8/8/16: Give Baton Twirling a Try with the Suburbanettes

We are in August and it is time to think about fun activities for the kids come September.  I love having my kids try lots of new things to see what they like best.  If you have never thought about your child trying out baton twirling you really should!  The Suburbanettes Twirl Team who are MA State and Northeast Regional Champions!

This year they have a new 6 Week Trial Class which is a great way for new students to try out the sport of baton twirling.  Students will learn basic twirls and are invited to march in a parade with the team.  This is a 45 minute once a week class in the studio in Chelmsford, MA.  You can then chose to continue and can be placed in a class.

Here is the full Registration Form.

Here is our team with Pat Patriot at the Chelmsford July 4th Parade.

The nice thing about baton twirling is you can start at any age.  Lauren started at the age of 3 however there are many other twirlers that have started much later.  I twirled with girls on the Majorette Team in my high school that started in High School.  It is so satisfying learning to do tricks and she has even performed in her school Talent Show twirling baton.
She was so cute at her first lesson!
The kids learn to be team players and have good sportsmanship and support each other.  You can also read my blog post on 10 Highlights of Baton Twirling to learn about some other benefits of baton twirling.

Kids have the option of competing if they really love twirling.  Lauren does love to twirl and has competed in many competitions and won many titles including MA Pageant Winner two years in a row.  Lauren now takes three 45 minute team classes and has a solo lesson for 30 minutes a week.  You can see highlights of Lauren's baton twirling career here.

But more than the shows, parades, and competitions are the friends that you make.  I made so many friends when I twirled and Lauren is forging the same close friendships I did.

She is always being silly with her friends and having a good time. 

Plus they have lot of fun outside of twirling too.

 Here they are at a team pool party.

 During the holidays they have a party where they go out shopping for children who are less fortunate.  Such a wonderful way to give back to the community.

 The Suburbanettes Twirl Team also won the 2016 Major Margie Gilbert Award for Dedication to Twirling and they also won the 2016 Linda Lanni Memorial Award for Outstanding Team Sportsmanship!

Lauren has had the most supportive Coaches!

Be challenged and have fun!

Give it a try and come twirl with us!  As my Mom always said you won't know if you like it unless you try it!

Find them online:  https://suburbanettes.wordpress.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Suburbanettes-Twirl-Team-1480627775563249
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/suburban.ettes/

Contact Kristina Reppucci at krtwirl@aol.com

Disclosure:  I was provided with a free month of Lauren's tuition in exchange for this promotional post.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

4/27/16: Baton Twirler Turned Twirler Mom 10 Highlights of Baton Twirling

I honestly would have never thought back when I was twirling that some day I would be the Mom watching my daughter twirl in competitions, parades and shows.  But guess what?  I totally am!  I watch her practice, I teach her tricks and now I go to competitions and get the same butterflies I had and stress when she goes out on the floor.  Plus she wears the same costume I wore back in the day.

She also wears the same dress for modeling.  As part of baton competitions you model in a dress if you are in Advanced and in a costume for best appearing.

At all of her competitions she is always cool as a cucumber and I am the one that is a basket case.  I do have those moments though when I just settle down and enjoy her performing and those are the best moments.  It is like a sisterhood of baton twirling.  We all know the fear of dropping, forgetting a routine, or rocking it with a no drop!

For me these are the 10 highlights of baton twirling that I hope she experiences:

1.  Having fun with your baton twirling friends who are like sisters to you and there for you through thick and thin.

2.  Enjoying the wins but also not being too hard on yourself with the losses.

I have had tears well up in my eyes when she wins and also when she has a good routine and feels good about it.

3.  Practicing something you love and being challenged along the way.

4.  The rush of catching a trick you have been practicing forever and just couldn't get.

5.  Enjoying twirling with your team and having fun practicing with them and marching in parades with them.

6.  Sharing your achievements with the world!

The Suburban-ettes Twirl Team won the 2016 Major Margie Gilbert Award for Dedication to Twirling and they also won the 2016 Linda Lanni Memorial Award for Outstanding Team Sportsmanship!

Lauren also won her Beginner Pageant at Miss Majorette of MA.

6.  Enjoying staying at hotels with your team before competitions and having fun together.

7.  Getting dressed up in beautiful costumes and dresses and having gorgeous curls in your hair.

8.  Learning good posture and composure.

9.  Having your friends be amazed when you twirl or toss your baton and turn and catch it.

10.  Being a Baton Twirler is JUST AWESOME!  Plus no matter what people say it is a sport!  A very difficult sport.

4/10/16: Natural Curls with Curlformers

Lauren competes in a lot of baton twirling and modeling competitions.  Part of the job of the Mom of a twirler is to be a hair stylist, makeup artist, and quick change helper.  I am always looking for ways to make our lives easier when she has to model at 8 am.  Recently I was provided with Curlformers Spiral Curlers for review and we were excited to try them out!

At 6 am or 7 am in the morning I hate having to use a hot curling iron on Lauren's hair.  We are both tired, I risk burning her or myself, plus I feel like I am damaging her hair.  Back when I twirled we wore very hard plastic curlers to bed.  They were uncomfortable to sleep in and I dreaded having them put in.  Every time the plastic end would be pulled off it would snap back and hit you in the head.  Now thanks to Curlformers we can sleep a little later in the morning, not subject Lauren's hair to harsh heat and sprays, and still get beautiful curls.  I was also lucky enough for this competition to be staying over with a couple of older twirlers from her team who were happy to help me try out Curlformers for the first time.  I must say they had a lot of fun using them and were amazed at the results.

The way that it works is you have these long Curlformers in two colors.  One color will create a curl to the right and one to the left.  The package also came with two of the black hooks.

You first make sure your hair is wet and comb through it to get out any tangles.  Take your black hook and feed it through one of the Curlformers.

Take a small section of hair and twist it at the root.  Take the hook and put that onto the twisted hair at the root.

Pull the hair through the Curlformer.

As you can see here we had a lot of fun doing this!  Here you can see the hook pulling the hair through the Curlformer.

Once the hair is fully pulled through you release and the Curlformer curls back up.

A few times we had to wind the Curlformers a bit as they didn't totally curl back up.

Once we were done this is the end result.  You could also do one color on one side and the other color on the other side making curls go away from your face.  We decided to just alternate colors.

Lauren has really long hair and these were long enough for her whole hair.  Some even had some space down the bottom without hair.

The end result when she woke up in the morning was beautiful curls.  All we had to do is squeeze the top end and pull and voila there were beautiful curls.  I have to be honest I was a little skeptical.  I had plugged in our curling iron just in case we needed, but I didn't need to use it at all.  Her hair looked gorgeous!

They looked gorgeous and natural.

She was so excited with the result and she was comfortable sleeping with them in.

She was now ready for modeling in Queen and confident that she looked her best.

The judges gave her high marks on her hair so they approved also of Curlformers.

Here you can see another view.

So beautiful.

She won Advanced Miss MA Classic Queen and Advanced Best Appearing so I would say her hair looked wonderful!

Here are Curlformers as packaged.  

You can find them online here:  https://www.curlformers.com/

https://www.facebook.com/curlformers

Twitter:  @Curlformers

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/curlformers/

Disclosure:  I received Curlformers for review purposes.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.