Devanie.com

I usually leave the blogging to Devanie, but she has had her hands full the past few days so I’m going to quickly take a turn. It’s been a busy year for our family but I think we’re finally settled into our new home in Utah. It’s only on rare occassions that you will hear Devanie or one of the kids reminisce of the house in Connecticut. We miss everyone in Connecticut, but we’ve made some really good friends here in Utah this last year.

Devanie has had an overwhelming year! Her biggest achievement this year was Aurora, of course, but notwithstanding that monumental feat, she managed to tend to the other three kids, running errands and bending over backwards to make sure everyone was happy and healthy. She’s had her share of health problems this year but has still managed to run a Cookie Lee Jewelry business and grow a Shaklee business. Somehow she finds time to go to the gym and play basketball at the Church. I’m so grateful I found someone as selfless as Devanie!

Hailey continues to impress us with how smart she is! This year she was invited to attend a special school for talented kids. She breezes through her homework and loves making arts and crafts with skill far beyond her years. We have probably stunted her intellectual growth, however, by feeding her competitive nature with Nintendo DS games. She loves to spend time with her DS and has a hard time putting it down.

Of all of our kids, Sierra is the most giving and is frequently looking for ways to help out. She is always full of energy and very passionate. It’s great to be on the receiving side when she’s in a good mood, but you better watch out when she’s upset! Sierra started the year struggling with reading but is now capable of reading almost any word as long as she remains cool. She expects a lot of herself and get’s frustrated easily. She has a lot of friends at school.

Zachary wears his emotions on his sleeve. It is always easy to tell exactly how he feels by just looking at him. Normally, he wears a big smile and his eyes sparkle. Sometimes he feels lathargic and walks slowly around the house with his blanket and stares at the TV. Rarely he gets in a bad mood but is often easy to comfort with a quick nap or a few tickles. He loves Thomas the Train, both on TV and downstairs on his train set. He’s a real boy’s boy!

Aurora is going to be a lot like Hailey, super smart. She learns something new almost every day; Mostly thanks to Devanie’s efforts. She’s almost standing now and has been mobile (crawling) for a long time. She waves and will mimic almost any action she sees. Seeing Aurora smile at you can really warm your heart!

Here are a couple of pictures worth posting. Long-term readers will remember that we had some problems with Hailey drawing on EVERYTHING in the house (couches, walls, carpet, etc.). Recently we discovered where that annoying habbit stems from! Zach took a permanent marker and colored all over his chair and Devanie’s computer desk. As I was photographing this treasured moment (uh, incriminating evidence), I noticed a small mark on the monitor also! I started to get upset and Devanie confessed that the mark on the monitor was her doing. So mystery solved, drawing on things is a Lay-family gene.

I know it’s a little late to post these pictures but Devanie never got around to them. These pictures are from the Christmas Tree fair that we attended with Uncle Mike, Aunt Denise, and family. The girls got to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they wanted. It worked! They got exactly what they asked for. Thanks, Denise, for the pictures!

The whole family is optimistic about the New Year! We’re thinking about goals to set and excited to see what the next year will bring. From our family to yours, we wish you a Happy New Year and that it will be filled with hope, warmth, and family.

by the end of it everyone was either DROP DEAD tired or needed a good drink!

Snowed in.

We keep getting flurries of snow. It makes us just want to stay inside and drink William Sonoma hot cocoa all day. Well me at least. It makes Nathan and the girls HAPPY to just play Nintendo DS and raise and train Pokemon Characters to evolve and battle better. Zach loves his trains and will play for a long time on his own now.

When Aurora naps I have time to blog and sell on eBay, wash Laundry, house cleaning, vacuuming, sweeping, straightening. …etc. Nathan and I keep singing “This is the Job (song-we bleep this out) that never ends, it just keeps going on and on my friends.”

I’m ready to just throw it ALL away and start with a clean slate. anyone want to come help, you could benefit greatly – I have such a hard time tossing STUFF. I need someone with vision to help!!!
I have been taking pictures left and right, but the camera is always upstairs when I’m ready to blog so you may never see ALL the cute pictures. . .maybe you will get to see 1 or 2 – someday.

Nathan got Zach some clothes for Christmas. One was train PJs another was a “paperboy/Newsies” outfit from OshKosh. He’s so stinkin‘ cute in it. especially when he’s pushing his tonka trucks in the snow.

Aurora waves once in a while now.

They are all growing up. . . .sometimes too fast and some – not fast enough. . .you parents know how it is. . .a little bittersweet. . .we are starting to get more backtalk and slack from Hailey as she enters the pre-teens “tweens?” age.

Sierra is getting a lot better about helping around the house just because! It’s terriffic!

Nathan had me snach up a babysitter and we had Whitney come over and watch Zach and Aurora while we went to see the 2007 version of ALVIN and the Chipmunks. It wqas a good movie! the girls loved it. we already downloaded the soundtrack and have listened to it several times.

We stopped to get some milk for the rest of the weekend since that’s about all we needed and had time to grab.

WOW! What a FUN whirlwind!

Santa Brought some great gifts!

We had Joe’s family and 4 kids over and ours slept in the dance studio and both Daddy’s and Mommy’s got to show the kids SANTA in the HOUSE. They knew that if they got seen Santa wouldn’t drop their presents off. They were so sneaky and stealthy up the stairs and down to see him! – He left gifts for everyone! The kids saw him eating cookies and putting candy canes on the tree. HOW COOL! Daddy and Mommy were impressed! Thanks for coming up to visit UNCLE AARON, Aunt Alice, Joe and Suzie. and Cousins!~

Nathan got $1,000. hidden in the Tree Our 2ND year of marriage I scrounged together $200 and he was so grateful for it. This year 10 years of marriage $1K

I had his wedding ring filled with gold so it’s now a comfort fit ring and it had to be re-sized from 7 to 10. Now I guess we can all say he’s a perfect 10 as am I on my clothing size! =) how funny! 2 Perfect 10’s. 10 years ago his ring cost me $159.00 It cost $170 to get repaired. and is Worth over $200 now even with 3 diamonds in it.

He also got the usual, clothes, cologne, shoes, sonicare toothbrush refills,
He got some BEARSINCHAIRS sets. See http://www.bearsinchairs.com/ to see what they look like.

I got 3 Babies. SUPER cute from Collectibles today. They look realistic but don’t cry, poop or make me work my but off! I just get to look at them and they make my heart melt.

I also got a bunch of Chocolate for the fountain, and caramel for the fountain. . .AND a PUNCH Fountains! MMMmmm. and my fav perfume, “Valentino”.

and Aurora gave us these gifts all within the same week

*She pulls herself to stand and scoot along a surface.
*She Claps
*She just started waving about 1 hour ago
*She makes a popping sound with her lips
and shes learned to wake up and make breakfast for the whole family before we all wake up!(Well the last one is a dream, but someday it may come true!)

Hailey got Nintendo DS games and a black soft puppy for Christmas.

Daddy spent 2 years making music boxes from scratch for Hailey and Sierra. Her had his Dad print a picture on Chrome that Nathan had designed to look like each girls sitting in a Land Far far away with the castle in the background with the bedroom of Princess Buttercup and princess Ladybug bedroom at the tip top of the tallest tower in the castle. From night time stories he has been making up for the girls for years. Before the girls were born I wanted to get them each a music box so they could fall asleep to and listen to the music all their lives and when they left for college they could take the music with them and remember their family and their life with us. My grandma Leavitt gave me a music box in that looks like a Grand Piano . .when i was 12. I still have i. It is one of my treasured items from my childhood. The Music boxes Nathan made mean so much to all of us. It’s such a sentimental sweet gift! And I had no Idea he was doing it until a few days before when he said he was about to throw away his projects because he thought they were too messed up. I looked, they were BEAUTIFUL! I was even able to help him figure out a perplexing puzzle piece to make the cover for the music box fit and he was so glad to be able to finish the boxes in time for Christmas.

Sierra got the Littlest Pet Shop playhouse and a bunch of characters.

Too FUN!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1319810501

The Nutcracker

Grandma Stout had some extra tickets to see The Nutcracker Ballet in SLC. I got to take JUST the girls and go with My SIL Suzie and her 2 oldest as well. It was a GREAT experiance for the girls, even theough there were “Boring” parts. They got to see the whole thing, Look at the orchestra from above, watch the dancers and decide if that was a life for them or not. . .I don’t think they want to be ballet dancers after that. I do. . .just for the long skinny legs, but then I’d be too tall for Nathan and that just wouldn’t do. So I will stay who I am. I really enjoyed the show. I’ve seen it about 2-3 times in my life, but it was better this time becasue I poayed closer attention to it. – I have already forgotten most of it becasue my memory is terrible when it comes to shows, I just remember thinking to myself how good it was and how much I enjoyed it even if the girls had no fun. We had Awesome seats too!

I left the minute I could because the girls started giving me such a bad time about being at the show and how much they disliked how boring it was. . .I scurried out with my ducklings in tow and gave them chores to be done when they got home. I called Nathan and asked him to put a pizza in the oven becasue I didn’t even feel like stopping at a fast food place to pick dinner up.

I came home to a frazzled husband. Who made dinner and took care of Zach 2 and Aurora 8 Months while we were at the NUtcracker, and made us all dinner and changed terrible poopy diapers on each of them. I probably turned to eBay as my chocolate that night. . .or to bed. . I hardly remember. . .Oh it was bed cuz I was exhaused! I had taken all 4 kids to Breakfast at the Church where they got to see Sants and hear the Community Choir Perform. We all sang Jingle Bells and had a pretty good time.

On the way home from the church we got to see Santa on the Fire Engine riding around the town and tossing Taffy to all the kids that came out of their houses to see him. The girls were in Taffy heaven and Zach even managed to get his hands on a few of the girls taffys.

Hi Yall,

There is no raffle at the school it’s a DRAWING because This state will not allow an exchange of money like a raffle because it’s like gambling and there it a “No Tolerance” clause for it in the laws – or No allowance or something like that. So it’s a Free drawing and if the students wish to donate money to the school they can. we encouraged $2 for the 8 tickets but said the school would benefit with any donations.

The sale went alright last night being the first day and all, I just see it getting better and better as the kids keep asking their parents for money. They just want to buy their Mom jewelry for Christmas – Mostly the older boys, it’s SOOOOOO CUTE! It would be cool to video tape what the kids are saying just to listen to them. it’s quite fun! Plus putting a video camera out would deter elementary theves too . . . Humm. . .good idea.

I went to the gym this morning and got HIRED! Yes. They want me to work for them, they practically begged me or I wouldn’t have applied. Guess they just like me even though they have only seen me a few times. They asked if I could be a Substitute Day Care Provider in case the usual one cannot make it in. I figured since I should be at the gym anyways, . . that shouldn’t be a problem. And my kids can come with me. I told them I’d just do it for free. But they insisted I be a staff member and get paid a whopping $7.00 an hour. I may never have to do it, but the option is there for them.

I made $600 last week selling Jewelry. We will see what this week comes up with. So far we are NEGATIVE from the purchase invested. However. . . We made $67. The girls ended up shopping at the Book Fair costing $20.00 and the babysitter cost $21 – So I will have to nix the sitter and use my teenagers from Church – and pay them in jewelry =) And I will know where all my kids are and they will be right beside me. Crying and wanting etc, but a teenager could take them to my PlayHouse of a CAR and watch movies with them if all else fails. . .right?

Ho Hum . .I just finished boxing up gifts for the Santa’s Helpers at church. This year I took “A FUN GIFT FOR A MOM” and “a FUN GIFT FOR AN 11 Year old GIRL”, as you can imagine they are getting a bunch of jewelry and a couple other things.

The Drawing Bins at the school are filling up with tickets. I hope the teachers are getting SOME kind of donations for the school.

The babies are asleep – finally so I have a few minutes to the computer for the FUN of it!

I’ll be packing up and heading out soon So I need to go.

I’m going to be a 1 man show next week. If anyone want to see CRAZY in action . .let this be the week.

Nathan is going out of town.

I decided to have a HUGE fundraiser and Raffle for the Elementary school with OVER 800 students and Staff. I’m doing it alone so I can reap the rewards myself. I’m donation 1/2 the proceeds fromt he raffle which I’m hoping will be $1,400 to the school. I’ve cleared the Holiday Fair with the PTA president. I’ve already started advertising. I’m putting together all the raffle baskets. . .I got my Gym to donate 2-3 Month memberships and some free tans. I have put together a Girls Dream Barbie basket, A candy Lovers Basket, a Scrapbookers basket, and A Non Toxic Cleaning Shaklee basket- provided by Wasatch Wellness Group- Thanks Grandma. I’m going to make a few Boys Favotites baskets – Sporty or cars – still thinking. I’m Donating a $50 Cookie Lee Jewelry gift certificate to the raffle.

I have called a daycare to babysit the 2 babies while I’m working, Hailey and Sierra will help me and I’m hiring 2-4 Teens to help with the tables.

It’s going to be AMAZING! I havn’t asked anyone from the PTA to help with anything. I’m doing the Fliers, Jewelry, botique items, Scented oils, Raffle baskets, Drawings, tables, Set up and take down all by myself. It’s every day next week right after school – So I will probably have to set up every day and take down every day.

What am I thinking you say. . .I say. This kind of stuff is so fun for me. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe beause in some ways I love to be a Social Butterfly, and in other ways I want to make Money so I can get to my Goal of opening up our Jonahs Restraunt! I CAN’T WAIT!

Call me crazy. . .Let’s just pray all the kids will be fed, clothed and bathed and all in one piece after the Grand Whirlwind!