Where Did My Blog Go????

Where did my blog go????  For the past few weeks, I have been busy from the time that I've gotten out of bed, until the time that I go to bed, which is usually so late that it's early.  I meant to post about our daily homeschooling experiences, but it hasn't worked out that way.  This post is all about catching up with posts that should have been posted a long time ago.

What are the Santiagos doing for school these days?

Princess Abbey and Princess Melody are both volunteering at the animal shelter now.  Abbey is learning dog grooming by helping to bathe and groom the rescue dogs.  Melody is serving as their volunteer secretary. 

We have been selling Girl Scout cookies.  I was goofy enough to consent to being the cookie manager for our town.   Don't get me wrong.  I love Girl Scouts, and I love the Girl Scout cookie sale, but if you ever think that you don't have enough to do in your life, get involved in Girl Scout product sales. 

Princess Melody and I took Girl Scout leader training together.  It was a three hour training session.  Melody plans on becoming a Girl Scout leader after her 18th birthday in May.

Princess Abbey has been taking archery through 4H.

The local 4H had a barn tour for the schools at the start of the annual stock show.  Our homeschool group went, and it was a lot of fun.

We have gotten to know a new homeschooling family in town.  They joined our homeschool Girl Scout troop and our homeschool group. 

The homeschool group had a Valentine party yesterday.  Our new members organized a dessert contest that used Girl Scout cookies as an ingredient.  Each family brought desserts made with cookies.  Princess Abbey made millionaire pies using shortbread cookies as the crust instead of graham crackers.  She won a prize for the best tasting and another one for it being the dessert that most people would like to take home. 

For our twirling class, we are working on what I hope to be a great show.  I have a lot of hopes and dreams for this group, and I'm trying to book lots and lots of performances for ourselves.  While I'm washing dishes, folding laundry, or out running errands, I get all kinds of ideas streaming through my brain like a Roku channel. 

As for lessons, we are about finished reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, and will choose another book out of the 8th grade box.  Some of the books in the box for this year are fun and some will be rather dry, but I give Princess Abbey credit for paying attention and making an effort to learn even from the books that aren't as much fun.  Mere Christianity has been one of those books that she hasn't enjoyed as much.  I actually am loving it and feel blessed to have had a chance to read it.  For Bible, we are in the book of Luke.  I found my old Living Bible, which is a great deal easier to read than some other versions.  We have enjoyed Luke from this Bible so much that Abbey suggested that we reread John, so that she can have a better understanding of it.  We are using Youtube and online resources for Spanish.  For Grammar, we have Our Mother Tongue and The Grammar of Poetry.  For math, we are still using ixl.com, which is the best math program that I have found so far.  Not only does it teach, but it grades and emails progress reports to me.  Since I am not a math person, this has been wonderful.  For science, Princess Abbey is still working on, and almost finished with her Forestry and Wildlife Conservation course.  I am so excited and proud for her. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

SpellingCity.com

I'm pretty excited about getting to review SpellingCity.com.  This has been a very new homeschooling year for us, because I have enrolled each one of my children into some sort of online program.  Even Tarja, my four year old, has been taking her preK and Kindergarten lesson on Time4learning.com.  Well, I discovered in my email, this morning, that I have been invited to review SpellingCity.com.  Spelling practice is a big part of our Charlotte Mason ways of teaching and learning, so it makes sense to try this out for my family.  I'm going to use it for at least three weeks, and will let you know how it works out for us.  Keep in mind that I have a wide range of age levels in my household, so it should be a well rounded experience.

Disclosure:

I've been given a Premium Membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review.

VocabularySpellingCity helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Unscramble, Hangman, WordFind, and Crossword Puzzle. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of dozens of free teaching resources on topics such as Multiple Meaning Words and Possessive Nouns . Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.

Goal:

I plan on putting some Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University tricks into play this year. 

30 for 30 Physical Activity Challenge

If you look on my sidebar, you can see the button that takes you to this 30 minutes for 30 days, physical activity challenge.  Here is the breakdown of what I did for the week:

Monday:  We played Just Dance 4.

Tuesday:  I had to count, sort and move Girl Scout cookie cases for about two hours.  If you don't think that is exercise I urge you to try it.  In the evening, we had twirling lessons for an hour.

Wednesday:  Lots of housekeeping.

Thursday: Twirling lessons for an hour.

Friday:  More moving of Girl Scout cookie boxes, shopping vigorously (I'm a power shopper), and housekeeping, which includes a bathroom duct tape project. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

I am an Unsocialized Homeschooler

It's true.  I have come to the conclusion that I am an unsocialized homeschooling mama.  Looking at the red line under the word, "unsocialized," also proves to me that it's not a real word, but, whatever.

I am a complete oddball around other moms and today's interaction with one such mom was like a BIG RED line under me.  I start out with text messages form this mama before I even get out of bed.  There is something that she needs from me in regards to a fundraiser.  She wants her products to sell now, she wants them on her terms, and she wants them WHEN she wants them, because SHE has a job.  With sleepy eyes and probably lots of misspelled words, I tell her that I can't meet her at the time that she is requesting, because I have a twirling class at that hour and then an art association meeting for which I am the new president immediately after that.  She repeats that she NEEDS what it is that she is wanting, and that she will meet me at the time that she is wanting to meet me.  She will have her way, because SHE has a job.  I gently explain to her that I, also, have a job to tend to at the hour that she is requesting, but that I will see if I can find someone else to help up with this.  She gets annoyed with me.  She wants what she wants NOW.  I don't have it and won't have it and WON'T DROP MY TWIRLING LESSON tomorrow night to give it at that specific time, because that is my job that I do that I love very much and there are no amount of cookies or popcorn or any other anything that I am willing to give up other than bad weather or medical emergencies for that ONE FREAKING HOUR!  I mean COME ON!  Let me have my hour of fun, exercise, and the little bit of money that it earns for my family.  Oh!  BUT!  She doesn't mean to be rude.  It's just that SHE works.  Holy crap!   I, Laurel, do not WORK. 

Goal #(I Don't Remember What Number I was On)

To quote Pitbull, "I'm trying to make a million outta 15 cents!"  My goal is to keep trying. 

Have a Great Day!

Laurel Santiago  

 

 

30 Day Challenge

There are lots of fitness challenges going on for the new year, and I have decided to take on one that is put on by a fellow homeschool blogger.  You can see the button to take you to her challenge rules on the right hand side of the page.  As baton twirlers, and avid Just Dance players, we should have no trouble meeting the challenge.

I have not been posting, because I have literally been running from the time that I get up in the morning until the time that I go to bed.  The only thing keeping me from running right this minute is that we are waiting on somebody to come and give us an estimate on a repair that we need for the house.  As soon as that is done, we will be off and running to sell Girl Scout cookies.

Because of our involvement in so many extra curricular activities, we have been having a lot of our "school time" during and after supper.  That's another one of the good benefits of homeschooling.  I don't have a lot of interesting things to talk about this time.  You pretty much know what we have been doing, but I will share some pictures of some of the projects that I have done for this past week.

As you can see, I duct taped the high chair.  I got this high chair at a flea market, and it was not really pretty, but functional.  After my rambunctious one used it for a little while, the cushion started to tear, and the canvas buckle straps were looking quite nasty, no matter how much I scrubbed them.  Now, we have a new decorated cushion, and wipe clean straps. The Princesses said that it looks "ghetto" but they said it in a good way, so the duct tape decor stays.

 

Above, you can see that I have a fairly impressive collection of baby wipe containers, that I use to house stuff and clutter.  Thanks to colorful duct tape, they are now a matching set of bathroom organizers, which match the hanging shoe organizer that I am using to control beauty supplies.

I also have the very necessary pink and zebra striped wastebasket.

Goal #3

To make repairs and improvements in each room of my house.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

"All My Babies' Mamas"

First of all, "All My Babies' Mamas" is an outrage.  Click the link to see what I'm talking about. 

Next, I would like you to visit the blog of another very dear and long time friend of mine.  She is highly creative, a wizard at math, and spends every Christmas visiting a new foreign country with her husband.  Visit her HERE.

It is still snowing here, so we went out as little as we could get by with.  Princess Melody still had to go to work, and  I had to get things like Ivana's soy milk and various other little things from the grocery store.  Yes, I know that frugal mommies try to stay away from the grocery store, but bigger families tend to run out of things faster.  One example is that, (albeit thankfully), we have discovered that Princess Tarja's little tummy is sensitive to cow's milk, and so we started her on almond milk.  Princess Ivana started having tummy trouble every time that we gave her baby formula (just during the past two weeks), so we started her on soy milk.  Both Princesses are doing so well on their new psuedo milk, that I am having to run to the store to get more every other day or so.  I did discover that the expiration dates on both the almond and soy milk are way longer than those on cow's milk, so this means that I can buy more than I usually would at one time. Yay!

I have done a lot of decluttering and organizing the past few days.  I guess that on my list of things to put away should be the Christmas tree.  It's still up in the living room.  I have utilized a whole lot of the ideas that I have found on Pinterest to organize the play area, and the bathroom.  I also started a little daily journal project that I found on Pinterest that I thought was pretty cool.  I love keeping journals. 

For school, as school is not officially in session until Monday for us, we simply read the second chapter of The Prayer of Jabez out loud, Melody took one of her art history tests online, and Tarja spent quite a long time on time4learning, which she calls, "Ed Mouse". After supper, Tarja and I played a couple of rounds of Candyland.  I won the first round and she won the second.  Playing either Candyland or one of her Disney Princess card games has become sort of a night time ritual, much like Ivana and I watching Blue's Clues at the start of every morning.  Melody likes to run errands with me.  Abbey likes to listen to music with me.  It's funny how each Princess has her time with me in her own way, and it's not even planned or scheduled, it just IS.

Goal #2:

The Sparklers Parade Corps is going to keep adding members and keep adding sections and departments until we have at least 100 people involved. 

Have a Great Day!

Laurel Santiago

The Beginning of the New Year

I urge you to check our my friend, Loralei's blog HERE.  She is so much fun in real life, so you can imagine how much fun her blog is to read.  

Anyway, my family and I officially got back into the swing of things today......sort of.  

I started out with the little morning ritual that Princess Ivana and I have for watching Blue's Clues on Netflix for about an hour until the other Princesses wake up.  Sometimes, she and I have to go around and wake everybody up, but not until the second episode of Blue's Clues is over.  

 As soon as I got dressed, I started cleaning the kitchen, but got sidetracked trying to make some phone calls to the Girl Scout council.  I am the cookie dummy.......I mean COOKIE SERVICE UNIT MANAGER for our local unit.  Isn't that funny?  This job of just trying to get logged into the cookie managing system was an off and on job all day.

While the girls ate breakfast, I read from the book, The Prayer of Jabez for the girls' fresh, new Bible study for this term.  It isn't the book that was on the list for this term, but it's a book that I read and liked, so I want to read it out loud to the girls.  

 It started snowing heavily.  This means that our Sparklers twirling and dance practices had to be cancelled and our flag corps sign ups had to be postponed.  Tarja was not happy.  She tried to convince me all day long that we could still have practice, but we have teachers coming from out of town that would not have been safe on the road.  This launched about an hour of texting and facebooking mothers to let them know.  I was doing this at the same time as talking to a lady from the Girl Scout council about our cookie mess.....I mean stuff.  

Somewhere along the lines, I managed to get Tarja on time4learning to do her reading practice.  Abbey volunteered at the local animal shelter and groomed two poodles.  Melody worked on her art history course, then made some beautiful jewelry with the kit that she got for Christmas.  

Dinner almost didn't happen, but I finally managed to create a wonderful, low carb dinner of stuffed chicken breasts, pork chops and broccoli.  It was so amazing that even our parrot danced while she ate her dinner.  That's a nice compliment.

Melody and I watched an Andrea Bocelli concert DVD that she got for Christmas while Abbey watched wrestling. 

So, here is one of my goals for the new year, and I will try to post a new one each day for at least the rest of the month.  

Goal #1

To get through the Girl Scout cookie sale with everything sold, collected, accounted for and turned in on time.  It's harder than you think, but I have done it before and I can do it again.

Have a Great Day!

Laurel Santiago