The Sparklers Parade Corps

I promised a blog about The Sparklers, and didn't have a chance to bring it, but this group is something very, very dear to me.  I have had small twirling classes since I was about 16 years old.  Some of these groups went over really well and some of them tanked for a variety of reasons.  It was a trial an error processes that has spanned the course of  approximately 21 years.  WOW!!!  Has it really been that long?  Am I really THAT old????  Let's put it this way:  I have "little twirlers" that are married with children now.  YIKES!  I have taught children of twirlers that I have taught.  DOUBLE YIKES!

At any rate, the specific group that has been known as The Sparklers, started out in a little town called Crane, Texas, as a Girl Scout activity.  We had not created the name at that point, but I knew that all of the girls were interested in baton twirling, cheer leading, dancing, etc, and I felt that it was not very much fun to have Girl Scouts riding on floats in local parades.  The floats were usually bland, at best, and the girls didn't have a chance to really show themselves.  It would be a mess of girls, sitting on a poorly decorated trailer........a big waste of time, in my opinion.  I asked this Girl Scout group of varied ages if they would like to try baton twirling and they unanimously decided to do it.  They used money that they had earned through product sales to purchase their Girl Scout sashes to wear for their first parade, and I taught them a very easy routine to some fun, popular music.  It was a big hit.  After that parade, they decided that they wanted to continue twirling, and so we named ourselves The Sparklers, because it was a patriotic themed group. 

After that first year of The Sparklers being only open to our local Girl Scouts, we began to invite other girls to participate.  The first parade that we did as a community group, we were awarded honorable mention for the July 4th parade and the next year, we were Best Youth Entry.  Things just blossomed from there. 

We moved to another town, called Monahans, Texas, which is about an hour away from Crane.  The first thing that happened to us in Monahans, was that our new house got broken into and every single baton was stolen, including batons that I had used myself as a little girl.  I was devastated.  This may not be something that would affect other people exactly the way that it did me, but my entire life had been wrapped up in twirling since I was a little girl.  The thieves should have taken any number of things, but that. 

About a year later, I was able to buy new batons for all of us, and I got started working with just my own children again.  They invited some friends to start practicing with us.  We did a couple of local parades.  I started getting phone calls from mothers, wanting to know how to sign up, and before I knew it, I had this amazing team of girls, eager to learn, ranging from age 3 to 18.  When I realized how truly large we had grown, was when I tried to get a picture of the group rehearsing, and discovered that I could not fit them all in my camera's view at the same time! 

Since then, girls have come in and out.  Some have left and came back.  I feel the sting of any of them that leave, and rejoice when they return.  Some girls move away, some have health problems, some just decide that twirling isn't for them, and some even go to different teachers.  I do feel the loss and gain of each and every one of them.  God brings us all together for a reason, for however long that may be.  My team usually averages about 25 girls at the time, with most of them active, while others just come when they are able. 

This year, we have performed in three parades, with a fourth on the schedule, the local Freedom Fest for July 4th, Relay for Life, the Big 2 News talent show, and had two half time performances for the West Texas Drillers football team.  We have many, many dates booked between now and December, and invitations are already coming in for the summer. 

We have had a lot of support from places like the local Chamber of Commerce, Pinatas by Missy, Persuasion Car Club, Critter Oasis and St. Johns Catholic Church  Without them, I don't know that we would have grown exactly the way that we have.  In turn, we have helped with fund raising for Critter Oasis, and have participated in school supply drives.  There will be more community service activities as they come available. I am so grateful for all that everyone has done for us. Also, the support from the parents in this group is phenomenal, and I am still in contact with MY twirling teacher from "back in the day."  She still goes down in the books as being one of my all time favorite people.

Here are The Sparklers and the Lady Drillers:

 Here is the last July 4th Parade, with Persuasion Car Club lined up with us: 

 They were all smiles as the parade was about to start rolling:

 This was a private lesson with a fellow homeschooling family:

The photo above was from Christmas 2012.
Below, the girls took a picture with a Hello Kitty twirler pinata that was made by Pinatas by Missy.  

Above, the parents put together this float for the girls for the Christmas 2012 parade.
As you can well imagine, there are many, many more pictures, and will be many more made in the coming months, but I just wanted to share this exciting part of the lives of The Four Princesses.  Hope that you are loving it as much as I am.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Girl Scouts and Stuff

Yesterday, it rained all day long.  We didn't get to have our twirling lesson.  Tarja was upset about that.  I wasn't thrilled, since we have a parade this coming Friday in the next town.  Today, it has stopped raining, but it's a little bit cold.  I have a private lesson this afternoon with a new student, so I'm excited about that, and am hoping that it doesn't get rained out.  For those of you in the twirling world that wonder why we practice outdoors anyway, I have to add that we have the majority of our performances outdoors, so it stands to reason that we would practice outdoors.  When it gets too cold to do so, we practice at a church that has generously donated the use of their gym.  This allows us to practice year round.  We are the only twirling, dance or cheer team that I know about in our area that doesn't break for Summer.

Melody made my nails look like panda bears today, and then we had to rush off to a Girl Scout service unit meeting.  It was a good meeting.  I think that we got a lot discussed that needed to be discussed.  I love that we are a drama free group.  We all seem to like doing the same things.  I am the nerdy Girl Scout, though.  I have never been into camping.  I prefer doing things like learning home survival skills, crafts, emergency preparedness.  However, I am going to take the camping training next month.  Maybe after that, I will enjoy camping a whole lot more. Here are my panda bear nails.  I haven't had my nails done in a very long time.

Now, something that I worry about is the government shutdown.  It hasn't directly affected my family, but I fear that it will in the near future.  What about you?  Have you lost anything or fear that you will lose anything because of it?  If so, what can somebody do to help?  Please comment and don't hold back.  We, truly want to know.  Also, please don't turn it into a discussion about who should and should not be on government assistance.  That's another blog for another time, guaranteed to ruffle your feathers.  For now, let's focus on our families.  Tell us what is going on in your part of the country.  As for me and the Four Princesses, we had a little executive session last night about cutting out unnecessary spending for awhile.  After all, we are small business owners, who have customers that may be affected by this situation, and that will affect us. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Columbus Day OFF

The local public school did not give kids the day off from school for Columbus Day.  I gave the Four Princesses the day off.  Well, at least they had a day off from logging into their online courses.  They still watched educational programs, did chores around the house, went to soccer practice and Girl Scouts.  I don't think that there is really a such a  thing as a day off in our house.

I think that the biggest part of my home based business is my crocheted hats and beanies.  People from all over the place will order them from me.  I think that's awesome, and I am very grateful.  A lot of times, the sale of one hat puts gas in my car or food on our table.  The sale of one hat buys at least a week's worth of diapers and wipes.  Wages might be higher, but so are prices for everything, and it isn't as worthwhile to work outside the home as one might think.  I was one that thought....and lost, so I'm back in the WAHM saddle again, full force.  I can DO this.  I know I can.

Here are some of the hats that I have made just within the past few days:

Yesterday, I mentioned trying to use up stuff around the house, or trying to find alternative ways to use up stuff that I found no longer useful.  We made the giant bubble solution, which was great fun.  So much fun, in fact, that we took the bucket of bubble solution to Girl Scouts tonight, to play with while waiting for girls to be picked up at the end of the meeting.

Here is Abbey, helping out at the Critter Oasis Adoption Fair.  She was the doggie.  I was the mommie:

Maybe tomorrow night, I will tell you all about The Sparklers.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Back in the Blogging Saddle

The last few months have been spent focusing more on earning money for my family, getting out of debt, and holding our own in the homeschool realm.  It's been tough.  Nobody has had a whole lot of fun around here. The house has been a wreck, and I have felt like a horrible mother.  I love the Four Princesses with all of my heart.  I can't think of much, if anything, that I do that is not done with some benefit for them in mind.  That's not a complaint.  It's a fact.

One of the things that I enjoy doing, that has suffered, is my writing and blogging.  I haven't updated my personal journals in at least two months.  I haven't updated The Four Princesses in several months.  In fact, I didn't even want to get out of bed this morning, which is not normal for me.

Abbey came into my room this morning.  I was wide awake.  My eyes were fixed on the ceiling.  I could see that there was dirt on my ceiling and ceiling fan.  I was envisioning how I might possibly get a new floor into our kitchen.  Thinking about moving things like the china cabinet out of there didn't sound like much fun.  Could me, Melody and Abbey handle it?  Should I ask somebody for help?  Abbey sat down next to me and informed me that it was nearly 11a.m.  I thought about it for a minute and said that I was so hungry and uncomfortable, that I didn't feel like I could get up.  See....even a mom can be a drama queen.  She smiled and pointed out that maybe I was so hungry because I had slept through breakfast.  Hmmm......maybe.  Even a diabetic mama ought to be able to miss breakfast once in awhile. She kept looking at me, as though she were a little amused by my childish behavior.  Then, she asked, "Whatever happened to The Four Princesses?"  I said, "Oh, that's just the name of my blog."  She said, "I KNOW.  You need to start doing that again."  "Yeah, I guess I should do that," I said.  By now, I am thinking of all of the things that I should be getting done around the house, that I was not doing while I was laying in my bed, thinking of things that didn't really matter.  For example, we have no drinking water in the house.  Why did I not fill our water jugs last night?  While I got dressed, I thought about a million and one things that I could have been blogging about while I was AWOL, so if I have not bored you to death by now, here is one of the many things that I have cooking up now that I am back to working from home:

Use it UP!

I have been working hard on decluttering my house, and then something dawned on me.  I have mentioned this to other friends in the past, but now I'm going to share it here, because I have extended this idea to the Four Princesses.  When you look at things like your beauty supplies or your kitchen cabinets, do you see a trend?  Do you see where we have shoved things that we have purchased or received to the back of the cabinets or to the bottom of the drawers, forgotten that we had those things and then went out and bought more?  Is this not a problem?????  I perused an entire area of my home that is full of things like moisturizers and lotions.  Is my skin any less dry than it was when I bought those things?  Do I not still love the perfumes?  Why am I not using them?  In the kitchen, there are food items that I stopped using due to dietary reasons or because I just didn't like them.  I used to cook and bake all the time.  Now I don't.  Are there other ways to use those items?  Could I make something with them just for the princesses?  Can I use some things in craft projects?  Should some things just go in the trash?  So, that's the challenge.  This is what I've come up with so far.

Beauty products:  I am making more of a focused effort to keep my skin, especially my face, moisturized.  During a bath time for Tarja and Ivana, I let them play while I decluttered the bathroom.  If we stopped using an item because it was too old or that we were allergic to it or something, it went in the trash.  This made more room for things that need to be used up and made better use of the cute little organizers that I made last year out of baby wipe containers, because now there is no overflow.  It all fits neatly in the shelves.  It almost feels like I have a remodeled bathroom.  I can spray my sheets with body spray when I make the bed.  Slather myself with perfumed lotions all day long, and keep my face soft and wrinkle free with all of those moisturizers that I bought and forgot about.  I have a pretty grand stockpile of body wash and baby wash.  Maybe we should bathe more often. Just kidding!  I also discovered that within this mess, was something like FOUR open tubes of toothpaste.  They are now out in plain sight, so that we can use them up.  I have, actually, done a pretty good job of using make up as we get it.  When looking through my makeup box, I found that empty containers needed to be thrown away and that I really did need to buy some more eye liner and foundation.  Before the night was over, I contacted my new Avon rep and ordered enough from her "on sale" items to last us a few months.  Keep in mind that I only ordered extra of what I knew would be used daily.

Kitchen:  I threw away an entire bag of paper trash that was truly just trash.  This made room for all of the receipts that I've been saving for tax time.  I got the receipts put away in a more reasonable fashion, got old bills thrown away so that I can view only those bills that need to be paid this month, and made great use of the household command central file box that I bought last year and then got lazy about using.  It's back in action again, and I can see what all I need to use up in that area.  In the food department, I have things like corn starch and corn syrup, that I will probably never cook with again, because diabetes changed the face of cooking for me.  That means that we can make BIG BUBBLES to play with outside.  I actually mixed this up this morning, so that we can play with it after Tarja and Ivana wake up from their naps.  Pair that with the bubble wands that had been saved from used up bubble making kits that Tarja had and that some how ended up in the kitchen, in one of my many "catch all" containers.  Also, in an effort to turn this into a tradition, I took note of what I could make for lunch out of items that I already had on hand.  I still had to run out and buy a couple of things, but I made sure to use them up.  I made enchiladas, and only had a few corn tortillas left over from the small package that I bought today.  There were not enough left to make another meal, so I cut them up and fried them into home made corn chips.  That makes an addition to our already great meal and there will be one less item to throw away when it goes bad later. 

The next thing that I need to attack is the book shelf that is making an eyesore out of the living room.  There are quite a few books that I can see sticking out already, that I was planning on reading for myself.  Why have I not read them?  Are they any less interesting to me now, than they were when I set them out so that I would remember to read them?  No!  I still want to and need to read them.  As soon as I'm finished, I need to pass them on to someone else, or put them in storage.  The best idea would be to share the knowledge with someone else.  Board games should probably be relocated, now that the baby has figured out how to open them.  For the games that might not be complete any longer, I might either find a craft project for them or get online and order the missing pieces.  It will be like having all new games.  

Anyway, thank you for being a returning reader or a new reader.  If you think that somebody can be blessed by keeping up with us, please share.  I planning on spicing things up with giveaways and games very soon.

Love Always, 

Laurel and The Four Princesses

Charlotte Mason Discussion Series: Follow Up Week 1

Last week, the discussion was about the first two items on the "Attainments by age 6."  Princess Tarja memorized "Hey Diddle Diddle", Psalm 96:1 and "Amazing Grace."  I took a short video of her progress so that you can see that it is possible for a child that has not been five years old for very long, to do this kind of work. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Charlotte Mason Discussion Series: List of Attainments by Age 6, 1 and 2

I have two princesses that are under the age of 6.  Charlotte Mason does not have a curriculum for preK or Kindergarten.  We do use Time4Learning.com for Tarja's PreK and Kindergarten work.  She is doing so well, that I can picture us using this program all the way through 8th grade.  However, I do want her to have a well rounded, Charlotte Mason education, so I invite you to share this journey with us, as we go through one goal at a time. 

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns. 

We are going to start with some classic poems such as THESE.

And these particular children's HYMNS.

2. To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a PARABLE and a PSALM

This list of attainments that I am working from can be found HERE.  This is where I send all of my friends that are new to or curious about homeschooling.  I hope that you will return to find out about our progress, and to learn about the next goals that we will work toward until Princess Tarja has her 6th birthday next year. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

2013 Homeschool Year in Review

There has been so much happening in our homeschool, that I hope that I don't leave out anything important here.  I like to do this annual review as much for myself as for my followers.  It feels good to see that what we have accomplished as a family. 

First of all, we participated in our local homeschool group, which has actually been the only active homeschool group that we have encountered.

Tarja finished preK and is almost finished with her Kindergarten portion of Time4Learning.com, and she just turned five years old this past March.  She has been active in baton twirling, tee ball, Girl Scouts and the Sands Art Association.

Abbey has been volunteering at the local animal shelter.  The ladies that run the shelter are teaching her the art of dog grooming, which has been a long time dream of hers.  By doing this, she earned her community service bar from Girl Scouts.  She bridged to Seniors in Girl Scouts, and has been active in baton twirling, softball, and the Sands Art Association.  She started her own successful business as a "mother's helper".  She is now CPR and First Aid certified and just earned her certificate in Forestry and Wildlife Conservation.

Melody is still plugging away with her online college courses, became a young crew trainer at McDonalds, and recently found a new job in a local veterinary clinic.  She has been my assistant Girl Scout leader, my assistant baton twirling coach, and has been active in the Sands Art Association.  Her 18th birthday is in two more days, and at that point, she will start gearing up to lead her own Girl Scout troop. 

Ivana, our tiniest princess, has recently learned how to walk and is very interested in baton twirling and any sort of technology that she can get her hands on (cell phones, computers, TV's, game systems, etc.)

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago