Gentle Jellyfish

Jacqueline and I leave for our trip to california in 3 days! I am beyond excited. We are going to the San Jose area. My bff, her hubby and adorable baby girl live there. We will be staying with her for a few days and then traveling up north a little ways to stay with my Aunt Jackie and her family for a few more days. Jacqueline was named after Marc's grandmother Jacqueline and also my aunt Jackie. My Aunt Jackie and her family have yet to meet my Jacqueline so this trip is long overdue. My Papa Don, who is my only living grandparent also lives there and I am so excited to see him and have him meet Jacq.

We fly in on Tuesday, which is Jacq's 2nd bday! Wednesday Janna and I are taking our little princesses to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Growing up in Salinas just about every field trip I took as a child was to the aquarium. It's a very special place to me with lots of great memories. I am very happy to be able to share this with my daughter. My mom and step dad are also visiting California so the they will be joining us at the aquarium. Yeah!

So now to the craft....
In honor of our visit to the aquarium we made Jellyfish yesterday. They were very easy and Jacq loves playing with it.
I got this idea from the No Time For Flashcards blog.

What you need.

-Paper plate or coffee filters
-Markers
-Glue
-Glitter (optional)
-Wrapping paper (non seasonal looks best)

First let your child color on the coffee filter.



Fold your coffee filter in half. Here is what ours looked like after I added some glitter to it.



Now fold the wrapping paper like a fan and cut it in strips against your folds.



Now glue the 'tentacles' to the body and let dry. Here is our finished product.

My cute, I mean cool, brother

Last weekend my little brother, Kyle was nice enough to show me some really cool spots in Phoenix to get some good urban photos. But it's not really fun taking a picture of just a bright, colorful wall. It's much more interesting when I throw his cute butt in front of it and make him play model for the day. Here are a few of the shots we got.

I learned a new trick

So a few months back I bought myself a nifty SLR digital camera. It was a small fortune for anyone in my income bracket. I felt very guilty about my purchase for awhile. But I absolutely love taking pictures. I'm not that good at it yet and I have a lot to learn. I definitely don't get out to shoot as often as I would like. Mainly because it's so stinkin' hot here. It is finally cooling down (i don't think it reached 100 degrees yesterday) so I will be going out a lot more. Today for example I am going out with my good friend Tiffany and my oh so uber cool brother.
Yesterday I gave photoshop a try. I really wanted to try playing with some textures. I wasn't sure how it would turn out because I had never used photoshop before and I know there are so many different aspects to it. Being as smart as I am, I was able to get the basics down pretty fast. I should also credit my wonderful boyfriend Marc. He went to graphic design school and knows photoshop inside and out. So he was a big help. I was surprisingly happy with the results. I'll just keep at it and hope to continue to improve. Here is what I got so far.