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.

A Day at the Park

Today we went to the park as a family. One of my goals this last month is to do something each day that is fun for Thomas/family and try creating memories that we will cherish in the future. Life is too short to not have these moments, so we need to live life to the fullest. 

Anyway, here are some pictures, it's been a while since Thomas has been to the park. Now that he walks all over it's even more fun for him. 

Thomas' favorite thing was the swings, at first he wasn't sure about it, but in the end it was his favorite. 

Thomas is not so sure about that slide.

Our Little Artist

Yesterday while I was working on a Valentine's Day sign for Dustin, Thomas decided to help. Looks like we might have another artist in the family.

Dustin and I celebrated Valentine's a little different this year. Instead of doing everything on Valentine's it just somehow worked out we did stuff other nights. On Friday we went on a double date to see "The Woman in Black", which isn't the most romantic movie I know, but that's the one I wanted to see. I liked it, while Dustin didn't, but unlike other scary movies it affected me a little more, maybe because it involved children and now that I have a child it hit home for me. 

Than Monday we went out for dinner instead of Tuesday because I had be babysitting three other kids that day and was tired so Dustin suggested to do dinner Monday and I was ok with that. 

On Valentine's Dustin and I gave little surprises through out the day, and ended the day by cuddling and watching a chick flick. 

I would call that a successful Valentine's day/weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday Walk

Little Update... and Rambling Off

For a little update...

Life for the Clark's have been pretty mellow since the holidays, so it has been hard to come up with anything to write about.

We have been in Florida now for 9 months, and our plan was to stay here for a year, well that a year is coming up so Dustin and I have been thinking what's our next step? Here in Orlando we've been having  a lot fun and like the area for the most part, but we don't want to be working for SeaWorld for the  rest of our lives. 

"So what's the game plan?" I always ask Dustin, since I like to plan things out. Well, we know he still wants to be an illustrator, and I want to have more children, and at the moment we can't just rely on illustration jobs. So "the plan", yes I put it in quotes because I have learned in life that I can plan things but if the Lord has another plan I go with it. So the plan is to stay in Orlando till September, after the busy season, than move back to the west, Utah, to be more specific and Dustin will work at the Rock Pit to provide for the family, and continue to work on side illustration jobs and take more online classes, and hopefully I will too get more illustration jobs.

We have been greatly blessed, Dustin and I really want to be artists even if it's going to be rougher (poorer, starving) road, and we have been blessed to be getting illustration jobs here and there. Almost every month since we moved her I have had some random illustration job or somehow made money through my art. I know that if we both work hard at it and keep looking towards our goal we can make it! This has been really hard on me sometimes, trusting Dustin in his career and believing that we won't always be this poor. I mean when you tell people that you and your husband are artists a lot of times you get responses like, "So you paint mountains or flowers or something?" or "How can you make money doing that?" -I will admit sometimes I ask that too.... or "What do you do with art?" The last one is my favorite question to answer because I like to "lighten" them, a lot of people think art as oil on canvas hanging in a museum, which is true... but they (not all people, but a few) don't realize art is all over, I mean everywhere, to just name a few...

Advertisement: Someone had to take the picture, someone had to design the poster/magazine/flyer. Someone had to design the logo for the company. Someone had to design the packaging for a product, ex. toys, any apple product.

Movies: I'm not only talking about animated movies, but every movie out there. Someone had to design and come up with the characters/creatures in the movie. They have artists illustrate the story board before they film so they know what each scene is going to look like. In early stages of making movies they have concept artists to draw, paint ideas to come up with for the look they want for the film. 

Publishing: Children's books, book covers, magazines, text books, political cartoons...

Design: Web designing, scrapbook paper, wrapping paper, greeting cards, fabric that you purchased for your craft. 

Well, I don't know why I went on that tangent, I guess to say that you can be an artist and make money, it's just a long, hard process because you need to build your clientele and have an amazing portfolio. 

ANYWAY... back to updating... Thomas is still not walking, he can, he just won't. Dustin and I have been having him walk back and forth between us and he can walk across the room to us, but only if he wants to. I try to encourage the walking by having him hold one hand and walk with me everywhere instead of carrying him, and he does that fine and for now he's just content with that. O well...

His vocabulary is coming along, he can say mom, dad (pa), grandpa, ball, bath (ba), bottle (baba), and probably more than that I just don't recognize it yet. 

Anyway, sorry for the long post... I will make it up with cute pictures of Thomas:

The second picture he looks a little crazy.

Good Reads

Like many other people I'm addicted to Pinterest, Facebook, and blogging.... and sometimes I spent WAY too much time on the internet. When I thought I couldn't get addicted to any more sites, a friend introduced me to goodreads.com, at first I didn't get into it, but the more friends you have and the more books you read and rate and write reviews, it's starts to get addicting (not as much as pinterest, but still...).
So what is good reads? For those who don't know,  it's a site where you create a profile and you can add friends, join book clubs, etc.... And you can create lists like: Books I want to read, Books I have read, and Books I'm currently reading, and if you have read a book you can rate 1-5 and write a review. The more books you rate the website starts giving you recommendations of other books, which is very dangerous for me, but it introduces all sorts of books that I would never have known. It's also nice too when you are thinking about a reading a book you can research it and see what ratings it has received and other people's reviews to see if it would be worth your time. And it's fun to see what your friends are reading and you can recommend books to each other.

This was kind of a random post, but I just been having a blogger's blog for this past month and since I received a lot of comments on my post about books that I thought some might be interested about this website, and plus I want more friends on the site :).

This year my goal was to read more books than last year which was 16, and so far I'm doing pretty good.
For this month I have read 4 books, which means our apartment has been messier, less good home-cooked meals, and blogging....

I read The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner,  I thought this was a good book, I just think I had really high expectations and I wasn't in the mood for this type of book. It does have a great story and a fun twist in the end, it's a series so I want to read the whole series some time. I would recommend this book.

For my book club for the month of January I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. I thought it was a fun read, a historical fiction that is told only in letters during WW2, I don't think I would have ever picked to read this book, but I did like it.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, I've been wanting to read this one for  a long time. I really liked this one, Peter was not my favorite character but I felt sorry for him. I thought this story was really cute and magical, I can see why it was a hit when it was first scene in a play. If you seen all the movies, than you know the whole story there isn't anything new but I always think the book is better, and it's a quick read, you could finish it in day easily.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol: Again I have been wanting to read this one for a while. Like Peter Pan, if you seen all the movies, you pretty much read the book, but again book is better. This one is really short, I finished it in a few hours. I liked it, not as much as Peter Pan, but I can see people thinking it's weird, but that's how the movies are.

Dustin's Family Visits!

Right now Dustin's parents and grandparents are here in Orlando for a visit!!! We've been having a great time. Dustin's mom came this past Wednesday so we have been going to SeaWorld and hitting all the outlet malls. Than this weekend Dustin's dad and grandparents came up and we have been having fun hanging out at their resort, going to SeaWorld and Universal. Tomorrow I'm really excited about because we are going to swim at the resort and just relax and hang out all day, than later  to 4 Rivers Smokehouse for lunch, which is soooo yummy! 

Living in Florida we have been missing our family so it's been great that we have had many visitors since we have moved here,  so keep coming family and friends!

Thomas playing with grandma Lisa's I-pad

Hogwarts in Universal.

Love this first picture, too funny. 

Thomas having a great time walking on the moving walkway with grandpa.