The Nerd in Me.

Books from Christmas 

I have a lot of nerdy things about me, one of them is my obsession of books, and collecting books. I love to read, I remember the first book I read that introduce me to the world of books, it was James and the Giant Peach from Roald Dahl, and after that I read most of his books, than later I got into Goosebumps, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Mary Higgins Clark's books, and many more. 

In 7th grade I started reading some of the classics, and the first one was Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and I loved it! I have read it two times since then, and that book introduced me to the world of the classics. In high school one my favorite classes was AP English because most of the class we read classics and analyzed and discussed them. 

Another nerdy thing about me is that I love to buy books, and buy nice copies and to keep them nice and new. Dustin teases me about it, but back in Idaho I probably have 3 boxes full of books, and a lot of them I haven't had the chance to read yet. When we moved a year ago I didn't bring any, and now I have at least 15 in our closet and Dustin teased me that I can't get anymore until I have read every book in the closet. Well I have read all the ones I had before Christmas and some that I got for Christmas so I just need to read 5, I can do that!

This last year I have been able to read a lot more since I'm not in college anymore, so my goal was to read 12 books this year and I manage to read 16, and it was great. I just barely started a book club starting this year that I'm very excited about. 

So if you have any books that you have read and love, let me know because I want a good list of books for this coming year.

Here is the list of books I read this year:

The Hunger Games series (3 books)  I thought it was a fun quick read.

Little Women   I loved it, I can see why some might think it's boring, but I loved how it was written, it was a lot of short stories of all the sisters.

Water for Elephants:   I liked the book, but it did have some content that needed to be skipped over and some swearing.

The BFG by Road Dahl: I reread with Dustin this year, we like to read books together when we get a chance.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: LOVED IT!!! It might just be my favorite book, Wuthering Heights which was written by Charlotte's sister has always been one of my favorites, but after reading Jane Eyre I love it more. Both books are gothic novels, Emily wrote Wuthering Heights first, than Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre showing Emily that gothic novels can have happy endings too, so I think it would be fun to read these side by side.

The Time Traveler's Wife: I didn't really like this book, interesting story, but WAY too much language for me, and a lot of content to skip over, so I wouldn't recommend it. 

I reread the whole Harry Potter series and loved every minute of it. 

The Thirteenth Tale: I just finished this last night, it was a fun read, and it keeps you guessing to the end, and has a good twist in the end, and it kind of has a haunting feel. 

Christmas

We had a great and successful Christmas this year. We were sad that we couldn't come home to our families but we had a great time starting some of our own traditions this year. Christmas Eve Dustin had to work most of the day, but after work we had dinner, I tried to decorate our apartment  a little more for the dinner, since Dustin was a little down about having to work so I tried to make it a surprise for him when he got home.  After dinner we opened our PJs and a toy nativity set for Thomas and read about Christ's birth. After Thomas went to bed Dustin and built a little castle with some blocks from "santa" and watch Christmas movies.

Christmas Eve

Christmas! I wished all of our lights worked on our tree, o well!

Christmas morning Thomas slept in till 9:30, it was great! And he loved the mega blocks and wrecked our creation in seconds, he was so involved with the blocks that he wasn't interested in opening any presents. For Christmas we received a lot of books, movies, and toys. Dustin's parents also gave us an Ipad which we were very excited about! After Christmas we had a breakfast casserole that I made (one of Dustin's family traditions) and than headed to church. It was a great Christmas even though it wasn't the white Christmas I'm used to, but now that Christmas is over I sure glad that we have nice weather, and we can hang out outside still! Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas too, and have a happy New Year!

Bow ties and hair clip that my sis-in-law, Emily made.

Tiffany, Dustin's sister gave us a lot of fun gifts and one of them was bath color tablets, Thomas thought it was so cool to have blue water.

Happy 2 year Anniversary!!!

Tomorrow is our 2 year anniversary!

I decided to blog about it today since we are planning on being busy tomorrow.

This year has been the hardest and best year of our marriage! Between having a baby, and living out in the real world as starving artists, and living away from both families we have grown stronger together. Life isn't always perfect but I can't imagine not enjoying life without Dustin, he is my best friend and he's just right for me, he laughs right there with me at stupid stuff, he has the same passion for art, he's a great husband, he doesn't get upset if the house is messy and there is no dinner on the table when he gets home because I was too busy reading the last few chapters of a book, or doing some crazy craft that has made an even bigger mess in our house. I love how he loves me, plain old, crazy, hyper, always doing something... me. 

I love this picture above because I feel like that's how we are when it's just us two. 

I love you Dustin, thanks for these last two years and I can't wait for all eternity to be with you!

Christmas Card

For those I don't have their emails:

This was a big year for the Clark family, a lot of changes, moves, growing, and a lot of firsts.

Dustin and I started this year as recent college graduates, newly parents, having new and unknown adventures ahead of us. 

So here is our year in a summary:

Dustin: This year Dustin has been able to have a lot of great art opportunities, when we lived in PA he got his first Children's book job, he's had many caricature gigs, and gets to draw people all day at his work at SeaWorld. He also got an art piece in an art gallery in New York and won an award, and had the opportunity to go to a caricature convention for a week and learn more from the pros. He's also a good father, and husband who always tries his best. He's had many callings in the church, anywhere from Sunday school teacher to Elder's quorum secretary. 

Jessica: Has grown and learned a lot this year, learning to balance art with motherhood,  housecleaning, and homemaking. Jessica loves traveling and seeing new things, that she has enjoyed living in PA and Fl this year. She has learned to drive stick, finally after all this time, but still freaks out on hills (so good thing Florida is pretty flat). She's also learning to live with big bugs such as cockroaches... YUCK!

Jessica has been enjoying photography, art, reading, crafts, cooking, and hanging out with friends. She also loves roller-coasters so she is been having a blast being so close to all the theme parks. 

Thomas: Thomas is cuter than ever and he knows it. He has grown and changed so much this year. He started as a dark brunette to a little blondie. He is always on the move, and getting into anything that he can reach. He loves going on walks, he loves going to SeaWorld and loves looking at all the bright colored fish. He has flown across the country three times this year and has been to 13 states. He loves being in the center of attention. Thomas loves wrestling with his daddy and cuddling with his mommy. He is a joy, blessing, and great contribute to the Clark family. 

We hope you had a great year like we did. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

My Little Man

Thomas is still growing as ever, I feel the last few weeks he has put on some weight! I think the whole milk is making him a little fuller, and also he's growing appetite.

I also feel like he picking up things a lot more, he doesn't say any words but I know he understands me when I talk to him. He starting to fold his arms during prayers, and claps afterwards because he's proud of himself. He understands why we clap, so sometimes when we see a show at SeaWorld or some type of performance he will clap. He also loves to dance anytime there is music going. 

He climbs on everything, he's already figured out how to take plug outlet protectors off. He's not walking yet, but I know he could if he showed any interest in it, he just cruises everywhere, but sometimes he will let go on whatever he's holding on to to clap, so he's standing on his own, he just doesn't realize he's doing it. 

He likes to get into EVERYTHING, nothing is ever safe. 

He loves his walker, the other day I saw him walking with it and trying to put things in it like a grocery cart (you can tell he goes grocery shopping with his mom a lot!)

He loved wrestling with Dustin, he LOVES Dustin! Everyday that Dustin leaves for work he cries until I find something to distract him. 

He loves pretzels, String cheese, and hot dogs, he likes everything but those are his favorite, at least this week!

I love this little man of mine!

Christmas in SeaWorld!

I'm pretty far behind in my blogging, I have a lot of things I have been wanting to blog but just haven't had the time, so my goal is to catch up with the blog sometime next week. (fingers crossed). But I wanted to hurry and do this post... so it will be quick, at least that's the plan...

So here in SeaWorld they have a lot of fun things going on for Christmas, most of it is on the weekends so we are planning on doing some of the activities with our good friends, the William's, tomorrow but today Dustin and I headed over there to take some pictures because it will be more busy tomorrow so we wanted to get it out of the way. :) 

They have a lot of fun and pretty decorations all over, so we tried to take a few family photos.

Also at SeaWorld they have this Polar Express exhibit, that I actually really love because I love the book and also in the exhibit they make it so Christmas-y and smells like Christmas and everything, so I love it since sometimes it's hard to think it's Christmas when there's no snow here in Orlando, so I head over there a lot with Thomas. So here are some pictures in front of the train.

When you go in, they have it all cute, they make it like you are in the North Pole, and they have this huge Christmas tree where the Beluga whales are. It's really cool because they have the Arctic animals in there so it helps with the illusion that you are at the North pole. The animals they have in the are the Beluga whales, Polar bears (which sleep most of the time but today he was moving all over!), the walrus (which I think is pretty cool).

Also in the North Pole they have Santa. And I think this picture is HILARIOUS! It's a classic, Thomas crying.... made me think of The Christmas Story. I'm really tempted to put it on our Christmas card, I'm probably an awful mom thinking this picture is that funny. 

Family Visit

Here are some pictures from the visit from my brother, Paul and his family that I mentioned earlier. They are kinda random order, but thanks to my sis-in-law we got some pictures since Dustin had the camera at his art convention.  So enjoy.

Thomas at Harry Potter World, he loved Butterbeer this trip, I couldn't feed it to him fast enough.

Paul and I after the big drop in the Jurassic Park ride, we got pretty wet. 

Inside Hogwarts, one of my favorite things to do.

Meeting Mickey before Thomas cries.

Worn out in Universal.

I love this picture of Thomas. Thanks Brie!

At Disney, I had to take a picture by Little Mermaid for my mom, because when I was little I watched that show so much that still today my mom can't stand that movie.

Thomas & I eating at Pinnochio's haus (I think that's what it's called.)

In Universal, heading to Harry Potter World, I still get way excited even though  I was just there the week before. 

BATH TIME!!! I love both of their faces! This is my niece Susanna.

Paul, Brie, and Susanna at Universal.

One of my favorite roller coasters in Orlando, this was right after Paul and I went on it. 

Cinderella's castle at Christmas, beautiful. 

Hanging out in our apartment.

Fun Pictures of the cousins!

I had so much fun with Paul and Brie! 

ONE BIG POST

Life has been busy the last couple of weeks that I haven't gotten a chance to blog, so here is a little, more like a big catch up post.

Family Visit:

Last week my brother Paul, Brie and Susanna came up for a visit for week. It was a lot of fun, and perfect timing because Dustin was gone that week at a caricature convention so I wasn't alone. Also that week I got to see my sister Jennifer for a couple days because she was here for work so we had a little family reunion and eat some yummy food.

While Dustin was having fun in St. Petersburg drawing with other artists everyday and doing workshops, Paul,Brie, Susanna, Thomas, and I hit all the major parks. We first hit SeaWorld, than Tuesday we went to Disney World and we went to Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. I was excited to go to Magic Kingdom because I had only seen it once and didn't get a chance to ride any the rides. We hit the parks the right time because most of our lines for all of the parks were only 5 minutes long so we hit almost every ride. In Magic Kingdom I got ride all the traditional rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, and It's a small World. It was a lot of fun and tiring at the same time.

Wednesday was relaxed day since we were tired from the two parks but we did go down to downtown disney at night, which is always fun.

Than Thursday we hit Universal Studios, and we were able to ride many rides there as well, and got to see Harry Potter World and drink butterbeer (my favorite part of course).

Than that night Brie and I went to midnight showing to Breaking Dawn with some ladies from my ward, yes I know, not the greatest movie but it's always fun to have a ladies night, but I did get lost finding the theater and that was quite an adventure, ha ha poor Brie seeing me all frustrated and saying, "I don't even like this movie, this is not worth it." I think I liked the movie, I think, I think the acting was better, but there were some grotesque scenes in there, so if you have a weak stomach don't watch it.

Than Friday was another relaxing day, and that night we watched the last Harry Potter movie. It was a lot of fun to see family.

SORRY no pics, hopefully I get some up soon

Our New Couch:

Till now all we have had were two chairs in our living room, but we had some good friends that moved and gave us some furniture so here's our living room, finally our apartment feels a little more like a home, so I did some decorating and made those canvas pictures in the back.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas:

This last week Dustin let me get a Christmas tree, and not only a tree, but a bigger tree than I expected. Since we don't know how long we are staying Florida, we have tried not get too many things because we don't want to pay to move it, and also most of our stuff is in Idaho, so I was surprised Dustin let me get a tree, but since we are not going anywhere for Christmas because Dustin will be working he said we could do something, I was so excited, but we wanted to keep our budget low because who knows what we will keep and what we will get rid of when we move so we went to the dollar store for decorations, so here is our tree, it looks better in life, I want to take a better picture of it sometime but I hurried and  took a picture before Thomas got to it,  because it didn't take long before he started pulling off the ornaments. 

Living in Florida it doesn't feel like the holidays it still feels like summer so I have been breaking my own rule and I have been listening and watching Christmas music and movies before Thanksgiving, trying to get into the mind-set, it's sort of working.

Instead of being Santa, I'm being Ollivander:

Another reason I have been super busy, is because I have been working on something for my mom that she's doing for the grandkids this year. She is getting them all wands from Harry Potter, so I've been going to Harry Potter world a few times, and I've studied all the types of wands so each grandkid gets one according to their birthday, I also wrote them a Hogwarts acceptance letter, along with a letter from Ollivander telling them what their wand is made of and it's powers it possesses. It probably sounds pretty nerdy, but when I was 10 my brother-in-law did something similar for me one year for Christmas, where he carved me a wand and gave me a Hogwarts letter and I loved it so much because I was reading the books at the time, and still today that stands out in my mind so I wanted the grandkids to have the same magical feel, so here are some pictures of us with the wands, that's 30 wands and $900 worth.

Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving was a little different this year because of many reasons. First Dustin had to work most of the day so it seemed pretty much like a regular day, and since Dustin had to work we stayed here so I had to make the Thanksgiving dinner, which made me appreciate all the years my mom has done Thanksgiving and wanted her there. But I thought my Thanksgiving meal was a success, not as good as my mom's of course, but we were pretty full afterwards so I count that as a success. I didn't take any pictures I didn't have it all fancy and stuff, I know that doesn't matter but I'm funny that way.

Eh?

Today we went to Thomas' 1 year check up and he's doing great, and developing good! For this last appointment I was nervous  because I felt like Thomas hasn't gained that much weight and I was afraid they were going to say he was under weight, but the little guy did gain some weight! He's still little but the doctor wasn't worried, he is now 18lbs 6oz and 31inches.
During the appointment the doctor asked if he said any words, and I told him he's still babbling, so no, but for those who have been around Thomas know he loves saying "eh" and loves when you say it back and forth with him, and he did that in the appointment and the Dr said that counts as a word, so I guess Thomas' first word is "eh?". Maybe the next one will be dada or mama, who knows?

Thomas' First Birthday!!

I can't believe my little man is ONE! He turned one yesterday, and boy, did he get spoiled. Between grandparents, friends & family, and of course his parents, he got a lot of presents. We finished opening them this morning, to spread out the wealth a little!
We started the day by letting him open one of his presents, which was the walker, and he loves that thing a lot, he thinks it's the coolest to walk around without my help, he just needs to learn how to steer so he doesn't keep running into walls! Than later that day I took him to Seaworld because he LOVES it! When we went to the entrance he was talking out of excitement, it was pretty cute.  Than for dinner we had homemade pizza and cake!!! The cake didn't turned out how I wanted because I ran out of time, and also  Thomas was pretty fussy when I was making it, but it tasted good, so that's all that counts right?
The cake eating was probably my favorite, at first he wasn't sure what was going on because we sang Happy Birthday to him, than gave him this huge piece, but after a few bites he started chowing down. It was so funny and cute that I started laughing, and because I started laughing, he reacted to it and started laughing and being more crazy with the food (it reminded me of the scene in Christmas Story when the mom was trying to get her boy to eat his food so she said: "show me how a piggy eats" and they little boy went crazy and they both starting laughing and being silly). Afterwards he was a mess, so bath time, and bed. He was one happy camper by the end of the day.
I love my little boy, I've been having so much fun being his mom this past year and I'm looking forward to the next years.

Halloween!

This Halloween was a success! We had a lot of fun celebrating with our friends in Florida. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because I love Halloween decorations and of course I love dressing up.  I had a lot of funny dressing up this year, mainly because I have always wanted to have purple hair, and yesterday my wish came true, and it's made me want purple hair even more! (Don't worry mom, I won't die it purple). As you probably already know from my previous posts that I'm a big Harry Potter fan and it has increased since my Harry Potter World experience, so naturally we were going to dress up as Harry Potter characters, Dustin and I were Lupin and Tonks, and Thomas was Teddy, there son, he's a metamorphmagus (can change hair color and  some facial changing) like Tonks, so we tried to dye Thomas' hair but that didn't go over very well, so in the pictures you can kinda see pink in it. 

In Orlando, we aren't the only Harry Potter fans, that we had a big group that dressed up as the characters, we had McGonagall, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco,Rita Skeeter, Bellatrix, two death eaters, Dobby, and Winky as well. It was a lot of fun to hang out with our friends.

Brie did an awesome job at decorating her garage for the little trick or treaters, she did such a great job she won the best garage contest. She used the backdrop that Dustin, Adam, Brie, and I painted for several days, so here are some pictures of us working on it.

Good vs. Evil

And of course I used my scrapbook paper that my sister-in-law, Crystal designed.

Rexburg Visit

The last ten days I was able to go to Idaho and visit my family and friends, and had a blast! It was so good to come home to good old Rexburg water, Dustin teases me about it, but I think Rexburg has the best water. Seeing my parents was so good since it's been a while, so it was fun to hang out and talk like the good days when I was living in Rexburg. Surprisingly, I didn't freeze over there, but it is a lot colder than Florida.
While I was in Rexburg I got to see many good friends. I got to hang out with childhood friend Sara almost everyday, I felt like I was ten again going to her house and hanging out, it was so much fun. And this last Saturday I had lunch with more childhood friends, Sara, Michelle, and Kylie, I love how even though we don't to see each other for a long time we still can talk like we have never been apart.
I also got to hang out with Aubrey, and again, she is an awesome friend, it was so much fun talking to her and laughing our heads off. I also got to see some couple friends, {the Dyers and Christiansens}that Dustin and I used to hang out with when we were going to school.
Than this last weekend most of my sisters got to come up from and we hung out all day. I love my family, that's probably the hardest thing about living in Florida is we are not near to any family.
I had so much fun, and I was glad that Thomas got to have time with my parents! And now I'm home and life is going to be busy and crazy the next few months.

* Side note: I have been trying to be better about scrapbooking, so to hit two birds with one stone, I might start posting my pictures in a scrapbook format, this way I will hopefully get more pages done!!! I have been doing my scrapbooking digitally because it's so much easier, cheaper, cuter, and everything else. The paper I used for this page are from my sister-in-law, Crystal Wilkerson, who is AMAZING!!! I love her stuff, she designs the cutest scrapbook stuff, you should check out her website HERE. and her blog is HERE

It's getting to be the busy season!

Starting October things seem to get a little busy with our family between all the holidays, birthdays, traveling, and family visiting, that I have a lot to blog about just this week and I feel like it's going to be like that till Christmas, because we have a lot of fun things going on with our family. 

To start off, Dustin's birthday was this last Monday and he turned big 28!!! I married an old man, ha ha jk! 

I love this man to pieces! It's hard not to spoil him when it comes to his birthday. This year he didn't get a whole lot presents because he decided he wanted to go to a caricature convention next month for a week, but I did get him a caricature book from one of his favorite artists, the new X-men movie ( I let him open that early), and Cloudy with a Chance with Meatballs. After he worked we spend the rest of the night with our good friends the Williams and had Four Rivers BBQ for dinner, which was so good, and a pie from ColdStone. So I didn't have to make anything I just got to enjoy it! So this birthday was a success!

Also this week, Thomas and I got to go to Universal Studios again with the Williams which was also really fun. Brie & I got to ride a lot of fun roller-coasters like the Rock-N-Roll, and the Mummy, poor Adam was stuck watching all three kids while we did all the fun things. Than later that night Dustin, Thomas, & I went to Sea World's Spooktacular weekend. It's so much fun going trick or treating with your kid, especially when your kid is too young to eat the candy, so you are the one that gets it, and let's just say we scored with the candy at Sea World!

Our cute little monkey!

Dustin's nasty mustache ( I just need to wait till Halloween and it will be gone) Also love how Thomas is wearing half of his costume.

And some exciting things that are coming up in the next little while: Thomas and I are going to be in Idaho this Tuesday for ten days! Then of course Halloween, Thomas' first birthday is coming after that in November. Also in November Dustin will be going to the caricature convention, and my sister and brother and his family are coming up here in Orlando, so we will be hitting a lot of the major parks.

Eleven Months!

This past Friday Thomas turned 11 months!!! I will have a year old next month! I feel like I'm not old enough to have a kid in the first place, but a 1 year-old? He won't be a baby anymore!

So at eleven months Thomas is still doing his army crawl, he can crawl a little but the other way is faster so he sticks to it. He loves when Dustin and I copy him and make the same sounds as him. He loves to smack his lips, shake his head as if saying "no", he will give you a high five, and he's starting to wave hi, but only to Dustin and me right now. He's at that stage where he doesn't like if one of us ever leaves the apartment without him, and he only allows some people to hold him without crying. He also loves the rain, he doesn't mind getting wet at all as long as he is outside. And he has 7 teeth now!!!

He is  a great blessing in our lives!

Also he's getting harder and harder to photograph and take good pictures because he doesn't hold still anymore, he's always on the move!