I'm cutting all "bad" from my diet.  Thankfully it's not much bad these days.  Not too shocking since I've cut most "white foods."  I eat veggies, fruit, nuts, seeds, wild caught fish and beans.  I love beans.  They are easy on the waist, good for the body and easy on the checkbook as well. 

The shock was the zip that my beloved coffee gives my day.  I weaned down (like a true addict) 1 cup, the next day 3/4 cup and now I'm down to 1/4 cup today.  You know what that means?  NO COFFEE TOMORROW!!!   Ok maybe an 1/8 of a cup! :)

Still weaning myself down I still had to go to bed early yesterday and had a dull headache all day.  Kind of embarressing to admit, although I was not surprised. I LOVE coffee and knew I had been drinking more and more and more over the holidays as it got colder.

OK confessions are over.  Things are going OK here.  I still look around, daily, and say to myself or to Peter, "I can't believe we live in Iowa."  That's starting to sink in more. 

My house is falling down around me (the blahs do that to me.) 

I have 42 minutes before Peter is home for his weekend, can I get the house cleaned up before he gets home?  I'll take before and after pictures and show you what happens. 

Ready set go!!!

4:08-4:30- Family room from this:

To this















4:30-4:38  Bathroom
From this

To this

4:38- 5:04  Bedroom from this:

To this:

Thanks for reading and playing along with my life.  I have to find motivation wherever I can. 

So thank you for reading and Peter thanks you too because the house is much nicer now. :)

New space

Our house is very nice but lacks some storage.  We recieved a generous gift from a Bible study

group at Faith Community Church.  Thank you friends! :)  Sooo we were able

some cabinetry to tackle the problem of coats, shoes, laundry and pantry by the back door.

After measuring and figuring Rick helped me come up with this design. It is great!

The laundry cabinet one base cabinet and two upper cabinets stacked together

They hold the pantry and some storage. 

The cabinet Sierra is standing in front of is three upper cabinets stacked up.  They hold shoes and above the gloves, scarves and hats.

Add to that the long coat hooks to stain, assemble and hang and it was so one really big job!

This was supposed to be my project.  I bought unfinished cabinets so I had sanding and two coats of stain/clear coat to finish them. 

But then I threw out my back- bad. I spent lots of time laying on an ice pack and watching Burn Notice.

Who came to the rescue and finished the whole project?  Peter!

Thank you honey!

I love having an organized space!