Oliver @ 5 Months

On Monday Oliver turned 5 months.

I feel like I just wrote his 4 months, it's going by very fast. 

Even though it's gone fast Oliver has made a lot of progress this past month, he is pretty mobile now. He rolls everywhere and can get to whatever he wants to now, and he's trying to scoot now to reach things. My guess he will be crawling a lot earlier than Thomas.

He really likes SeaWorld, giving hugs and kisses. He's my cuddly baby and I love it. He's pretty good about playing by himself now on the floor, where as in the past I had to hold him all the time.

And he gives you the sweetest smiles that just melt your heart!

So while I was taking pictures of Oliver, Thomas wanted to join in, which is funny because he usually hates when I tell him to sit to take a picture, but I was more than happy to take pictures of his crazy, morning hair; and to practice with my new lens I'm still figuring out, but I love it!

Hard Week

Last week was really hard. I was so glad when Sunday came around because it was that hard, I usually don't  wish my life away but I couldn't wait till last week ended. Motherhood can be really hard, and last week was a good example why motherhood is hard, and what's funny is now I can't remember everything that happened, another thing that I think happens in motherhood, forgetting the bad parts; that's why we give birth more than once.

I think part of the reason it was hard was because I started my online art class, while working on art commissions, and last minute someone asked me to substitute teach Relief Society (which I have never done before)  so I was trying get that stuff done at night when it seemed like almost every night some type of disaster happened. 

To give you an idea, one night Thomas was throwing up, luckily Dustin took care of that one because I'm usually feeding Oliver at nights. This past week Oliver has been waking up more and not going back to sleep so that makes long nights. One night when the missionaries were over, and I was so tired that night, Thomas twisted his ankle so he was crying and limping while I was trying to get dinner done, than he asked if I would put "superman" on his foot, which is just lavender oil, I've been using that whenever he got ant bites and we have called it "superman" for some reason, and he wanted to hold the bottle, so not thinking about it I let him hold it, and next thing I knew he open it and spilled it all over him and the couch, so again, not thinking, I took the empty bottle and was trying to finish dinner and left him and a few minutes later he was screaming in pain and I quickly realized he rubbed his eyes with his hand that had a bunch of oil on it, so I was rushing him in the bathroom trying to get it washed out, and had Dustin and the missionaries finish the dinner. 

Last week Dustin worked all closing shifts, so I would make dinner and put the kids to bed by myself, and clean up, and I have to time it just right before the melt downs happen, and the boys seem to like to have them at the same time. So that wore me out, and I would want to relax afterwards but had to work on the stuff I mentioned earlier. And Dustin's day off he helped someone in our ward half the day with their yard, which I'm grateful to have an amazing husband that does that, but I do cherish his days off because I can get a little break, and this last week I didn't. 

Anyway, that wasn't half of what happened this week, but like I said I can't remember everything but it seemed everyday something dramatic happened with the kids, and I remember Dustin and I traded taking care of the kids a lot so one person could take a half hour nap so we could function for the rest of the day. 

Anyway, I feel like I'm complaining, but really it was a hard week and hopefully this week will go smoother, but here are some snapshots of some good times this past week:

Some Projects

Here are some pictures of some projects I've been working on our apartment, I'm not done but I probably won't do too much more since we are only here for a few months, once we are more settled at a place I will probably finish more but till now here are some.

THOMAS' BEDROOM:

This is Thomas's room, since he's a pretty big super hero fan  I decided to do avengers for the theme. At the moment I'm working on a huge painting  of captain America to put on this wall, but until than we have the wall stickers. Than for the opposite wall I made three pictures of some superhero symbols that I made on illustrator and photoshop, they were super easy and Thomas, and Dustin..., think they are pretty cool.  I got the frames at Hobby Lobby for $6 dollars each, so it was super cheap. I also made the temple print on illustrator and photoshop as well, I got the idea from Pinterest. Gotta love Pinterest.

THE KID'S BATHROOM:
I was originally going to do super hero theme in the bathroom as well, but it turned out to be a jungle theme instead. And my mother-in-law gave me the great idea of hanging my Jungle Book piece in there, and it worked out perfect. Thomas loves that painting, he says "It's mommy's" and sometimes "It's Thomas" referring to Mogli;  the funny thing is I used Thomas as a reference so he's kinda right.
I also made the "Dream Big" print as well, gotta love photoshop, it's seriously my best friend.

THE KITCHEN TABLE:
Since we are here for a little while we only have a few things. We purchased this table at Goodwill for $20 and I decided to paint it turquoise to go with some pillows in our living room couch, and figured if it turned out horrible I wouldn't cry over it. So here is the before and after pictures, I like the blue a lot better. As of right now we don't have any picture in the dinning room wall but if we do end up keeping the table once we settle somewhere I think I'm going to purchase some oil paint and a canvas and paint a still life to go with it. But till now, we just have a blank wall. Also do you love our lime chairs? ha ha I was waiting to find some cheap chairs I could repaint white or something to go with our table and Dustin got tired not having chairs and bought these bad boys because they were in the clearance section in Target, and when I saw them I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep them, hence the tags still hanging on them, but since we have used them everyday the past three weeks, I guess we are keeping them until I find something else. So the home decor isn't quite finished or how I want it but it's a working progress.

Snap Shots and Update

Here are some pictures of this past week. We are having a lot of fun while we are here in San Antonio:

A little update:
I have our apartment almost where I want it, and hopefully put up some pictures soon. I've been busy with some projects, like I painted our kitchen table blue, you read that right, BLUE, what can I say I'm an artist and wanted some color in the room. And I've been having some more art commissions that have kept me pretty busy at nights.
Also, two exciting things. With the money from my art jobs I finally got a new camera lens that I've been wanting quite some time!!! And I love it, but I still need to get used to it.

Second thing, I'm  FINALLY taking an art class on Schoolism! Dustin has been taking a few classes from them and has improved so much! These classes are awesome because they are from the top artists in the world! And I have been wanting to take this figure drawing class from Louis Gonzales that is currently working for PIXAR for sooo long, but these classes are $1200 a pop, yeah OUCH, but they are really worth it, but the classes fill up very fast that every time I finally save up enough money to take the class it gets filled up. I have been trying to get in the class for a year now, and the next one was starting this week, and I was so excited to take the class and I was just waiting for the check from my Theatre job, and when we finally got the money the class got full that EXACT same day. It has been the story of my life, I was so upset, because this kept happening to me. Well, when I went to get chocolate to make myself feel better, my awesome husband decided to email the company and told them my situation and they emailed him back and said they never add people but they talked to the instructor and told him my situation and he said he that he would add me!!!! And they gave us $200 off because they are awesome! OH HAPPY DAY! So I'm starting the class tomorrow and I'm really excited and nervous at the same time because it will be intense and life will be busier but I'm excited to improve on my art. So I have a feeling that my blogging will be less often as well as everything else in my life.
But hey, I'm excited!

Thomas @ 2 1/2 Years

Thomas turned 2 1/2 last month, so I figured it's a good time to document some things about this little man.

Thomas is such a good brother and a big helper. Yes, sometimes he acts like a typical 2 year-old and I wonder what I am doing wrong half of the time. But a lot of times I can ask him to do something and he will do it without hesitation. He's really good with Oliver, he looks out for him. When Oliver cries he comes to his rescue and entertains him. He always wants Oliver involved when we are doing something.

Thomas still loves the super heros, thanks to Dustin who keeps feeding that by showing him super hero cartoons in the mornings. He really likes Hulk, Iron Man, and Batman. He likes to pretend to be them, I'm not a big fan when he plays Hulk, but he's a boy, what can I do?

I think he's growing faster than he can handle because this kid keeps tripping and falling. I think part of it is because he gets so excited and doesn't pay attention what he is doing, but for the most part I think he's not used to his bigger body.

He loves SeaWorld, and it's been so fun taking him when he is  older because I love hearing him talk about everything he is seeing with excitement. The other day we went with Dustin and he wanted to show Dustin everything since Dustin hasn't seen it with us and he thought that was great.

He loves playing in the water, and he still draws but not as much since we have moved here. But he still amazes me what he can draw. There was a picture he drew in church and I was so impressed that I wanted to scan it and put in the blog but it went missing, but it was a face with not only face features but the eyes had the iris and pupil! Amazing right? Or I'm just a proud mom!

I can't express how much love we have for this little guy! I can't believe I get to be his mom, I'm one lucky mom!

San Antonio's SeaWorld!

YAY for SeaWorld!

Last week I got my pass and we went to SeaWorld for a couple hours, I was sooooo excited, pathetic, I know. Thomas was really excited as well, which made me even MORE excited. Poor kid, I kept telling him about the whales and that we were going to see them soon, but it took a couple of days before Dustin could get the ticket, so when I would drop Dustin off at work  we would see pictures of Shamu and statues, Thomas would ask if were going to see the Whales and I would have to tell him not that day. So when we finally could go, he was so excited. So the first thing we did was to see the Shamu show, and he loved it! That now every time we go to SeaWorld we see the Shamu show.

We've been almost everyday now, so every time we get in the car Thomas says, " Going to see the Whales?" I also love hearing him talk about the show and how the whales "fly" out of the water. We still haven't seen everything because we just go a couple hours at a time. I haven't gone on all the rides yet either, but it was nice to get back on a roller-coaster, it's been WAY TOO LONG!

There are things I like better here than Orlando's SeaWorld, but overall I have liked Orlando's better, maybe my opinion will change once I know this park better, because it's still all new, but I feel like Orlando has more animals and so far all the exhibits that I have seen have been smaller here. And they don't have my all time favorite show, but I like the Aquatica water park better here, it's a little smaller but the set up is a lot better in my opinion. 

I'm hoping to take advantage here and take awesome pictures of the animals, since I didn't do that very much in Orlando, but our first day I just mainly took pictures of the kids "first time" experience.

So if anyone wants to come down and see SeaWorld let us know, we love having visitors! And we have a lot more room in this apartment than the one in Orlando!

Theatre Posters

I'm really behind in blogging AGAIN. 

It'a been a little crazy because we just moved in a new place and figuring out a new city, I've gotten lost so many times here, but they have streets with the same names, who came up with that one? 

Anyway, and I had do one and half paintings, and touch up another within a week, so any time I had down time I was painting like crazy. There have been a few nights that I had to stay up pass 2 in the morning, that for a little bit I was thinking "Do I really want to be an artist?" because sometimes it was hard to get painting when it was 11 at night and was exhausted from the two little guys and trying to unpack everything as well, but I'm not going to lie, I like the pressure of a quick deadline sometimes, I like the challenge, except crunch time when you only have few hours and wondering if you will get done in time. 

I also have to thank Dustin, he has been awesome! On his day off he took the kids so I could put in a 5 hour day and just work, and his critiques were awesome and made my work that much better!

The Snow White was already done, I did this painting over 2 years ago, they just had me change her face expression than from the original. 

The Princess and the Pea was actually what got me the commission, they googled The Princess and the Pea and found my really rough sketch and loved it! But I never finished it, so thanks to this job I finally finished the painting I started 2 years ago!

Than they commissioned me to do the Jungle Book. To be honest, Jungle Book didn't sound that fun but I had a blast doing this one! So I originally had the bear blue but they wanted a brown bear so I had to make some changes but I think I like the blue bear better:

And they loved them! That's probably my favorite part seeing my client happy and excited from the results.

So now I will have some time to finish packing, catch up on this blog, and hopefully make our little apartment feel more like a home. 

I also want to say, that I feel truly blessed to have this talent, it has helped having some second income once and a while. I feel like I can be more effective wife because I can too, help Dustin with his commissions. And I know the Lord is blessing me, because I rarely get a chance to draw these last few months, since we have moved to Texas I have maybe drawn 5 times, so I should be losing my touch and not progressing from the lack of practice, but I feel like the Lord is blessing me because every time I start painting or draw I feel like I haven't missed a beat and I know it because of Him.