Snap Shots of the New Life in Texas

Well, we are finally Texans!

 We've changed our licenses, license plates, registered to vote, and everything else. It's been a little crazy the last couple of weeks getting everything settled. But I think we are about there. 

The house will be finally finished painted today, and I can finally get every room cleaned up. The washer and dryer is hooked up, and everything is out of the box.

So far we really like Texas, it's nice to be in a house first off, but we also like the neighborhood we are in. There is a WAY nice swimming pool and playground just across the street so we have been taking advantage of that. The town we are in is smaller than Rexburg, but we have a lot of stores close by which is very nice, but the construction here is really bad and crazy. 

Also the weather has been so nice this last week, it feels like fall here! I love it! I have had summer weather for a year and half now. I love how I can wear a sweater! And having Dustin's grandparents next door has been great, it's nice whenever Thomas is grumpy we just head over there for a change of scenery for a bit.

Last week we had my brother Michael and his family come over for dinner and swimming (sorry no pictures I have been horrible) and that was a lot of fun, Thomas had fun playing with his cousins. 

So yes, we have been liking Texas.

Dustin also got a job working at Walgreens at night, so he can be available to substitute teach during the day and working on his teacher certificate and hopefully start teaching next year while we keep developing our clientele as artists and one day have that be our main source of income. 

Anyway, here are some snapshots of the last couple of weeks:

Thomas and Dustin drawing right after breakfast. Thomas really likes to color. 

The house we are staying at until Dustin's parents sell their house:

Walking and playing in the park with Grandpa Hayden.

In the house there is a little loft with a nice big room that we use for Thomas' playroom and he LOVES it! Dustin was very clever and put some boxes together to make a "race track" that Thomas likes to drive his cars on, but of course when I take pictures he doesn't do that, he just plays with the boxes, but you get the idea.  

Than a little UPDATE on Thomas:

Thomas just keeps growing and growing, last week all of sudden he started saying phrases instead of just words. He's been able to say words before but this last week I just feel like his vocabulary has exploded and he will repeat and copy what we will say (if he feels like it, he can be a little stubborn). Some phrases he's been saying:

"What's that?"

"Got it!"

"There he/she is!"

"See it?"

once he said "I need help"

"ready, set GO!"

"BLAST OFF!"

and more but those are the ones I can think of right now.

He's also been really good at asking what he wants vs pointing it to me. He says "help" a lot, "bottle" when he wants a drink, "fish" for gold fish. He's been saying letters of the alphabet but I don't think he knows them yet, he's just repeating what he hears. He quotes movies all the time, he must be my son! My two favorite words he's picked up is Aaaaamen, for amen after prayers, it's very cute. Than there is "ew" every time he sees an insect, and I'm guessing he picked that up from me since I hate bugs and I'm guessing that's what I'ver been saying every time I saw a bug

He's also in a "big boy" bed now instead of the crib, and that was surprisingly an easy transition but I think it's because he was excited for his new room. And not until today he didn't realize he could get off the bed, he would call me when he was awake, which was SUPER nice because I didn't have to worry about him getting out of bed but I think he's starting to figure it out. DANG! And he's been sleeping fine during the night except last night he kept waking up. 

Also yesterday I took the bottle away, which has been not so easy transition. He loves bottles! He also loved nursing, that I was nursing a lot until I could introduce him to whole milk in a bottle. He won't take sippy cups, or any other kind of drink thing. But I have been worried about it because people kept telling me he would get cavities and stuff, and since we've moved here he hasn't eaten anything he just wants to drink, so the other day I got frustrated and cut the tip of the bottle and now he won't take it or anything else. Now the last couple of days have been a pain, because that was his little "security blanket" I think. That now he doesn't have an outlet to calm down or has that security blanket that I mentioned, also it's made nap time and bed time harder because that's how he would start getting sleepy that now when I put him in bed he's still wired up. So I guess we are still figuring that one out, and I hope it's not the reason he kept waking up last night. Anyway I'm hoping he will start taking some type of drinking device soon for all of our sakes!

Now a little update on pregnancy:

Even though I'm not a big fan of pregnant pictures, I've been trying to take more this time, because now, with my second pregnancy I wanted to compare and I had maybe 3 pictures with Thomas so I regretted not taking more, but I still haven't taken a lot, probably 3 so far. Anyway, this is me at 21 weeks, and yes, I don't know the gender yet, and it is driving me a little crazy but that's what happens when you take a 2 week trip and move at the time you can find out, but I do have a Dr appointment on the 24th and I'm hoping I will find out than, many places we called to see if we could just get a quick sonogram wanted us to have an appointment before we did that, so I'm hoping this place doesn't make us to that, the lady on the phone wasn't sure since I was so far along they might do one at the same appointment so I hope they do! 

But with this pregnancy I felt like I was "hiding" it very well that some people in Rexburg didn't realize I was pregnant till I mentioned it, but the last few weeks I just popped out like crazy, and probably caught up with how big I was with Thomas at this point. I don't know how much I've gained, but when I was in Rexburg I had gained about 13 pounds I'm guessing since I didn't know my pre-pregnancy weight so I'm just estimating here. Over all I've been feeling pretty good this last month, my morning sickness lasted a little longer this pregnancy so it's nice to fell almost normal again. 

And now Dustin's update:

Dustin recently took an online class called Character Design by Stephen Silver. Stephen Silver designed all the characters for Kim Possible, and many characters in Cloudy Change of Meatballs to give you an idea of some of his work but he is consider one of the best in the Character design world. It was a really good, a lot of work, and intense class. But Dustin and I learned a lot (I would watch the lessons) and Dustin did a lot of work, I have tons of paper of drawings to prove it. Anyway, there were a lot of assignments but the first one he had to create this jolly, fat character (so the first picture on the left was his first week's homework)  and than after 9 weeks of the class they had to do the same character to see their improvement, so that's the second picture. I think both are good but the second is awesome. 

On the bottom picture is some of the process, the first one was what he originally had after many sketches and finally picking that as the direction he wanted to go. The second, is after I gave him some critiques (he is a lot better at handling critiques by me than I am with him), but I love how we both will push each other. 

Anyway, isn't he awesome??? He does really awesome artwork that I need to show more of, I really think he's getting to that professional level, he just needs that extra 10% than he will be there!

This month I was going to take a figure drawing class from a guy who works with PIXAR and Dreamworks, but the classes are $1000 a piece and I wanted to make sure we had a job lined up before I signed up, we had quite a bit of money in our savings that I could have, but when I finally decided to do it, the class was full. Which is too bad because I think it would have been a good time to do it, because I think the next class starts right as baby #2 comes so I might have to wait to July before I can take it. 

Anyway, this post turned out way longer than I anticipated, but that's what we have been up to the last few weeks!