Where Happiness is

Yesterday as a family we decided to head to the San Antonio temple before we move.

Last Sunday Dustin and I spoke in sacrament about the blessings of temples so we thought it would be a great family outing one Sunday, and yesterday worked out well. 

This last week the kids have had some nasty colds so we just went to sacrament yesterday and didn't take Thomas to nursery because we didn't want to pass the germs. He was a little put out since he LOVES nursery, hopefully he will like primary just as much, since he will be in primary next year - I still can't wrap my brain on that one, I shouldn't have a kid that old.

ANYWAY, so we decided to head to the temple.

 And we broke a few rules in the process...

As we were driving when we realized we were low in gas, so we stopped to get gas, which we try not to do on a Sunday. Than Dustin was eating Dorritos on the way and got some chips stuck in his throat so we ended up in the McDonald's drive-thru to get some waters... than the Temple grounds and parking were closed so we ended up parking in a dead end road that had a sign "Don't Park" and walked around the fence when we saw a spot where we could sneak in so we did, and walked in the grounds when they were closed. So we laughed about all the rule breaking to get to the temple, and that it was a little ironic.

Thomas loved it and was excited to see the temple and to see Moroni on top and pretended to be Nephi as we were walking around. Nephi is one of his favorite Book of Mormon heroes. 

The temple was gorgeous and it was a wonderful time with my family! I'm so grateful for temples and this Gospel, and I'm grateful that Dustin and I are married and sealed so we can be a family for eternity!

If you want to learn more about my faith check out mormon.org.

So Close...

Oliver is getting so close to crawling! 

I can't believe he's growing so fast, and today I saw that his bottom teeth are coming in!-Which explains the late nights and him wanting extra cuddling. My baby is not going to be a baby that much longer!

Than he got a little tired and wanted to be picked up.

Busy Week with Both Families Visiting

This week was a little crazy but a lot of fun!

Last Sunday, Dustin's sister, Crystal and her family and Matthew came to visit. I feel bad that I only have this picture of them, but we were always on the go and having fun that there wasn't that much time. It was so much fun going to SeaWorld and Aquatica for three days with them, and Dustin and I got to ride some slides together! And Thomas loved having his cousins over, especially Matthew, he keeps talking about them.

So they left Wednesday, than my brother, Michael and his family arrived Thursday night. Friday we spent all day at SeaWorld, sorry no pictures I was a slacker this week, but we had a lot of fun, and the kids slept good that night.

Saturday morning we went to downtown San Antonio to see the River Walk, which is my favorite thing in San Antonio it is so BEAUTIFUL! We also checked out the Alamo and an old cathedral. Than hung out at the pool rest of the day. Than Sunday they left early in the morning, Thomas was really sad when they left, but he was pretty excited to get his room back, I guess his superhero room is cooler than our bedroom.

So it was a crazy week but it was so much fun!

Some Great News and The Largest Donut in Texas

Earlier this week Dustin headed to the Dallas area for some job interviews and took Thomas with him since they were going to stay with Dustin's parents and some of Thomas' cousins were up there; so we figured he would have more fun up there, and it would give me a chance to work on my art while Oliver took his naps. Even though I missed Dustin and Thomas it was fun to have one-on-one time with Oliver. And it was kinda nice having just a baby to look after, just think that used to seem a lot of work taking care of one baby but now that's almost a break to me!

So Oliver and I got to hang out together and he was a great helper while I was folding laundry:

On his way back from Dallas, Dustin stopped at Round Rock to get one of Texas' biggest donuts! I heard about these donuts and have been wanting to get one but when we went last time it was closed for the day (they close at 4) so I asked Dustin to stop by there because I wanted to try these famous donuts. 

And it was way good! It doesn't look good, but it was delicious and it was huge! We took a picture of it by Oliver trying to show how big it was. 

And I might have ate half of it in one setting...

And some good news...

Dustin got a job!!! We have known for about a week now but it's technically not official till Monday so he wanted me to keep it on a down low, so I probably shouldn't put it on here but I'm guessing not too many people read my blog anyway. It was his first interview and all! Before he left here he had about 2 interviews set up and was trying to get some more while he was there, and he got a call from one of the principles in the town we lived in before we moved here, in San Antonio, and asked if she could see him before his other interviews and when he got there she told him he can have the art teacher job if he wanted it! So he took it and canceled his other appointments! We are very excited! It's a great town and we are close to family. 

We feel greatly blessed because it's perfect for us at this time of our lives, and many people told us that we probably wouldn't know where we were going until August so we thought we were going to do interview after interview for this next month, but now we have a job, so we will stay here in San Antonio till end of this month than move back! And hopefully this will be a last move for a little while, it will be our third move within a year!

Anyway, feeling greatly blessed!

Figure Drawing Homework

I mentioned before that I was taking an art class, so I thought I would show you some of my homework for those who are interest, so probably no one ha ha. 

Anyway, the class has been awesome! It has attacked some of my weak points in my drawing. And there have been times I got frustrated and had to work my brain a little because this class is teaching me how to see the human body in a different way than I am used to. It's not about the anatomy and trying to represent it exactly, it's more about the mood, feeling, and the story and how to push the pose to communicate those things. 

I would say figure and head drawing is one of my strengths, many of my college professors told me that, but I feel like this class is pushing me to whole different level and I'm excited! This is one of the reasons I love art, you are always improving!

Anyway, here are some samples of my homework, this about a fourth of how many drawings I have done the last 2 weeks but this will give you an idea what the class is like. 

So every week a new lesson comes on the website and I watch about an hour lecture and watch the teacher draw from a "life model". Than so far our assignments have been 30 second poses for 20 minutes from a "life model" than 2 hour life drawings, where I have to go somewhere and basically people watch and draw them. Than we have to look at pictures or paintings and draw the poses. After that we turn it in, than my teacher sends me a video of his critique on my artwork and he draws over my stuff and shows me how I can do better! How awesome is that? So I have one-on-one lesson with a Pixar guy teaching me what they teach the workers there! It's FANTASTIC!

So this first picture is first week where we could only use line to show the movement or gesture, I didn't put too many up from the first lesson on here because it was a bunch of lines, so sorta boring to look at.

The Second week was shape, where we had to draw the shape and than draw over it. It was to help us simplify and to push it more. This week I was struggling at first, it probably sounds crazy but drawing simple shapes and pushing it was hard at first but I felt like I was starting to get it, that I re-drew some of the poses again to see if I could push it even more. 

Here are some life sketches I did when we were in SeaWorld the other day, since people move a lot most of these are ten seconds or less.

Some shape exercises using Norman Rockwell paintings as reference.

It's been fun having homework and learning once again. And I've forgotten how much I love to draw, especially the human body.