Califor-NI-A Oranges

This morning, I woke up and thought how much I was craving sinking my teeth into this: I know you are looking at this thinking..an orange...really...but seriously..hooly mother of goodness..these are A-freakin-mazing!



We went to california a few months ago. I made it a point to make sure the oranges got loaded into the car.. before even the kids did. The kids didnt mind though because i am pretty sure they ate more of these a day then I did.

If any of you have not sunk your teeth into an amazing california orange around oh like march-ish..then i highly suggest you make a trip to california during that time. you will not be dissapointed.

I promise you will wake up just like I did today, wishing you too had more of of these to eat in your fruit bowl.

Dear Dad…

Dear Dad…

A true father is always there. He is there to spill tears of happiness when his eyes fall upon his infant daughter. He is there with arms to catch her when she takes her first steps or stumbles. He is there to teach her at the youngest age, even though she might not understand half of it. He is there to help her color inside the lines, to tie her shoes. He is there to teach her how to throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball. He is there to teach her how to float in the water in the hottub so she can gaze above at the stars. He is there to hug her and kiss her on her first days of school, and to walk her in if need be. He is there to teach her and tease her and laugh with her. He is there to tell her to go ask her mother, when her mother told her to ask him. He is there to lecture her, prepare her for the monster called high school. He is there to put up with her teenage moods and her crazy relationships. He is there to approve, disapprove, accept and forgive. He is there to give her a gorgeous flower lei when she graduates from that place called high school, to smile when her name is called and feel proud. He is there to embrace her and kiss her before she goes to live hundreds of miles away for her next life adventure with her newly married self. He is there cheering her on and crying tears of happiness as she becomes a mother herself. He is there to hold and comfort her firstborn son and he gets poked and prodded his first two weeks of life. He is there to take her second son on little adventures to cheer him up while his big brother is at school. He is there to teach those little children how to color in the lines and how to kick a soccer ball. He is there to approve, disapprove the things that will come up in those little boys lives. He is there to hold up the flood gates as his daughter faces many trials that will test her to the core. He is there to watch her grow as the lines on his face grow. But most importantly, He is always there to welcome her home, always, and let her hug him and smell the smell she remembers from childhood, the warm, protecting, comforting smell of dad. And most of all, he is always there to love her. And she is always there to love him back.



Dad …I just want to tall you how grateful I am for you. Having a dad like you is one of the greatest blessings in my life. I am so blessed to be one of your amazing children. I am very blessed to be able to call you my dad. Thank you for always being there for me. You have been the rock that has held me up and I hope you know what an amazing dad you are. Happy fathers day daddy!! I love you lots and lots!:)



Your daughter

shauna

A new ME

I am working on becoming a new me. I know ..you are all probably thinking ..a new shauna??? why on earth would she want to do that...no worries..I am still the old me..just wanting to define a part of me that hasn't been as present as I have wanted it to be.

I have had some life experiences and events that have happened in my life these last few years that have made me question what is true happiness? I have always thought I had that true happiness, and i thought i had known what that meant.

Then things happen to us and that true happiness feeling that we all can have gets shaken to the core. Like it has for me. I have decided that through these difficult trials that i have been going through,I no longer want to give up on me. I no longer want to give up on what I want for myself. I have asked myself many of times..what can help bring me that true happiness I have been wanting back. Any one of us achieve that true happiness within....and what better time to start getting that back than the present.

So here we have it..I am so excited to take these trials and turn them into valuable lessons for me to one day share and be able to help other people through difficult times as well. I have learned so much about trials and tribulations. I have felt what felt like the flood gates just keep rushing in my life for what can go wrong has gone wrong. I have very many times asked myself..why me..why is this happening to me? It seems like when you think nothing else can get you down ...there is always something that will try to knock you to the ground. Satan is so real. He wants nothing more than to destroy us. He has a plan and his plan is to ruin those that he can get his grasp on. Well guess what Satan..you will not win on my turf. I will not let you win.

Even through these trials that I have been through and am currently experiencing, I can say Iam very grateful for all the many blessings that have happened to me. It seems that everywhere Ilook there is something that happens everyday that helps me
realize how true little miracles can happen in our lives everyday,if we so allow them to. There really are tender mercies that happen. It had taken awhile for me to realize that their is a happiness that can ensue if we allow it. I am working on getting that happiness back.

I was doing some reading( i know ..right..me reading..another miracle)but that is another thing i am am changing..a new reading me! yay)

I have been questioning my own true happiness for quite sometime. It is crazy that yes, even me..the one who seems to have it together..can still feel the need to ask myself this question.

I have been doing alot of soul searching. I have asked myself over and over trying to figure out what TRUE HAPPINESS really means...I read this below and thought it fit perfectly with what i had been experiencing the last few years..."We often fall into the trap of thinking a new car, job promotion, beauty makeover, or fame will make us happy. And often they do—for a time. But it never lasts because wealth, power, beauty, and fame simply don’t bring lasting happiness, as much as we wish they would.

So then i read this..
True Happiness
"True happiness comes from following Christ’s example and developing Christlike attributes such as obedience, goodness, honesty, gratitude, humility, love, charity, and forgiveness. It comes from serving others and helping them to follow Jesus Christ. It comes from controlling the appetites of our human bodies and following the promptings of the Spirit. It comes from working hard and having a healthy lifestyle, friends, family, and personal achievements.

"Regardless of what you do or don’t have in this life, your deepest, most lasting happiness will come from knowing God’s plan and following it.

And that folks is just what I needed to hear to get me through these hard times. This is what it is all about. I know things are never easy. But it hit me that through the hardest of trials...i have learned one thing. There is a power greater than us to help us during our hard times. The Savior, Jesus Christ is there. He can lead us and guide us. I have felt him so much lately and I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything else in the world. It is something I will not take lightly. It is something I have decided that I want to be able to do..It is working on this new me...(which means me,basically being the same amazingly awesome person I was..just with a little bit of extra "umphh" to make me be the person I want to be.)

I want to be close to our Savior. I want to be able to be an example to people that even when things get hard that they can still see that light that shines within me. For those of you that have been and are struggling..There is a peace that can be found. I have felt it.

Here are a few of the quotes that i have lived by the last little while....

"U never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have."

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”

"it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same."

I am so excited to continue on with the new me!

ok enough of my ramblings for the night.

Check out these adorable little cowboys in my life..








I mean these little men are the light of my life..and i am so grateful for them!

missing in action

I have more than anything been wanting to "journel" for the last little while. I had a small standstill that has made it so i couldnt do it..but yay... i finially got my computer internet working again to the point where i can blog again!! yay! so hopefully there will be a little more of me and all the craziness of my family!

For now here is a pic i ran across that just made me laugh.




I mean, can me and my lil bro be any more "attractive"! just sayin!

Holi Festival twenty eleven!

Looks like I found a new family tradition out here in this ol promised land. We got to go celebrate the Holi festival out here in ol springville, ut. Who woulda thunk that this crazy beautiful building would be sittin out in the middle of farm country...amazingly beautiful ain't it!

Yesterday we went to what is more commonly known as the festival of Coloouuurs! It was unlike anything i have ever been to...and being a portlander..we have have been to many many cool festivals.. but not one quite like this. It was seriously so freakin awesome. I am not sure who had more fun...the mom's... or the kids! it was sooo freakin awesome! I learned that this festival is a ritual done by the hindu religion. Holi marks the end of the winter gloom and rejoices in the bloom of the spring time. So we took advantage of it, oh yes we did.

this is going to be a picture *overload* ...but i just loved all of them all sooo freakin much!
the best part was walking up to this hindu temple..as we were walking we of course had not been "hit" with our first wad of color yet...well the kids would yell to the crowds of people walking by to hit em..and hit em they did! one lady even tried to ask gavin for a hug. ?who does that?..some strange lady wanting to hug my 4 year old...ewww wierd and gross...he of course has good stranger danger and said no. I then remembered where we were at, and realized she wanted to get color all over us since we were white. So my friend melissa and I decided to go ahead and give her a good ol hug. boy of boy..that was interesting to say the least!


























And it is still a mystery how this lil princess was able to stay so colorfree....but lil zaya sure was adorable probably being the only one of thousands left barely unscathed!!

little rascals

The little Rascals. ? who is with me on this being one of the coolest movies of all times back when we were little? When this movie first came out, it was one of my FAVORITE'S . i remember being a kid and i would watch it with my lil brother over and over and over. we just loved this movie.

I introduced my kids to this movie sometime ago..it is now one of their absolute favorite movie's EVER. they can watch it over and over and over. Each time they watch, they laugh and laugh and laugh. which makes me laugh because i did that same thing as a little girl.

Both of my boys got a big "makeover's" a few weeks ago. It had taken some time for their mama and daddio to decide if doing that was what was best for them. I wanted to make sure they were both on board with wanting to go with the dramatic change..Our kids LOVED their LONG LOCKS. They have been sporting the "surfer boy" or "skater boy"(as gavinator would call it) look for quite some time now.

Now, I know I am little biased, but, I think my chillens are both super adorable. long hair, short hair..no hair..i just plain ol' think they are A-D-O-R-D-A-B-L-E, adorable with a capital "A" Hair is hair after all..it can always grow back.

We had found out a little bit ago that apparently C-man had some kids teasing him and starting to bully him at school due to his hair. I didn't want to give in to the little craps(the bullies), but i also didn't want my son being teased. Nobody wants that for their children. I absolutely have a zero tolerence for bullies and bullying behavior. I do not like it one bit. I have tried really hard to teach that to my children. I am so glad they are realizing that bullying is NOT ok. Apparently, the county we live, well it seems to have alot of old fashioned rednecks. I feel like they raise their kids to think a certain "look" is not ok. Apparently children, moreover boys, with longer hair, is considered one of "those". I was going to go off on a tangent about this, but i am not. I simply refuse.

My hubster and I gave it some thought and we decided to have the kids get "makeovers"(if they wanted to) and see if that helped anything on the school front.

... as soon as "auntie alex' starting shaping and cutting away some of the locks on each boys head, she made this for the C Man!...He was so EXCITED how much he looked like alfa alfa on little rascals. (thus the entro to the little rascals)(sorry for the poor pic quality)





Con Mans Before and After's








i love his face while he is being taught how to style it!



...and i had to throw this picture in because he stood in the mirror and just smiled while he was checking out his new do..it was so freakin cute!








Gavinators' before and Afters











All in all between the two little rascals we cut off about 11 inches of hair(combined of course)





The hair cuts were a HIT. And the thankfully... the teasing has stopped at school as well.YAY! so all in all, it was a sucess! well, that was until little gavinator tried to go to bed that first night of his big haircut. you see...he has to twirl his finger around his hair. It helps him to relax and fall asleep(he has done it since he was a little tiny baby). He quickly realized that he didnt have enough hair to do that. So as cute as we all think they both look..the gavinator asked that VERY night if he could grow it back to the "surfer boy" hair again! ahahahahaha.
i love these cuties!