Kilbane Happenings

Brady has been taking a class at the Center of Creative Arts in U City. It's called "Three Ring Circus" and his teacher (shown here) Mr. Josh, is a real life CLOWN! He actually owns a theater/production company that puts on shows and hires out performers for all kinds of events. Brady was lucky enough to get to take his class. They have learned all sorts of things in his class like walking on a tight rope, balancing on a ball, barking like a seal while balancing a ring on your nose (the kids really liked the barking part), and even walking on stilts. Brady's favorite part of class was swinging on the trapeze! This is just one picture I took at his last class today. It was hard to get good ones as he was running from one activity to another. I was glad he got to take this class! I found out that Mr. Josh also teaches a Circus summer camp class for COCA - I think we will have to check that one out!  

So one of the things that I got from Pinterest was to do a "Christmas Bucket List". Together, the kids and I sat down and created a list of things we wanted to do and see this Christmas. This is my Day 3 Pinterest post. Here is a link to the Christmas Bucket List pin . This is just an example, you can put whatever you want on your own list! Our list includes lots of things like making Christmas cookies and decorating a gingerbread house. Tonight's item to be checked off is: Going to Santa's Magical Kingdom at Jellystone Park in Eureka, MO. They have taken the campground and turned it into a magical Santa-land with a light display that you can drive through. You can also get out of the car and ride on the Santa Express as well as visit Santa, Mrs. Clause and the Elves in Santa's workshop. We will be doing that (since Brady has an undeniable love for trains!). The kids don't have school tomorrow, so it works out perfect that we can be out a little later than ...

Here are our letters to Santa. This is really the first year we have done this. Last year we did a picture list where the kids cut out pictures of things they wanted from toy ads and glued them to a piece of construction paper. That worked out well - but this year the template worked out great. Kaitlyn loved it and it was easier than spelling out every single word in a letter. Starting her letter to Santa Brady's letter - that I did for him. He gave me the answers, but didn't want to write. All finished  Love the handwriting!

12/05/12 Day 2 of my 12 Days of Pinterest - another one for the kids...I really hope they like this one! Ok, so the "puffins" didn't go over so well. I guess I should have know better than to put in green food coloring. Kaitlyn tried them and didn't like the chocolate (I'm pretty sure they were milk chocolate, but they could have been semi-sweet) and Brady wouldn't even try them which surprised me considering his love for chocolate and mini muffins. Oh, well...we shared with friends and I sure am enjoying them. Today, I decided to keep it simple and work on our letters to Santa. Now, why would I need Pinterest for this? Well, Kaitlyn can write and spell family names and her sight words (Brady can't write at all yet - he still scribbles)...so, I needed a template that allowed Kaitlyn to "fill in the blanks". I also got some cute self inking stamps so they can decorate the letter and envelope. I have attached the picture of the letter template. ...

12/04/12 Day 1 of my 12 days of Pinterest quest. Today I decided to try something for the kids. They're called "puffins", or pancake muffins . You take regular pancake batter and add what ever mix-in you'd like (chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries, cinnamon, etc...) and then pour in a mini muffin tin and bake. These looked delicious and super easy to make - a lot easier than standing at the stove over a griddle cooking 3 pancakes at a time. Brady loves both mini pancakes and mini muffins and since the demise of hostess, we have been missing those mini blueberry muffins. To go to the link where this recipe was "pinned" from, click on puffins above. I used basic boxed pancake mix, followed the directions  on the box and added green food coloring (to make them festive puffins) and milk chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. You could certainly use any fill-ins you like - apples and cinnamon, blueberries and strawberries, etc...I even saw a...

Brian is leaving tomorrow for India for the next 8 days. It's just me and the kids so I decided to make the most of those 8 days and fill our time with crafts and cooking and all kinds of Christmas craziness! I have a list near a mile long of things from pinterest that I want to try and/or do with the kids. In case you've never heard of pinterest, it's an online pin board where people can "pin" just about anything. Recipes, craft ideas, printable pages for the kids...literally anything you can think of, you can probably find it pinned one someone's board somewhere on pinterest. I have become minorly (or, its major) addicted to it over the past few months. I have made numbers recipes (some good, some not so good), tried various home improvement ideas (liquid Dawn dish soap and vinegar is a miracle cleaner for nearly anything!), home décor crafty projects and so much more. It's even where our clever elf gets his ideas for what zany place he'll hide next!...

Upon returning from Cincinnati, our Elf, Chris, also returned from the North Pole to ensure that the kids stay on the "nice" list! He gets into a bit of mischief while we are sleeping...the kids get the biggest kick out of seeing where he'll be when they wake up. While getting the house all spruced up for the holiday season, we also tackled the leaved that were piling up outside. Luckily, we had a warm spell and had near 70 degrees yesterday. The perfect day to rake and bag leaves. The kids helped, but they mostly like jumping in the piles of leaves! Jumping in the leaves Having fun... Chris, our elf, taking a cotton ball "bubble bath"...it was an exhausting day, I guess. Here's Chris with the marshmallow snowmen he made to add to our Christmas village. Silly Elf!