The Santini Family

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

A Very Happy Day for the Santinis

JD PASSED THE BAR!!!! One of the most difficult bars in the country- just so you know... Woot! Woot!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Brain Training

So, I work for the company LearningRX. I am a brain trainer and I work with students to help them get smarter. We are able to increase a person's IQ by rewiring his/her brain through targeting weak cognitive skills and training them until they become stronger. The program averages an increase of 15 points in a participant's IQ. How do we know? Students are tested before and after the program using the standardized assessment that is used all across the country by clinical and school psychologists. An average of 15 points is quite a claim, but it's been amazing to see with my very own eyes the results of brain training- and our center has seen much higher improvements than 15 points.

Why do I bring this up? Not to brag about my super cool job, but I had an Aha! moment recently.

The secret sauce to really make lasting and significant improvements in cognitive skills is loading. When a student is working on improving a weak skill through our procedures and games, we load on distractions and mental tasks. We try to throw the student off. We may distract through making obnoxious clicking noises with our pen, singing, insulting the student's favorite sports team, yelling out the wrong answers, etc. We also layer on additional mental tasks. So if a student is working on a difficult procedure, we will ask him/her to perform math facts or call out 5 candy bars (or something like that) at the same time that s/he is working on the procedure. This is effective because it pushes the skill you are trying to improve to an automatic level. It's too difficult to perform the procedure along with the additional mental tasks unless the skill is automatic. It's how we know the student has really conquered the procedure.

Sounds a lot like life to me. Don't we all sometimes feel like the Lord "loads" on problems and trials? Don't we sometimes say, "when it rains it pours"? Do you ever wonder how on earth you are going to be able come out the other side?

Maybe the Lord is using trials to push our weak spiritual skills to become stronger and automatic. Maybe we are just beginning to understand this concept in the context of brain science, yet it's really just a manifestation of universal truth.

As a brain trainer, I sit across the table from a student and I know that if he will stick with it, he will get smarter. I have no doubt. If my tasks are at the cognitive level where he's falling all over his answers, having to start over, and struggling, I've got him right where I want him. I know that is where growth occurs. It's an incredible experience to see the twinkle in the eye of my students when they can see for themselves their improvement. They change.

So- note to self: When I feel like the Lord is "loading" on the trials as I work through this earthly "procedure", I can know He's got me where He wants me. He knows I can do it. He knows my potential. And as the ultimate Teacher and Trainer, He can change my soul to be better, stronger, and His teachings will become my automatic response.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Being Vulnerable

I saw this video on a friend's blog and had to post it. I'm curious to hear your reaction. Do you agree with her conclusions? Disagree? It's about 20 minutes long, but well worth the time.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Favorite Websites

As promised, here is the list of websites that you sent me. Not all of them are on the list because I edited for the sisters in our ward, but there's a lot of good stuff here! Maybe you'll find a new favorite!

For Free E-books:

For Finding Good Deals:

Mr.Rebates.com
www.groupon.com
livingsocial.com
google.com (before you buy something online, google a promo code for that item...enter that code when you are checking out...its awesome!)

For Recipes:

http://smittenkitchen.com/
http://thepioneerwoman.com/
http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/
http://allrecipes.com/ (I especially like their ingredients tab...put in the ingredients you do have and see what recipes come up...great for using up miscellaneous ingredients)
http://www.ourbestbites.com/
http://www.thecrockpotblog.com/ (a blog devoted to crock pot recipes)
http://www.elanaspantry.com/ (for gluten-free, refined sugar-free recipes)
http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/ (gluten-free and refined sugar-free recipes)

For Fun w/ Kids:

For Family:

http://ayearoffhe.blogspot.com/2010/12/lesson-plans-for-2011.html (for FHE lesson plans)
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/forums/list.page
http://blogspot.sharedbook.com/blog2print/googleblogger/index.html (easy way to print out your blog into a book)
http://cleanmama.blogspot.com/ (cleaning and organization tips)
http://tipnut.com/ (full of tips)

For Church:

http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp (for Family Search Indexing)
http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/patterns/service-project-guidelines.pdf (for humanitarian guidelines)

Food Storage, Gardening and Deals on Food:

http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/ (nationwide deals, great for 3 month supply foods)
http://thefoodstorageshopper.net/ (tips on buying your food storage for less)
http://www.thegrocerygame.com/index-no-hot-deals.cfm (save tons of money on your groceries!)
http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ (recipes for food storage)
http://www.grocerysmarts.com/ (for grocery coupons)
http://www.simplylivingsmart.info/
http://www.gardengirltv.com/

Crafting:

Miscellaneous:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ (for mapping out runs)
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/ (for listening to music for free online- not to download/purchase)
http://www.pandora.com/ (a radio station that plays music based off of what kind of music you like. You input a song you like and the site designs a station around the properties of the inputted song.)
http://radio.lds.org/programs/conversations?lang=eng (conversations with interesting members of the Church. Download and listen on ipod)
http://www.pluggedin.com/ (for rating movies so you know what your kids are watching- or shouldn't watch.)
http://www.picnik.com/app#/home/welcome (for photo editing)
craigslist.com (sell/buy items here and look for rentals)
http://naturesknockout.com (for learning about personal care and beauty products that don’t contain harm

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Fairytale Wedding, Reality TV Style!

So I got the ok sign to put up pictures from the wedding. JD's cousin Mike had a disaster wedding about 19 years ago. Here is their story from Mike's wife, Dana:

"Almost 19 years ago when we planned our wedding on a very small budget, we did what we could to cut costs. So we hired a secretary from Mike's law firm to make the bridesmaid dresses from scratch. To make a long story short, she was supposed to bring the dresses ready to go and pressed to the church. It was a night-time wedding at a pretty conservative church. We had candles down the aisles and even a baptism for Mike and myself. We waited and waited and waited and she never showed up with the dresses. We were panicking and trying to decide what to do. Girls were waiting around in shorts and t-shirts for the dresses. We had to make a decision as the ceremony was over an hour and half late starting. So my grandmother went to my dad and told him the girls should put on the men's tuxedo shirts, that at least they would look the same. So that is exactly what we did! Shirts came flying in the dressing room and girls put on the shirts and buttoned them all the way up. (they only wore the shirts, pantyhose and heels.) The men wore the tuxedos with tie, cumber-bun and jacket- bare chested! Yes, it became quite the mockery of a wedding. The almost 2 hour late ceremony created a ripple effect that caused many other issues like the pictures that were pretty much ruined (didn't have time to take many), my makeup was cried off, the food was getting cold at the reception, the ice sculptures were melting, we were cut 2 hours short of reception time.... and so on. My bustle on my dress was even messed up as she never fixed it right and they had to safety pin my whole bustle on my dress. It looked ridiculous! So that is a long story told short!"

So WEN got wind of their story through Oprah because Mike and Dana's wedding video was shown on Oprah about 8 years ago. WEN is creating a new TV series called I Do Over. We went!

We hung out here while the camera crew was finishing interviews and getting all of the finishing touches on everything.

After the wedding ceremony and before the reception, they sent us back outside so they could take pictures and stuff. By that time it was about 9pm and this man was STARVING! So he followed the other starving husbands into the crew's workroom and stole a sandwich!

This was the mantle they stood under for the ceremony.

Getting ready for the enterance.

Mike in the top hat!

Beautiful bridesmaid dresses!

Here she is! The dress was designed for her by a celebrity designer. She was wearing over 40k worth of diamonds.

The reception. Honestly, you can't appreciate how amazing it was from my pictures.

Each place setting had a name tag that said Best Actor or Best Actress. The wedding was an Academy Awards themed affair.

It's the Warner Brothers' lion!

The girl in black was the wedding planner. She did Usher's wedding.

Singing for their first dance- this guy performs this song from The Color Purple on Broadway.

They had their boys help cut the cake and they mauled it. So cute!

Dancing

The last surprise of the night was this old Hollywood style set that was created for group pictures taken by an internationally acclaimed photographer. Fun night! We'll let you know when the TV show airs.