Thomas' Many Faces

Here are some many faces that Thomas makes:

The lighting on these pictures aren't the best but I wanted to take pictures of Thomas when he is in his silly mood. He is very entertaining and has such a fun personality. 

Pictures like this one melts my heart every time. I love my boys!

I don't know why I like this picture, but when we first moved here I felt we moved into a jungle with so many trees, lizards, frogs, snakes, and very huge bugs. 

My Supporter

Some of you might have noticed my blog is like a shrine (is that how you spell it?) of Thomas that I have decided to post about my greatest support, the person that makes me want to be better,

 my husband.

As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen. -Winnie the Pooh

"It was love at first painting" as Dustin puts it. I met Dustin my first winter semester in college, it was the weekend and I was in art building working on my first oil painting in my college career, when he walked in the room and right away I noticed his blue eyes and his smile ( I have a thing for blue eyes and nice smiles!) I thought he was very cute. He starts getting his supplies ready when he passes my painting and he takes a second look as says, "Wow, I thought that was a picture." First thing he was way cute, and now he just made my day! Because that was the point of the project was to have our painting look like a photograph, seriously that really made my day because I was so nervous for that project. We talked a little here there but nothing happened, we saw each other but we were always working on our art that we never really had an opportunity to talk. 

We both started dating other people, but I always remembered him. I didn't see him often but when I did I always tried talking to him. Even that summer when I was out of school but I knew he was still going to school I would find reasons to head to the art building. I would go talk to a teacher every week about projects I was working on and I would always time it when I knew he got out of class with this teacher just so I could see him, and the funny thing was I was dating another guy at the time. But summer was done Dustin was off track so I didn't see him after that. 

So a year later after we first met, it was around Christmas and I started thinking about Dustin and wondered if I would see him again and maybe we would have a class together since we were both art majors, I really couldn't stop thinking about it. During Christmas break I was about to start dating another guy but I decided to wait and see what the next winter semester would bring because I wanted to be single if I did run into Dustin again. 

Well, that winter semester started,  my first class was 8 in morning, and I still remember this like yesterday. I was sitting there waiting for class to start and there I see Dustin walking in and I seriously got so excited and my heart started pumping, and he gave me wave and sat down to the closes empty seat. YES! I thought, and during our first break (art classes are 3 hours long so we would have breaks) we both met up and started talking. And it so happened that semester we didn't just have 1 class together but 3, I think the Lord wanted to make sure that we would get together ;) The funny thing is all three teachers claimed we fell in love in their class. 

Our first date was the first weekend of school, and the rest is history, or you can just read my blog and here at the beginning because that's when I started really blogging. 

 Dustin really has been amazing from the get-go, he's always pushing me to be better in every aspect in my life. He's always encouraging me to pursue my dreams and lifts me up when I get discouraged.  He also doesn't slow me down, but keeps up with my pace. He let's me be me, he's just as adventurous as I am and likes to take chances, like moving here in Florida living with a low income and trying to make it as starving artists. Logically in my head that's nuts! But my adventurous side wanted to go for it! And it's been one of my greatest experience of my life. 

Since I have been with Dustin I have traveled more in my life, seen more new things, I have experienced more, and have learned so much. 

To give you an idea, since we've been together we have been to many midnight showings, been to New York twice, walked around Washington DC, had a baby, read scriptures together, prayed together, have spend late nights painting together, did our senior projects together, graduated together, been on 2 long road trips with a baby, traveled all over the country,  we have lived in PA, lived in Florida, have had art in a New York gallery, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, seen amazing NC Wyeth paintings (amazing!), walked through Hogwarts, touched penguins and dolphins, been lost in a city together twice (one time it was NewYork city one of the scariest and funniest times in my life), moved to a new state with no money (the first 2 weeks we literally lived on tips that Dustin got for the day), seen Sara Evans on stage, read and discovered books together, almost saw the actors from Harry Potter twice, have meet incredible people, the list could go on. 

I know that if I had married someone else I would not have had these great experiences. 

Sometimes it has been hard trying to make it as artists and we have had long discussions about it and if this is really what we should do. One night Dustin and I had a heart to heart about my concerns and worries about the future, and him wanting to be an artist and wanting a family and such, and Dustin said something to me that has really made a difference in my point of view and really has made me a happier person, he said this after  a really long discussion and me making us write lists of pros and cons about being artists, and pros and cons of the chance of doing something else.

He said, "Jess, I really believe we can live the life we want to live." 

Maybe to you, that's not profound but to me it was. 

I can choose to be happy with whatever situation that I am. If we have a dream, even if it's crazy, we can reach for that dream, we can work for that dream, we can make that dream come true, even if we need to make sacrifices. 

 I saw a quote on pinterest that I think applies: 

"Dreams don't work, unless you do."

I also liked: 

"If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough"

I'm grateful that I married someone that has the same big dreams as me. I know that if we work hard, follow the Lord and his commandments than we will be happy and can full fill our dreams. We probably never have the nicest house, or the most expensive car, but we will be rich and blessed by having a family, living the gospel, and doing what we love. 

When I met you, I found me.

What is something you love about your spouse? Or what do you want in your future spouse?

Awwww....tv

I try not to have Thomas watch too much Tv because I rather have him playing or have us doing something fun outside, but sometimes I let him so I can get some stuff done. 

He LOVES Despicable Me, he will sit for the whole thing.

He also likes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original one) and he will sit for most of it. I think he likes the oompa loompas.

The other day he was watching Sesame Street and he liked it for the most part, he would dance to it, so I tried to take pictures of it, but every time the camera was out he stopped so these  are the only pictures I got.  

The power of the remote...

Oh the Joys of Parenthood...

Oh the joys of being a parent....

Enough said. 

My disclaimer to these pictures before you think I'm a horrible mom, is that he wasn't hurt or anything, he was just throwing a fit, and I usually let him cry it out and not reward him for that behavior but this time I so happen to have my camera and thought I couldn't miss out on a kodak moment, or blackmail for later ;) Ok, maybe I am a horrible mom. 

Yes, those tears are really do make me sad though, looking at these pictures I feel bad for the poor boy. 

As a parent you learn that your kid is ok, and that when they realize the act is not going to work, they stop. 

As you can see here, he's already stopping, still a sad face but no more tears.

Than he gets distracted. 

Than you have one happy boy again doing his own thing. 

Art is Long...

One day I saw this picture on facebook and loved it right away!!! I think it's such a cool picture, and describes both sides of the brain so well.

Obviously, I'm a right brained person, sometimes I do feel like creative juices flow like that in my head. 

I love being creative! It brings so much joy in my life! My second semester of college I had this amazing professor said that us artists are lucky to be creative, and that we should be grateful for such a godly talent. She said we are like Heavenly Father and Jesus who are the greatest creators. Wow! I thought, how cool is that? I have a godly trait.

I also had another professor said something else that stuck with me, he said, "Every time you touch that canvas you are creating something that has never been created." Again, wow, that hit me hard too, every time I do art or take a picture I have created something new to the world. 

Even though I love art and being creative, there have been times when I wasn't so sure and that I was discouraged and started second guessing myself, and wondering if I should pursue something else. I felt that most my senior year. Yeah, probably not the best time, since I was working on my senior project, and have been working hard to get to that point of my school career. The thing about the creative world is, you get critiques, you get different opinions, and sometimes people just don't like your style. It's hard not to take it personally, but in my senior year I did. It was hard when I would work on a project for 40 hours and display in class with other students work and I didn't get a sticky (sticky is where every student puts a post-it note on their favorite project, and some would get tons, while others didn't get any) also if your project didn't get a sticky, it didn't get a critique, we didn't get to talk about, basically it's not good enough to acknowledge it, at least that's how I felt, and after working so hard, it hurts. 

Most of my projects didn't get on the wall in the Spori building. That discouraged me...

I got a lot of Bs in my art classes when a lot got As. That discouraged me...

One critique another student said "Did you even think about your design?" Ummm... no of course I didn't, I just worked on it all week without thinking about the design.

Poor Dustin, there were a lot of tears that semester ( I was pregnant too, so that didn't help). 

I started thinking, if students don't like my work how can professionals out there like my work?

I was getting to the point where I wanted to quit my senior project (which was my goal since high school) and just get my degree and be over, but one day someone made a difference, it was just one person that appreciate my stuff and said I was good, and that has made the difference for me.

It was around February of my last year in school. A lot of times at BYUI they would send many artists from the country to speak to us in seminars and sometimes they would even do work shops. Well this time it was Armand Baltazaar (probably slaughtered that name) and he was from PIXAR and DreamWorks, and he had a very impressive portfolio.  He did a workshop for us where he showed us how he paints backgrounds for movies and he spent all morning doing it and I loved every moment and just soaked up the amazing information, and his amazing painting skills. 

Than we had a break and we were to continue with the workshop that afternoon. When we were heading back to the workshop I notice a lot of students getting all their pencils, papers, computers out and notice Dustin was doing the same. I was wondering if I missed a memo, so I asked Dustin what was going on, and he said that we were going to draw and Armand was going to look at our stuff and give us feed back. WHAT?????? 

"Well, I'm leaving. There is no way I'm having this PIXAR  guy looking at my stuff" I told Dustin. I was too embarrass about my art you see. I asked him to take me home because at the time I didn't know how to drive our stick shift, but about time I found out what was going on it was too late the work shop started. O SHOOT!

Dustin told me I better start drawing since I was there anyway.

Armand Baltazaar gave us an assignment to do Red Riding Hood with a twist of Western style or Gangster style. So he wanted us to sketch and come up with different ideas as if we were doing concept art for movies. Everyone was sketching away excited to show the PIXAR guy stuff they are made of, while  I was so timid and thinking "what am I going to draw?" I started thinking of his advice from earlier, and started sketching. Armand went around and started giving people feed back, and finally  he reached to Dustin and I, we were second to last. He really liked Dustin's stuff and liked how he was pushing the characters and gave him some good feed back. Than he came to me. 

O MY GOODNESS, was I nervous. I started showing him my sketches, I did some storyboard shots, and I had some character work done as well. He asked me what I wanted to do with my art, I told him I would love to illustrate children's books, and maybe go into the entertainment world. He than asked would I do character design or environments? I told him I wasn't sure yet. Than he responded, "Well, you have a good start for both, keep it up, you have potential."  I have potential? I started feeling better.   

Dustin gave me a smile and said "See, I told you were good." 

After Armand talked to everyone he had us put our stuff on the wall so other students could see and so we could discuss about them. Only half of the crowd put there stuff up, I didn't because I thought my stuff wouldn't compare. 

So we discussed about all the artwork on the wall, than when we were finished Armand said. "Some young lady didn't put her work up on the wall, and she had some really good artwork." he looks at my direction and I turned behind me thinking it was the girl behind me, than I look back at him and say "me?" and he laughs and says "Yes, you! Your stuff is good." Than he tells the audience what was good about my sketches. I couldn't help it I just started crying, in front all of these people, I just couldn't stop the tears just kept coming. Dustin asked if I was ok and I said "He liked my art, finally some one liked my art." Out of 100 students he remembered me! My teacher came up to me afterwards and said I should be happy that someone from PIXAR remembered me and that was a huge compliment. 

And that one person had made a huge difference in my life at that moment. 

I also had many teachers that encourage me as well. I had Nolan Parson for head drawing, and one day he asked to talk to me after class about my grade. I was a little nervous, since he told us that he was going to grade us according to the professional art world standard, so to expect Cs. So can you understand I was a little nervous? When I talked to me he starts " Your grade right now is a A-, if that's ok?" YES, I think I can live with that. He continues to tell me that I have great potential and wonders what I'm thinking for my future career. AWESOME!!! And he's a Parson, and all the Parson's are amazing artists. Leon Parson painted the temple murals for the Rexburg temple, to just give you an idea!

Another thing I love about art is, that you are always growing and improving. I always like looking back at old artwork and see how far I have come. Art, or any creative thing is hard and a long process, hence the my title "Art is long". Not only art but life, can have it's up and downs, but if we remember that we are sons and daughters of God we will remember our potential and not to be discouraged. Also to remember we can make a difference in someone's life. 

 It did for me. 

Looking Forward to Summer

The Clark's have some big and fun plans this summer! 

This summer we are going to do a lot of traveling, which I love to do!

Starting May I will head over to Washington DC area to hang out with my sister and brother  for a weekend than I head to PA for a week to hang out with Dustin's family and we have fun plans like going to Hershey park and maybe head to New York City! Than Dustin will meet up with us that weekend (because he has to work) and we will be celebrating his little brother's farewell.

Than back home for a few days, than Thomas and I are heading to Dallas to see another brother of mine, and also meeting up with my parents there for about a week. 

Than July we will head to Tennessee for a family reunion on Dustin's side, we are excited to see everyone. 

Than, finally, we are planning on moving back West in September, but Thomas and I will be heading over there a month early because my friend, Aubrey is getting married and I'm going to do her wedding pictures!

And I might also get a chance to go to Arizona to see another brother, but that one is still up in the air! I'm trying to get all the traveling in before Thomas turns 2 because after that he doesn't fly for free. 

So it's going to be a fun and crazy summer!

A little update of Thomas: Thomas is always on the move, there is no stopping him. He loves planes, we live close to the airport so we see a lot of planes flying. His favorite toys at the moment are balls, he loves throwing them, and he walks around holding at least one all over our apartment. Also a couple weeks ago he stopped taking the binky, one day I gave it to him and he just threw it on the floor and that was the end of binkys. It's so nice because we don't depend on it anymore. He's also an expert on our Ipad, he knows how to unlock the screen and find his games, I don't know if that's a good thing. He loves going outside, every time we leave he waves his hands and say "bye bye" so cute!

He is a lot of fun, he keeps us busy and entertained.

Here are some pictures of our walk the other day:

A picture of him walking towards me with that adorable smile. 

Pointing at a plane that's flying by. 

I know this picture is blurry but I still like it. 

My ?? Birthday!

So this year I turned ahem...23... ahem I know that isn't old, doesn't mean I don't like my number going up.
I might not like my number going up, but I still like having Birthdays!!! This year was a lot of fun, Dustin made sure I felt special.
Since my birthday was on a Sunday we celebrated it a little different, we celebrated on Wednesday because that was Dustin's day off, and we had a blast, BUT I accidentally deleted the pictures of the day, I'm so SAD, because there were some good ones. O well, I can't dwell on it...
Anyway, on Wednesday Dustin and I were originally thinking about going to Busch Gardens, which is another theme park, but things didn't turn out so we went to Universal instead! Harry Potter World? Yes, please!
We spend most of the day in the park and we had a lot of fun of course! We started at Harry Potter World which was CRAZY busy, we didn't anticipated the crowd, I guess some people are on spring break. But to give you an idea to get to Hogwarts it was a 3 hour wait, and the line was going towards other parts of the park (outside of HP world). To get Butter beer was half hour wait, luckily we found a secret spot and got ours in no time! Also this time we tried pumpkin juice for the first time, and surprisingly I liked it.

source

 Also we went to go see Ollivander, which we never have done because there is always a huge line, but today it wasn't too bad and since everything else was crazy we decided to do it, and it was WAY cool, better than I thought it would be. Ollivander was awesome, and it was so fun to see him pick a kid to try out a wands, and they had it so a few times they tried a spell something crazy would happen, like shelves breaking.. and such, than a wand "would pick the wizard" and he would tell the child what the wand was made of. To see the little girl's excitement was priceless. Ok, I just love HPW, I don't know why but I was talking to Dustin about it while we were slurping down our butterbeer goodness, the place just makes me happy, and I feel like a kid in a candy store.
After that we hit many of the other tractions, we went on the Jurassic Park ride and got wet, than Dustin had me get a caricature done, and first I wasn't that interested since I get drawn a lot by Dustin and some of his friends, but Dustin knew this guy and said he was really good, well I'm glad I did because I think it's hilarious, it's a good thing I have a good sense of humor, because it's not the most flattering but it made me laugh.  And the guy gave it to us for FREE because it was my Birthday (sorta)!

Than we hit the Spiderman ride because they just enhanced it, and that one is always a fun one. We also hit the Dr. Suess section for Thomas he loved it, they have a lot of fun interacting sections, and they had a carousel that Thomas wasn't sure about for a while, until the last second than he smiled.... of course... in the end.
Later that night we went to Kobe's Japanese steak house, and it was AMAZING and so much fun! Also if it's your birthday you get your meal free and they give you a cup cake and sing Happy Birthday to you. They also cook your food right there on your table and our chef was so funny and entertaining, Thomas loved it! He would sing and flip his spatulas all over and start things on fire and sing "happy birthday to you" in the heaviest Japanese accent, it was very entertaining. But the best part was the food, everything was soooooo good! If you ever go to Orlando I would highly recommend going to this place!

Than Friday we had little birthday dinner with the Williams, I forgot my camera so no pictures, but Brie made these AMAZING cupcakes and they sang happy birthday and had me blow out the candle.  I'm really going to miss these guys when we move....

Than Sunday, my actual birthday Dustin got me a cake, he told me not to expect much, and I was wondering what he meant, than he showed me the cake with the candles and I loved it!!! He was worried that I would be disappointed about the size, but he saw these candles that he knew I would love them (boy, does he know me well, because the first thing I said was "I love the candles!!!! They are so cute!") and he wanted the candles to look good on the cake and the only one that looked good was the white little cake, I personally think he made a good choice because I went off about the cute candles for a good little while. Than he let me open some presents, and the wrapping was priceless he couldn't find the scotch tape so it was duck tape, NICE!  My favorite gift he got me was a gift card to Amazon Kindle to get more books, O YES!

It was a great birthday thanks to family and friends, and especially Dustin!
I'm looking forward to my 23rd year!

An Attempt Photoshoot

Today I thought it would be a good day to take some pictures of Thomas and this is what I got:

and this....

and this... hello is anyone there? Maybe he was still waking up from his nap.

I finally got this...

This one he is sorta smiling...

So  I changed my tactic a little...

And this is what I got...

ONE HAPPY BOY!

Splash Park

Like I mentioned before, Thomas LOVES the water. So here are some pictures that Dustin took of him in the splash park at SeaWorld.  I can't believe my little boy is a toddler now! When did that happen?

I Have a Blessed Life!

I've been wanting to post about this for a while,  but I just haven't yet because I knew it would take me a while! But this last month I have felt truly blessed and just been truly happy!

I really don't know where to begin, so I will just spill my guts, so it will probably not make sense and not flow well... so that's me warning you!

First thing, life is just hard. It's amazing, fun, has it ups and downs, unpredictable, and everything else. We all go through trials. Through facebook,blogs, and other sources of interacting I have seen many of my friends go through some hardships.  In these last few months I have had a friend lost her father, a friend who lost her husband, a friend that had a miscarriage, a friend that can't get pregnant and has been trying many years, a friend that has had health issues and didn't know what was going on, a friend that has gestational diabetes when she is pregnant... and many more. But what has amazed me is seeing these friend's attitudes towards these trials, they look at the positives, they come closer to our Heavenly Father, they see his love and they grow from these experiences. I have learned so much from them, and they have taught me to appreciate my life and what I have, and to have a better attitude and outlook in life.

As I mention in a previous blog that I have been focusing trying to do more fun and memorable things with Thomas and Dustin, well I have also tried to focus more on ways to make my marriage better, and change my attitude in a lot of things, and I have been happier and more excited about life.

I have also tried to converse with the Lord more and have him in more in my life, too many times I get "too busy" with being a mom that I forget to thank my Heavenly Father for all that he has given me. He truly has blessed me and I have seen him touch my life so much this last month, things have been working out better, things have been clicking to place, basically I just have seen blessings all over that how can I not post how grateful I am to be blessed! I have an amazing husband who is a great companion, supporter, and everything else. I have a beautiful little boy. I have great family and friends. Everyday I get to do what I love, I get to be with my little boy, I get be an artist, and I get to be with my husband, how can I not love life?

Anyway, there are more things I'm grateful for and more I wanted to say but it's getting late, and this cold that I have is making my head stuffy so it's hard to think but I wanted to least say that I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father and this gospel, the Lord's plan is truly the plan of happiness!

I really should put a picture of Dustin on here too, because he's such a blessing in my life but I didn't get a chance to get a picture with him tonight liked I planned! So maybe another post I will....

Simple Pleasures in Life

Life has many simple pleasures,  and one of them is:

NUTELLA!!!

  

This boy of mine LOVES Nutella! Just like his mommy. We all have been sick this last week and Thomas wouldn't eat that much, it would be hard to get him to eat anything, but he never said no to Nutella on bread. So I've been a bad mother for feeding him mainly Nutella and bread for a few days, but I rather him eat something than nothing. He's feeling a lot better now so I have been able to get more food in him but this is what he looked like the other day that we couldn't help but take a few shots of the crazy mess!

Trying to clean him up, I wasn't thinking, both of us wearing white shirts, NOT SMART!

The Box

For those who know me, know that I love to travel and that I love Europe!

Ever since my Europe trip in 2008 I have promised that I would come back, I did toss a coin in the Trevi fountain in Rome which means I promised to return, so I have to keep my promise, right?

And before I married Dustin and made him promise me he will take me to Europe, even if we are old, because the chances are when we have saved up enough money we will be on the older side. 

Well, I have decided now is the time to start saving, and I liked the idea they had in the movie "UP" where they had a coin jar where they would put money in there every so often, not a lot, just a little here and there. Well Dustin & I are doing something similar but a little different but it's between him & I, but basically it's the same idea, slowly saving a little money here and there. 

I was very excited for the idea and I wanted to put our money in something, and the other day I was at Michael's and saw this box and fell in love with it right away and thought it was PERFECT for our "little bank". 

Anyway this post was mainly to show off my cool box, maybe I got a little too excited about it!

Aquatica

Can I just say this post was a pain! It's been taking me all day, I almost gave up.

Anyway... yesterday was Dustin's day off and the weather was so nice we couldn't help going to Aquatica.

We have gone to Aquatica several times but I never taken pictures till now. It a fun water park that has a lot of fun water slides, lazy rivers, wave pools, and kiddie pools. 

Thomas loved it! Thomas loves anything with water. At first he wasn't so sure about the lazy river, but after a while he loved it.

We been having a blast living so close to all these fun parks.