Draney Happenings

Boy has it been busy at the Draney house this past month and a half:) Life never seems to be dull or slow around here. That is a good thing I think. Though the end of the year is always busy, it is also fun to watch the kids in all of their activities. Here are a few of the things that have been going on.

I know that I briefly posted a little about Dylan's county fair, but these are pictures from that night. I wasn't actually able to go since I was in Indiana visiting Suzie and Rob's family. I was so proud of Dylan and how hard he worked on his county projects. I helped him a little with his float, but he did his report and brochure completely on his own. Dylan you are awesome! Also, we were able to get a DVD of the program, it was great! Grandma and Grandpa, if you want to see it, let me know and we will bring it to Idaho the next time we visit:)

Trey had his preschool graduation on May 17th and boy was it an experience. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a good experience, but it was memorable. I have never had the kid that throws a fit at the performance or protests at a program.....until now. I can truly say that it is a good thing that Trey is the youngest, because if he had been first I would have been so embarrassed. Instead, I just took pictures of him protesting the entire graduation ceremony. I tried sitting with him to calm him down and persuade him to participate, his speech therapist tried to persuade him, and finally he was just carried across the stage to get his diploma. I am sure that the teachers were as grateful as I was to see the 30 min. program come to an end:) Trey never even thought about participating, he just looked at the rest of the preschool kids like they were crazy....thinking "why in the world would you want to sing in front of all of these people!"

It was quite an experience for me, since all of my other three children are such performers. I guess that Trey just likes to have say on what performances he will or won't participate in.

Well, we got through it and I took Trey and his friend Ben to Wal-Mart to celebrate their graduation and we got treats and a Tom and Jerry video.....no I don't see this as rewarding bad behavior, I choose to view it as re-writing history...hopefully Trey remembers it as a raging success.....and maybe I might get to were I remember it as being not so awful:)

Devin had his 1st grade program: Dinosaurs, last week. It was a great program and run very well.(Just like all of the Bluffridge Elementary programs) It was about 30-40 minutes long and was so much fun. Devin is a natural performer and was having such a great time. For their costumes, the kids made dinosaur shirts that I volunteered to help make. The first day I went and helped the kids paint on the dinosaurs with stencils, and then the second day I sent Jason to help since I flew out to Indiana. I spoke to Jason that night and asked how volunteering went. He said: "I was given the instruction to supervise the kids painting a background for their dinosaurs. I thought that meant that I let them do it themselves...after Devin was done I looked around and all of the mom volunteers were helping them paint professional scenery. After that I tried a lot harder with the other kids...pretty much I found out that I suck at painting." I chuckled and said: "I should have told you that it isn't just the kids that are graded but the parents as well." Jason has now decided that he will leave the volunteering to me from now on.

If it's spring then it's baseball!! I will try to post some baseball pics of Devin soon. But here are some of Dylan. It is so much fun to go and watch Dylan's games. This year we found out that Dylan is quite a good pitcher. His form is great and I hope to see him pitch in some games this year. He also plays third base a lot and short stop as well. Sports are so much fun to watch and be a part of. Dylan reminds me a lot of Robbie, in that he is fairly hard on himself, but he also remembers to have fun. Devin and Trey like to watch and most often they know that if they nag mom enough that she will give them money to buy a snow cone:)

This past weekend Taylor and I went to her LAST competition of the year at West High School in Salt Lake City. It was so much fun. We stayed at the Marriott Residence with her friend Alex and her mom over night. Solo night went really great for Taylor and she scored her highest score of the season and was only 1 point away from getting a diamond ranking. (Which is the highest you can get and is very hard to get. Only a 3 people in our studio got a diamond and Taylor was the highest after them) She performed her solo better than I have ever seen her do it and I was one proud mom:)
Saturday Taylor performed her group numbers and her team got first on two of them and in hip hop they got third. This was such a hard competition with soooo many amazing studios. I was so proud of her.
Also my group number that I choreographed and taught (and that Taylor was in) got 1st in its division and got over all high point out of every dance in that division. Which means that it scored the highest out of every dance (jazz, lyrical, hip hop) in its age and ability level. Pretty cool! I was very happy with how they did and they were so excited!!

So over all it has been a great May so far. Love you all:)

The front, left side of our house, with our little trees!

Here I'm standing in the area that will someday be my garden.

WE GOT SOD!!!!!!!

That green beautiful stuff around my house? Yeah, that's my sod!  As most of you know we have had a horrible time trying to get our lawn figured out.  But today was a great day.  Steve did an amazing job putting in half our sod this morning.  We got up at a very ridiculous hour (6 am) and saw them pull our sod off the trucks and line the pallets up on our driveway.  It was too muddy for them to put them around the yard, so we had to use a wheel barrow.  I was a little worried because I helped from 6-8 and by the time some of his friends showed up we only had 6 pieces of sod laid down (we were doing a lot of prep work).  But  once more guys showed up it seemed to speed up.  It was nice to see some of the guys from the ward there too.  We will be getting the other half of our sod on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll get some people from the ward again, along with family and friends and bust it out!  I can't wait to roll around on it, it's SO BEAUTIFUL I COULD WATER IT WITH TEARS OF JOY!!! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's day to all the mothers in our family! Each and every mother in our family is so beautiful and important to our tight, loyal family. How blessed I feel to have so many wonderful women to look up to. Your examples make me think about who I am and the mother I want to be someday. I have a deep love for each of you. Our Father in Heaven has a very special place in his heart for his daughters, and I see that in the women in our family. I look at each mother in our family, and I want to be like each of you. I've been watching and  I see who I want to be through your examples. I just want to say I love each of you. We have such a great family. I'm humbled to know that my Father blessed me so great and put me in this family. Each of you are such exemplary women. Thank you for your faith, love and examples. 

Happy Mother's Day.

Cinco De Mayo!

Hey ya'll! We had a big party at the Larsen household last Saturday! Ya'll who weren't there missed out! We had food that could feed an army, we had chips, pineapples :), pinatas and cake! Check out the Larsen blog for picts!

Check it out!

Hey just wanted to direct everyone over to the Strengthen Home and Family Page. I just posted about the emergency preparedness car kit that I put together as well as this weeks FHE on Priesthood Power. Hope you enjoy them!

Back and on the Mend

So just a quick update...I am just about done with my course of antibiotics and I am feeling remarkably better. This last week has been a tough one, having four kids that don't ever slow down, it was tough to keep up. Jason was a life saver and helped a ton so that I could rest and truth be told, I just let a lot of things slide.

But now it is back to life, back to reality as the song says and Mon and tues I am going to be going on Trey's field trips to the fire station, because as we all know, changes in schedule are not his friend so his teachers are concerned. Then on Thurs. Taylor is being given some awards at her school award night and on Fri. she is competing her solo in Kearns. Also this week my kids all have CRT testing for the end of the year.

As Dora in finding Nemo says: Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming.....this is my mantra for the rest of the school year:)

Have a great day everyone!

I know what i'm going to be when I grow up!

Ok! So I'm just bouncing off the walls right now and have to share this with ya'll. So my mom does the Life Coach thing though WGU, and well, I was invited to do it as well, so I was assigned a Life Coach (other than my mom :) and I had the first real call today. I went into the phone call wanting to find a path or way to fulfill my goal of becoming a web designer. I want to be a stay at home mom, but be able to have the ability to work independently on the side- hence the web design which would also allow me to be creative in the process. So, I was stumped. What do I do for school? I had so many options, and it would take a very long time to tell you all of them. So, I think best when I go for walks, because I then think out loud and work it out. So my goal for the end of our coaching call was to have an idea of what I wanted to do for school- and how that would help me reach my goal. I think my coach was kind of unsure about it at first, because that's a major life decision that I wanted to make in like 30 minutes. Hahaha. But, it was like MAGIC! I went for the walk, and talked with her on the phone, she asked a few questions, then I just talked my problem out and she listened and I found my solution! My plan is to stay enrolled at WGU and get my business degree with an emphasis on marketing management, then go back and get my IT degree with a software emphasis. I just makes sense! It was a very big light bulb that went off in my head! and my coach was so surprised that I just worked my way to my solution! So this coaching stuff works. It made my day. :) 

Parable of the Talents

Hello Family!
You know how sometimes a conversation, something you read, or situations will conspire to help you gain better understanding of yourself?  Well I had one of those experiences yesterday.  I work with lots of different "types" of people.  Like you, I see on a daily basis the seeming "injustices" of life.  Some people are blessed with drive, talent and extraordinary intellegence - where other just have to struggle for every last thing be it temporal, intellectual or spiritual.  Yet we are all Heavenly Fathers children and he loves us the same. 

The Parable of the Talents came to my mind and it isn't something that I had really given more than a passing thought to before.  Back in Christs time "talents" were money - but in today's language "talents" are something completely different.  In the story (as in life) the Master of the vineyard gave "talents" to each of his servants.  As you will recall the first servant received five talents, and during the Masters absence he doubled the amount and was able to return 10 talents upon his Masters return.  The second man was given two talents and was also able to double that to give back to his Master.  Finally, the third servant recieved only one talent, but he was too scared to do anything with it and hid it away to give back to his Master upon his return.

I think it is interesting to see that both of the first two servants received the same reward, even though their cumulative return to the Master was different.  However, I think the saddest part of the story is the motivations, decisions and outcomes that the third servant created for himself.

That third servant, from my interpretation, operated from a position of fear and without faith.  He was afraid that if he went out and tried to do anything with his talent he would lose it, thereby angering the Master.  Upon finding what the third servant had done, the Master of the vineyard got after him and scolded him for not going out and at least investing it with the bankers.  Because of the third servants inaction - be it through fear, laziness, or whatever, it resulted in the Master throwing the servant out. 

Upon reflection, what I have learned from this parable is that too often I am like the third servant and too afraid and without faith to invest, act upon and create something with the talents that the Master has given me.  While on our trip to Indiana I was talking with Robbie and he was telling us about many of the things he was doing and about some of the humanitarian expeditions he had been on.  We were marveling at his bravery to "get out there" and do something with his talents.  His response was that "you should never be afraid to get out there and do something good."  From most that would sound trite and cliche - but from someone who had actually done it - it was very meaningful.   The same holds true with the example of Suzie, and the very fact that she is even out in Indiana literally using her talents in the Masters vineyard. 

So my challenge to myself - and to all of you - is to take a harder look at what my/your "talents" are, and how they can be invested into the world.  I belive we are the stewards of our various talents and we are responsible to return and report how we have used them for the benefit of our Master and his vineyard.  Every person in our family has the good fortune to be like the first servant who was entrusted with the most talents - so our responsiblity is even greater.  Also, I believe, our potential for happiness, based on the return of Masters investment in us, is also so much greater.

So brush off your fear and have faith that the Master knew what he was doing when he entrusted you with your unique talents!   Get out there are invest them!

Heidi