How do you use the distributive property to simplify an expression?

Ex. 2(3+6)
1. 2×3=6
2. 2×6=12
3. 12+6=18
You first take the number before the parenthesis and multiply by the first number in the expression then you do the same thing for the second number in the parenthesis then you would add,subtract,divide,multiply,etc. In this case we would add because that is the operation used in parenthesis