Lagoon Day

Today we were able to take the kids for a fun filled day at the Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington,Utah. My husband's employer throws a summer BBQ/party annually at Lagoon. We went to the park early and Dave and the boys rode "Wicked", a rollercoaster they were unable to ride last year due to a 2 hour wait in line! They also rode other coasters before meeting up with Ice Princess and myself, who rode much less intense rides. LOL!! Lagoon also has a water park, so we were able to go and cool down by riding on sides and doing some swimming. All in all it was a good day! The kids were well behaved and I think they were able to ride on almost all of the rides they wanted to ride on. :-)

I didn't take many pictures since I did not want to get my camera wet or drop it! Here are a few pictures from our day!



Ice Princess waiting in line to get on a ride



A shot of all 3 kids. Speedracer was showing his true self in this one! Oh and those black marks on his arm are not dirt. They are the left over tatoos he decided to plaster all over his arm and hand last week! KIDS!

Every Child is a Miracle

Here is the Webster definition of "miracle"

miracle

Main Entry: mir·a·cle

Pronunciation: \ˈmir-i-kəl\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin miraculum, from Latin, a wonder, marvel, from mirari to wonder at
Date: 12th century
1: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3 Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law

The second definition hits home for me. I am a firm believer that ALL children are miracles and are gifts from our Heavenly Father. We are entrusted to raise these little humans to the best of our ability. When you think about it, raising a child is an awesome responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly.

As a parent, we have the responsibility to raise our children in a way that will allow them to grow up to be happy and well adjusted citizens in a world full of temptation. When most of us become pregnant or start the process of bringing a child into our lives through other means, we dream of that child and what he or she will be like. Often, we glamourize what parenting will be like and then, that precious little being enters our world and we are never, ever the same.

As I said earlier, I am a firm believer that ALL children are miracles. That said, I must mention my daughter, Ice Princess and her miraculous begining. Ice Princess and her twin brother, Little Warrior were born 14-15 weeks premature. Ice princess began life in this world weighing 1 pound 7 ounces and measuring 12 inches in length. Ice Princess spent the first 6 weeks of her life on a ventilator, she had a heart procedure done when she was just under 1 month old, to close a fetal/meternal duct(PDS ligation) that typically closes at birth. She weighed 1 pound 11 ounces when that procedure was done. I love to tell people how during this time, it once took 3 nurses to hold my little 1 pound 11 ounce baby still long enough to put a new IV in her! Imagine that! This little girl has had spunk from the get-go! It was that spunk that carried her through her early days of life. Ice princess had a fairly "easy" stay in the NICU... all things considered. Once her PDA ligation was done, she seemed to sail on through her NICU stay with very few bumps along the way! She surprised us at 7 weeks by coming off the ventilator before they planned! July 7th, 1998 was a special day. Little Warrior was scheduled to come off his vent that day. I called from work to check on the twins and to my surprise, Ice Princess was OFF THE VENT! Any preemie parent will know how HUGE that was. Both of my babies were vent free! Anyway, they cautioned us not to get too excited. They had not planned to take her off the vent but due to her tube getting blocked 3 times that day, they decided to give it a shot. They told us she might end up back on the vent, but if she did, it wouldn't be long before she was permanently off the vent. To our surprise(and the medical staff), she never went back on it! Ice Princess came home from the NICU on August 24th, 1998. She was 91 days old. She weighed 5 pounds 11 ounces and was around 18 inches long. She was a healthy baby. She came home needing only a higher calorie formula and iron drops for anemia. She nearly came home with oxygen but she avoided that too!


Ice Princess 13 days of age



2 months old and 2.5-3 pounds



3 months old



10 months old with her twin brother, Little Warrior



14 months old

Over the next few years, we monitored her closely. When she was born, we were given a LONG list of what could go wrong due to her being born so prematurely. She dodged the bullet on everything! She's been a pretty healthy kid. She's had typical childhood ailments and required speech therapy for a few years. She's always been small for her age, but she isn't the smallest child either. She has full term friends who are smaller then she is! She has visable scars on her arms and feet from IV's and PICC lines. She also has a scar on her back from her PDA ligation. I refer to those are her battle wounds. They are so much more then scars to me... they are a symbol of who she is and how fiesty she can be! She is a fighter.

I often look at her in amazement. She's come so far. She's a sweet girl and we treasure her. She's a bit of a drama queen but to be honest, I sincerely feel that attitude is what helped her make it through her first first few months of life.

My mother in law wrote a reply to my blog about Ice Princess being a miracle and how she thought about that fact as she skated last week. Interestingly enough, I was thinking a similar thing as I watched my daughter skate. It really is inspiring to watch my daughter grow. I owe so much to so many people who prayed and cared for my little girl. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to have her in my life. I came close to losing her once and I cannot imagine my life without her! She is an amazing little girl so full of love and a zest for life!

Yes, I believe ALL children are miracles, but when I look at my daughter, I see sooo much more. I know her life is truly miraculous. We know all too well the flip side of prematurity and how badly it can all go wrong... but for today, I am going to celebrate my daughter and the miracle she is.

Corvettes

Last month we challenged Speedracer to keep his room clean for an entire month. We told him if he did this, we would take him to a Chevy dealer and ask if they would let him look at and sit in a Corvette. The Corvette is Speedracer's favorite car so this was a huge motivator for him. Anyway, today we took Speedracer to the Chevy dealership and guess what? Not only did he sit in a Corvette, but he and his dad got to test drive it! He was over the moon! Then, on our way home we saw a car show that was being held in a near-by parkm of coarse we took him there too! He got to see a few more Corvettes in addition to some other very cool cars. He was on cloud nine! I'm already trying to think of his next reward! Here's hoping he can keep his room clean for another month. :-)



They rode in one that looked like this car! Speedracer was soooo excited!

The Competition

Ice Princess woke up very excited today! She could not wait to go to her competition! All in all, she did well. She skated her best and ended up coming in 3rd place. Not too bad for her very first competition. She is thrilled to have earned a medal and was so excited to have grandma and her best bud(who also competed and came in 1st place in her own level) there to cheer her on. She really had a great time. She looked lovely too. Once I recieve the CD of pictures, I will add a few to my blog. We have a video also, but I am having a difficult time uploading it. Ice Princess has watched her video already and it was funny to hear her critque her own skating! Obviously she has never seen herself skate, so this was a good thing for her to see. She knows what she needs to improve on for her next competition. :-)



The only some what decent picture my camera took. I'll post better pictures once I recive the disk from the competition.

Update: I added new pics 06/24/08

















This was such a great experience for her! Oh and as you can see we got the USFSA number situation taken care of! Thankfully between USFSA and the skating director at her rink, we had her number on Thursday. WHEW! She would have been CRUSHED if she couldn't have skated today! Thankfully, she did not have to experience that disappointment.
:-)

Here is a video of her preformance. She really did a great job. Her last spin coul dhave been better, but I think she was rushing thinking she wouldn't finish with her music! LOL. We're very proud of her!

Drama!

As I have posted before, Ice Princess is supposed to be participating in her first competition on Friday. Of coarse, this cannot happen with out some drama mixed in!

Ice Princess has been in a US Figure Skating Association(USFSA) Learn to Skate(LTS) program since October 2006. When you register for the lessons you become a "limited" member of USFSA. You are given a member number and in most cases, you won't need to actually know that number UNLESS you want to participate in a competition or some other USFSA sanctioned program.

When I filled out the application for Ice Princess to compete, I did not know her number. I left that part of the application blank and told them the rink she skated at and that she was in the LTS program at that rink. A few days later, I recieved a call from the competition registar. The registar told me she could not locate a number for Ice Princess and that she would need that number in order to compete. The next morning, I called the head USFSA offices in Colorado. I spoke to a woman in the LTS division who tried to find Ice Princess' name and number but also came up empty handed. My name, Dave's name and Speed Racer's name was in their data base, but Ice Princess' was not! The one person in our family that NEEDS a number, didn't have one! Her application must have been lost. LOVELY. I discovered this problem about 5-6weeks ago.

The next day we had our LTS classes and I spoke with the skating director about our situation. I filled out another form and felt confident the issue would be resolved before the competition. Fast forward to yesterday. I called USFSA to check on the status of Ice Princess' number. Guess what? She STILL does not have a number! She can't skate w/o that number! Did I mention that her competition is in TWO days? USFSA is helping me so hopefully we will have a number by tomorrow. They have told me we will figure this out and that she will skate on Friday. With any luck, this will be figured out by tomorrow and I will have her number in my hot little hand. Meanwhile I will try not to stress about this! I should have checked sooner, but I honestly thought this situation was handled. ARGH. *BREATHE* *BREATHE* This WILL work out!

Ice Princess' Competition Dress

Ice Princess with be in her first skating competition on Friday. She has been working very hard on her routine and I have been working hard to make her once very plain skating dress into a dress worthy of a competition. I glued on over 400 crystals to do this!

Here is what the dress looked liked before I added crystals to it:



Here is what it looked like with 200 crystals on it:







This is what the front of her dress looks like now:






There is a design on the back too, but the picture I took did not turn out well. Anyway, I thought it turned out pretty cute! Not bad for my 1st attempt. I learned a few things so if I do it again, I will be able to make her next dress look wonderful! It's fun to see the finished product.

Summer Time!

The kids have been out of school for 2.5 weeks. I like having them home not to mention I like being able to go to bed as soon as I get home from work in the mornings! It's nice not sleeping ALL day :-).

We've been busy the last few weeks. The kids have had various activities going on and this week is no different. This Friday, Ice Princess will participate in her 1st skating competition! She is thrilled(and nervous!) about this. I will take pictures and post them for those who want to see her dressed up in her comp dress.

We've also decided not to take our annual trip to Washington this summer. I am very sad about this. Most of my family lives in WA and I love seeing them Not to mention, we have spent the last 4, 4th of July's with our friends. They have property at the ocean and it is great fun to go and spend the 4th on the beach. The sight of the fire works on the beach is amazing! We always have a blast when we go. We will certainly miss that this year. Gas is just too expensive and we have other financial commitments we need to honor, so we cannot make the trip this year.

So, instead of heading to Washington, we will be going to Dave's uncle's house in Idaho. It's a 2.5 hour drive, so it will be much more affordable! We are also hoping to visit Yellowstone. It's a 2 hour drive from his uncle's house, so that is also doable. It's not Washington, but it will be fun to go and see his uncle and hopefully Yellowstone too.

My summer is not turning out like I had hoped it would, but we will make the best of it and I am hoping to go on small camping trips close to home too. :-) Next yr we will plan better and make sure we make the trip to Washington! That is, as long as gas doesn't go up to a more insane amount of money by then!