Easy Butterfly Hand Project

It is our Nanny's birthday this weekend so we thought we would do a nice project with Colton to give to her. I thought a butterfly handprint would be fun.

This was a super easy project and really quick.

Here's what you'll need:

Paint - 2 colors
Paper
Pom Poms (I used the left over from this project)
Eyes (Left over from this project)
Glue

Step 1: Get kid to put two hand prints on paper. This can be tricky. I literally had to tackle Baby Fox's hands so that he wouldn't get more paint on the paper. We had to practice a few times, let him get out some painting first, before I even attempted it.

Step 2: Cut out body of butterfly, I folded a rectangle piece of paper in half, and drew half of the body, cut it to make the full body. That way I knew it was going to be symmetrical. Glue to paper.

Step 3: Place eyes and antennae, if you don't have the pom poms but have some pipe cleaners you can use those for the antennae.

Step 4: Personalize your butterfly, you can see that Baby Fox scribbled on the bottom. I always think it's nice to add the year so that when looking back you know exactly how old they were when doing the art project.

And that's it, super easy right? Took us about 30 minutes from start to finish, so go out and make a butterfly handprint!

Disneyland Recap

Here's our recap of our trip to Disneyland. Of course we had to pick the HOTTEST day in May to go...of course. It was probably 90°, so most of the pictures you are going to see are a hot sticky mess. You've been warned.

We're waiting for the tram, and we realize how hot it is, Baby Fox is already sweating, this is going to be a long day!

Tram ride, Baby Fox LOVED it!

Of course we had to take a picture just inside the gates, doesn't everyone do this?

First stop was the Dumbo ride, since that is Baby Fox's current obsession. They give all the passengers a magic feather, totally cute. (it's the first ride of the day, and he's already sweaty, he didn't seem to notice though)

Next up: Storybook, he wasn't too impressed.

Then we met up with some friends and hit up Pirates of the Caribbean. It was hot while waiting outside, I thought my hat would help shade Baby Fox, he preferred it backwards.

Then we hit up the Jungle Cruise - Poor Baby Fox is just drenched in sweat.

We decided to cool off a bit and hit up It's a Small World, it was a much needed break from the heat!

He got up and started to dance, he loved it!

Baby Fox really wanted to ride on the monorail, so while our friends went to try and get their kids to nap, we decided this would be a good time for the monorail. We thought it would be airconditioned...we were wrong...it was hot! But Baby Fox loved it, so we didn't care that much.

Then we hit up the train that goes around Disneyland, it was a nice 20 minute break, we were in the shade and there was somewhat of a breeze. Baby Fox likes to climb on EVERYTHING! We're waiting for the train here.

Yep it's still hot outside, but now we're on the train. BTW, we got in trouble for taking this picture. We were told that kids were NOT allowed to stand on the benches and that they had to sit down...

Our friends then called and said that kids were done napping and that we should meet up again. We made our way over the California Adventure. First up Mater's ride.

He was indifferent to this ride. He wanted to ride on Mater, but all he got were some tractors.

We got to see Tow Mater in person, Baby Fox was in awe

Then Lightening McQueen drove up...was our lucky day we got to see both. 

If you haven't been to Cars Land, you HAVE to go, it was seriously the cutest ever, it looked JUST like the movie. We were really impressed. Finally after a whole day of going everywhere, Baby Fox finally got tired and laid his head down. We asked him if wanted to go on more rides or go home. He of course said MORE RIDES! We went on the Toy Story ride, such a fun ride, you get to shoot paint balls at stuff on a screen. I beat Mr. by 100 points, heck yeah!

After that we waiting around for the water light show, Baby Fox, loved it, but it's a LONG show, so we ended up leaving after 15 minutes or so, try to beat some of the exiting people.

So we're at the car and I'm changing Baby Fox into his PJ's so we can just put him down when we get home, I know a sticky mess, my type A personality had problems with this, but he's a kid, they don't care about dirt and sweat. Anyway, the only flat surface in my car is the trunk, so I lay Baby Fox down in the trunk, I told him to stay there, while I got the diapers out. He looks around, looks at me and then suddenly says: "Oh NO! I in trunk!!!" He's such a crack up! The funny part, the next day, he told the Nanny and her son "Mama put me in trunk!" Good thing we had already told the Nanny the story, so she knew what he was talking about, silly kid!

All in all, I think it was a very successful trip and we can't wait to take him back. He was such a trooper and was not whinny the whole day, even after nap time came and went. He slept great, and was his normal self the next day.

When can we go again?!

Chicago!

Okay, so I haven't had time to get my pictures together, but I do have a couple to show you.

Picture of us just outside of Lincoln Park Zoo, wish we had more time to go on a picnic here, it was so pretty!

One of my favorite pictures, in front of the monkey cages, with my two monkeys.

 At the wedding. Didn't have time for one of the bride and groom, so here's us instead.

 

This is from after we got back, Colton is obessessed with Tomato Soup, so we got some from Corner Bakery on our way home from the airport. I don't think a kid could love it more then he did. (that's his cheese face). Who needs a spoon when you can just drink it?

Some random things:

Don't fly United...or maybe check in 24 hours in advance? Not sure which yet, bottom line, they separated the three of us on the plane, yep my 2 year old was in his own row...in the middle seat and no one cared or wanted to help fix the problem. Fun times...NOT!

We had a fantastic time in Chicago, it's so much fun traveling with family, most of my aunt, uncles and cousins were there, so it was fun to see everyone in a different city.

iPad was totally necessary accessory for the 4.5 hour plane ride...thank goodness we had one. Also, my kid likes to watch Dumbo with no sound, he watch the entire thing twice with no sound.

Linking up with Shanna for "Random Wednesday" and Faith, Sarah and Megan for "Mommy Moments"

Random Wednesday

I had the most fantastic family weekend ever! Mother's day was perfect in every way. Started out with church, some relaxing and swimming and after Baby Fox's nap time parents came over for a BBQ and more swimming. Then...Monday, on Monday we took Baby Fox to Disneyland for the first time! No work, and Disneyland? Yes please! I'll recap D-land later, but here's a picture of how hot we were the whole day, seriously where is this summer 90° weather coming from?

I was trying to shield Baby Fox from the sun, since he didn't want to wear his own hat, I thought my bigger hat would give him a little more air...but we were pretty much this sweaty the whole day. Luck for us, It's a Small World is wonderfully air conditioned and LONG. We went on it twice.

Random Things I've been Thinking:

Apparently I'm a monster when it comes to packing, or so says Mr. He says he doesn't like my packing mode. We're leaving for Chicago today! Well actually our flight isn't until tomorrow, but we're driving to my Aunt and Uncle to spend the night, so we can be a 10 minute drive to the airport instead of an hour drive. Did I mention our flight is at 6:45am? Wish us luck, seriously.

The first time around on It's A Small World I don't think I saw half of the rooms, I was so busy enjoying watching Colton enjoy seeing everything that when we went through it the second time, it was like I was seeing it for the first time. Taking your kid to Disneyland and seeing how much they love it, could be one of the best things EVER.

Yep my kid sucks the first two fingers on his left hand, has since he was 5 months old, and does it when he's not sure of something or just bored. I'm fairly certain he doesn't realize he's doing it half the time. I'm also sure that he doesn't get sick as much because he touches EVERYTHING and then sucks his fingers...I'll be really surprised if he doesn't get sick, he seriously touched every chain rope in every line.

Looking forward to Chicago...but I just want to be finished packing. I still have stuff to pick up after work today. Wish us luck with the flight and a 2 year old.

Linking up with Shanna today.

We're having a.....

Girl!

She was sucking her thumb almost the whole time, moving around lots and trying to avoid the technician getting a good picture (in case you don't read ultrasounds, the head is on the left, that blob in the middle is her heart)

We don't need to see the "goods" shot, I'm trying to teach her modesty after all.

Mr. is so excited he can barely contain himself. Like the possibility of having a boy was just out of the question. When we found out we were having a girl he went out the next day and bought her a few outfits.

I admit I was a little disappointed at first. But I think I had convinced myself it was a boy so that if it was, I would be happy and excited and not sad not to have a girl. So when they said girl it was a shock, like serious shock! Now I'm excited for bows, tutus and having someone to watch all those silly chick flicks with me and those teen movies where you're embarassed to see it. Now I can blame my daughter...well she wanted to see it, I'm being a good mother. Prom dress shopping, I really hope she's a shopper, cause Baby Fox isn't cutting it any more, he would rather ride up and down the escalator 5 million times then go into a shop with me. And I admit 2 days later I was buying her clothes from Macy's, you know cause I needed to get to the free shipping price, so I just HAD to buy her something!

Now to find the perfect going home outfit, I'm going to put us in the poor house, the girl clothes out there are SOOO cute! Although I think she already has Mr. wrapped around her little 20 week finger. We're all in trouble!

Linking up with: Faith, Sarah and Megan for "Mommy Moments"

That Time I was In Jury Duty for 3 Weeks

Okay so it wasn't really three weeks straight, but I did have to show up to the courtroom for three weeks. It was for 10 days all together, 4 days the first week, 2 days the second week and 4 days the third week.

Most people think, ugh jury duty. But in all honesty I sort of liked it. I got to sleep in till 7am (when I normally wake up at 4:45am), we got an hour and half lunch and we were out of there by 4:30pm everyday. And work paid me my normal salary, is there such a thing as a professional juror? With the caveat that I still get paid the same as I do now...hehe.

The Case:

So now that the trial is over I can spill what the trial was about. So hard to say to people, can't talk about it until it's over. I'm such a rule follower. I'll leave the names out, just cause who cares what their names are.

It's some what complicated so I'll try to be precise. The Defendant, wanted to flip a house, so he got Realtor Lady to look at homes for him. She found a house and he passed initially, but she convinced him that she would help manage the property while it went through the renovations, since he lived so far away. She gave a glowing recommendation for a handyman who was NOT licensed, even though evidence showed that he put a license number down on the bid, but it was just a business license, not a contractors one, but didn't state that. Bottom line there was a ladder/stairs leading up to a loft area and it wasn't attached to the loft in any way.

So the plantiffs, Family X, was looking for a vacation home in the San Diego mountain area. They went to the above home to look at it. When the wife and daughter went up to the loft area to look around. On the way down the ladder/stairs fell and the wife pretty much fell off the loft and crushed her wrist, broke her pelvic bone, parts of her face, ribs and was diagnosed with a brain injury. It has impacted her ability to find common words, and has even impacted her job (she is a computer engineer).

We saw about 25 witnesses and watched several depositions in all. And I have to say I never nodded off in any of them. Most of the were interesting and had interesting things to say, luckily.

The Verdict:

This part was crazy, we got 21 pages of jury instructions on how to proceed over the case on how to come up with a decision. We also got a 5 page verdict form to fill out. We had to answer each question on the jury verdict form using the instructions. What was in the instructions? Mostly definitions of what things are in the eyes of the law. Those laws are tricky!

After 1.5 days of deliberating we came up with 2 negligent people (Realtor Lady and the Handyman) and 2 non negligent people (The Defendant and Realtor Lady's Boss Man). You might think wow, that's crazy, but we could ONLY use the evidence that was given to us, no speculation, so if they didn't prove something we had to assume it was NOT true.

We awarded the family close to $950,000. I think they should have gotten more, but that's a different story.

What I learned:

Some of the other jurors were brutal. I mean they blamed the lady for falling off the latter, so everyone was not negligent because they felt they lady was negligent. Some people just have no opinions of their own, they just constantly change their mind and have no thoughts of their own and form their opinions based off of everyone else. I'm fairly certain that one of the jurors was incapable of emotion. She felt that the brain injury was fake and despite having several expert witnesses tell us that her brain injury is permanent and that she will probably never get much better then she is right at this moment. The lady STILL thought it was fake and that she was totally fine.

Out of the 12 jurors, we only had to have 9 people vote in the same direction. Many times I was the odd man out, mostly because I thought she should get more money.

There was this guy that constantly talked and would literally summarize after each person spoke. Like person A would say, well I thought this, this and that. This guy would say, so person A thinks this, this and that...like really?! That first day of deliberation was brutal! I wanted to stab my eye with a pen. Luckily we sort of set ground rules for the second day cause no one wanted to come back for a third day of deliberation. He was better, thankfully. We barely made it, we were sort of rushing towards the end of the day, trying to get 9 people to vote one way. So many times we would be at 8 to 4...arg, that was frustrating. But eventually we would get someone to change their vote.

One Last Lesson:

I don't think I could ever be a judge and be all impartial. I thought our judge did a great job explaining stuff to us and being impartial. And how he doesn't ever talk about his cases is beyond me! He says he can't in case people file other motions etc, he has to stay unbiased...wow, I like to talk to much to keep anything a secret. I thought the 3 weeks was hard enough!

And that folks was how I spent 3 weeks in jury duty, in case you wanted to know that is.

Random Wednesday!

Because you guys haven't gotten enough of this kid.  This is Baby Fox's reaction to having to leave the park. If only we all could have such deep emotion to cry bit crocodile tears when leaving somewhere. Although then people would laugh and stare, oh to be a 2 years old. I lied...announcement coming on Friday, thought it would be a good way to start the weekend.

So I haven't participated in this in a few weeks because of that thing called jury duty. But here are some thing I've been thinking:

I passed a billboard this morning that said something along the lines of needing a 40 piece chicken nugget pack from McDonalds...seriously? 40 chicken nuggets? What are you feeding a small army? And even if you could find someone to share this with, by the time you got to nugget 30, the rest would be cold, ew, cold chicken nuggets from McDonalds. And we wonder why there's an obesity problem in the U.S.

I passed 5 signs this morning. Someone had taken the time to write out 5 signs and hang them on 5 overpasses, actually 10 because it was posted on both sides of the freeway, and they wrote so skinny that you couldn't read the sign going 75mph (actually 80mph, but that just sounds too fast, seriously people here drive that fast at 5am). Maybe I'll try again on the way home, but if you take the time to write out a sign to post on the freeway, make it readable please!

Baby doesn't like tomatoes...it's really bumming me out because we used to eat spaghetti once a week. Something I can make in 20 minutes and everyone loves it? I'm in...but I'm feeling hopeful that baby is almost on board with tomatoes. I ate some salsa this weekend and it stayed down, I'm very hopeful. Please don't disappoint.

Last thing, I started calling baby Muffin because at 5 weeks pregnant, I kid you not, 5 freakin' weeks my pants were giving me a muffin top. Baby Fox has shortened this to Baby Muffie, so cute!

In case you wanted to see, here's me in all my 18 week glory (I'm currently 20 weeks, but haven't taken a picture yet)

Can't currently wear any necklaces, they all make me feel like I'm choking, even the long ones, no joke!

Linking up with Shanna today