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. 

Oliver @ 4 Months

So last Thursday Oliver turned 4 months!

It's going by way too fast. 

He is such a delight and a great addition to our home, he can always cheer us up.

He's usually pretty happy for the most part, and usually gets Thomas laughing pretty good, those two interact so well. Whenever Thomas is crying or have some type of melt down, Oliver just smiles and laughs at him and before you know it, Thomas is cracking up as well. 

He's so close to rolling over that it will probably be any day now. He might have rolled over once but I'm not sure if Thomas helped him or not because I was in the other room. 

We LOVE having him around.

So here are his stats for me to remember:

He is 26in long- so he is a tall guy and weighs 14.15 pounds.

San Antonio

Well we are here! 

It's been crazy and fun at the same time.

We planned on leaving to San Antonio right after Oliver's Dr appointment on Tuesday, when there was   tornado warnings through out the whole Dallas area and raining super crazy.

So ever since I have seen the movie "Twister" when I was a little girl I have always been somewhat scared about tornados, and now the incident at Oklahoma that has fed my fear a little more. So while I was at the Doctor's a girl was saying that after her daughter's appointment she was going straight home because of the tornado warning, and I was thinking she must be like me, and not from Texas, and a little paranoid, NOPE, turned out she was a Texan, so that made me even more nervous since a Texan was scared about the warnings.

Well after the appointment it started raining hard, I didn't think too much about it, I just wanted to get home so we could start driving down to San Antonio as soon as possible since it was getting late, then it started raining really hard and the wind was picking up and I barely could see what was going on. Things were flying around, than a huge cone, not the normal triangle cones, the big round ones, flew and hit the car, and this point was freaking out, and wondering if this was a start of a tornado, I'm an Idaho girl, I don't know what was going on. I pull over to a parking lot, wondering if I should get Oliver and run inside a store.  I call Dustin tried to act calm and asked what I should do? And said something like "And people complain about Idaho weather?", anyway, to make a long story short, I sat in the parking lot for a bit until the rain calmed a little, and what I mean by little is that I could somewhat see in front of me, and eventually came home. Now thinking about it, it seemed silly to be somewhat scared but when you are in the moment it's a little scary.

Dustin and I figured we would wait till the next day to head down, but the weather eventually calmed down and we decided to leave that night, and the drive went smoothly all the way, clear skies and all, we just arrived at the hotel a lot later than we originally planned. 

Than Wednesday, was apartment searching... my favorite (sarcastic tone)! I was not looking forward to it because of our apartment searching experience in Orlando. Well, fortunately, this round went A WHOLE LOT BETTER.  It was the third apartments we checked out, and it's SUPER NICE, I feel like we are staying at a resort here, and it's so close to SeaWorld. And first time I have actually liked our apartment, and we have a washer and dryer! And no scary neighbors ha ha! We've been calling this move a paid vacation, because we are staying at a nice place, have SeaWorld and Aquatica to go to. It's been great thus far.

Anyway, since we found an apartment so quick and we could move in on Friday we decided to hang out at the city and our hotel for a few days! It was GREAT! 

So here is a bucket load of pictures as usual, yes, I like to take pictures, and of course we had to get a picture of Oliver in front of the Alamo since he was born in Texas. We also got to go on a boat tour on the river walk which was my favorite part, and Thomas had a blast.

Anyway, it's been great, we have a great ward, they have already set us up with furniture (since we just packed what fit in our car, it's just what we do). There are a lot of schools out here looking for art teachers so Dustin will apply here as well, so we are hoping to either teach here or Dallas.

Anyway, we are excited to be here and start this new adventure!

Little Crazy!

Things are just a little crazy!

Things have been a little crazy as we get ready to move tomorrow, but I feel like we are becoming experts on this moving thing since we seem to do it a lot.

Another thing that is crazy and very exciting, that I just had to share...
this last week some one randomly emailed Dustin and asked about one of my paintings that I did 2 years ago. I don't know how they had Dustin's email and not mine, but it has worked out great because Dustin had kinda been my agent and talked to them about prices and basically got me the job, and I didn't do anything! I like this arrangement because when people talk to me directly I always tell them lower than I think it's worth, and I need to learn not to do that.

Anyway to make a long story short they are ending up paying quite some money for 2 paintings I have already done, that I just did for fun! And asked me to do another painting for them for even more money! But they need it soon so I will be drawing up a storm as we are driving to San Antonio and probably be working late nights because during the day we will be apartment searching, but I'm excited for the project.

Anyway, I will probably post the projects when I'm done, but I'm excited because they will also send me the posters, and shirts with my image on it for the whole family!

Anyway here's some pictures of the kids for the grandmas: