Our Kids Blog

Emma and her friends enjoyed a week of Princess Camp.

Princess friends.

Can you find Emma and Landry? They just blend right in.

There were a lot of smiles at princess camp.

Leaving class with a little curtsy.

Belle

Princess Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty)

Cinderella

Princess Ariel

Snow White

A few weeks ago we got a new membership for the Eau Claire Children’s Museum and we dicided to get the reciprocal membership that allows us to go to other children’s museums across the country. We decided as a last minute trip to head to the Minnesota Children’s Museum for a little fun.

On the room of the museum that had a natural art exibit. You could paint stones with water.

Kenny enjoyed the painting and we liked the fact that he didn’t get all messy with paint.

Kenny was a pretty busy boy, but he did stop to pose for the camera a little bit.

Emma never did quite stop to pose, but I caught here in the background of this picture.

Kenny liked the view from the roof.

We have a family friend who lives on a farm near Mondovi. His name is Rollie and he has graciously allowed us to take a bunch of pictures at his place. Our kids come along some of the time, so we took the opportunity to get a few of them at Rollie’s farm.

The barn at Rollie’s is a nice back drop and there are flowers everywhere to add some color.

There are flowers, neat old buildings, and even a pear tree as you can see from the pear in Kenny’s hand.

Kenny and Emma love going out to the farm and just run around. It was tough to get them to stand still because there is so much to explore.

Grandma and Papa Swany live less than a half a mile from our house and we drive by it whenever we go home. Almost every trip past Kenny asks to stop (he says “Papa, Papa”). We make some stops, not always, but this would be a pretty typical one.

Start with some Oreo Cookies. Kenny always eats them at the coffee table sitting on the watermelon stool that he carries from accross the room.

Pick and eat some blueberries. He knows not to pick the green ones.

Keep on picking. Keep on eating.

All done with the blueberries, onto something new.

Papa Swany finds a toad.

Kenny is interested in animals and has been pretty gentle with them…so far.

Emma and Landry enjoyed a week of Vacation Bible School at the same church where Emma will attend preschool this next fall. They did a lot of crafts and learned some more about the Bible. A pretty good use of some summer vacation time.

The girls made the tie-die shirts that they are wearing in the picture.

We had hoped to go to Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin Dells this summer, so we decided to use Emma’s 4.5 birthday as the backdrop for the day. Kenny stayed home this year with Grandma and Grandpa Swany, but Cousin Landry came a long.

As you look through the pictures, I got some help from Emma for some of the captions. Anything in quotes are her exact words.

Emma didn’t know that we bought a cake at the grocery store.

She was pretty surprised.

We did save the cake until after lunch.

A little lunch. This all took place at a rest area just north of Wisconsin Dells.

Emma and dad went down a lot of the slides together. Next time Emma said she will do them by herself.

Emma did go down this slide by herself.

The two girls did a little racing down the side by side slides.

Here is the finish. A big splash.

Here the two are taking a picture that Emma claims to be “kind of cute and funny.”

Emma says, “Landry went down the turtle slide really fast.”

Emma says, “We took a picture by the turtle and I smiled really kind of good.”

“Riding on the horse, heedy haw.”

“We were in the wavy water and we had so much fun in the wavy water.”

“Wow I jumped really high over the waves. I wanted to say ‘hee haw’.”

The Swanstrom Family met up with our friends the Gormans to have a little fun at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair. It was a little hot, but not too bad.

We started off in the butterfly house. It was actually free to get in and air conditioned.

Papa Swany, who grew up on a farm, hasn’t had a chance to explain the many reasons why you don’t milk a cow from the rear.

The first ride for Emma and Jack was an obstacle course with a few fun slides.

Static electricty was a big part of the ride.

No ones hair was safe.

I almost though Kenny would be too little to appreciate the rides. I was wrong. He just loved driving the car and when I started to unbuckle him at the end he threw a nice little fit.

He was totally into turning the steering wheel and then waving to people. He never waved at us, just random people.

Poor Jack. His bee never went up and down. He did get to ride again though.

Though Emma went down the slide first, we start with a picture of Jack. This is because I (Dana) wasn’t paying attention when Emma came down first.

So here is Emma. The carnival worker was so nice that even without asking, he let Emma and Jack go a second time so that I could get a picture. Carnival workers kind of have a bad name, but we interacted with some pretty nice ones.

Kenny’s last ride was on the motorcycles.

Again, he just loved it. This time his fit started as soon as the motorcycles stopped moving. He knew this time that his dad would be coming to get him.

When Tammy’s sister Lori was visiting a few weeks ago we took maternity pictures. If you want to see more check out our business photography blog, which is www.swanstromphotography.com/blog.

The Maloney’s had us at their house for some 4th of July Festivities. We spent a little time by the lake, ate some good food, and everyone stayed up for some fireworks. Fun the whole time.

Emma had lots of fun riding the Sea Doo with Uncle Tracy.

Kenny never left the dock.

Kenny did have fun watching from the dock though.

Somewhere there is older picture of Aunt Tessa with all her nieces and nephews, but I can’t find it . Here is the current one though.

Kenny has been receiving physical therapy, occupational therapy, and therapy from our chiropractor pretty much since his diagnosis just over a year ago.  Recently we started Speech Therapy;  it’s not a major concern, but he is a little behind.  Things have progressed so well that as of today Kenny has reached his physical therapy goals so with this we say good-bye to Kenny’s PT Beth. She worked so well with Kenny and was always a source of reassurance for Tammy and me.

With regards to OT, Kenny works with a great therapist named Mary (we will have to get a picture of her soon). A few weeks ago Mary had us attend a special week of intensive therapy with a lady named Sheryl Field who specializes in a technique called the Feldenkrais Method. Kenny’s OT will continue the therapy with him on an ongoing basis. The therapy was great and helped Kenny’s fisted left hand to relax more.

Kenny with Miss Beth.

Kenny with Miss Sheryl.

After Kenny’s nap we spent some time at the Edmond Municipal Pool. The kids had a lot of fun playing on the slides and making friends with one of the life guards.

Right after picking blackberries we went to the Edmond Historical Museum. They had a little kids’ area that was pretty fun.

We had a busy day today, so there will actually be three posts. We started the day at Sorghum Mill Christmas Tree and Blackberry Farm and picked some blackberries. The nice lady that we met at the mall yesterday told us about the place. It was fun and the owners of the farm said that they had a bumper crop of blackberries so it wasn’t too hard for us to pick a pint. A lot of the pictures do show red berries, but those were just blackberries that weren’t ripe yet. The berries were big and juicy. Our pint didn’t last long.

Day 4 of our trip involved going to some local parks with the kids in the morning (it was 84^o and humid at 8:30 am), then we cooled down at the mall where we met a really helpful mom who shared some great ideas on fun things to do in the Edmond/Oklahoma City area. The day ended hanging out with some great friends, their son, and their two dogs. We ate a great dinner with them at their house and then spent the rest of the evening staying cool in their neighborhood pool. Spending time with friends is usually a big part of our family vacations and visiting the Zuckermandel family was a major reason we wanted to get back to Oklahoma for a visit.

Sorry Owen, I guess we needed something more exciting by the camera. You do have a nice profile though.

Oklahoma City has a nice science museum and the four of us spent the whole morning learning and playing there. Emma really enjoyed the gymnastics exhibit and then the kids’ area where she could do her own face painting. Emma also got to ride on a Segway. Kenny enjoyed the water area and the bubbles.

In the afternoon, we decided to try going to a movie with both Emma and Kenny. We went and saw Toy Story 3. Emma did a great job, but Kenny being only 20 months needed to get out of the theater for a while to stretch his legs. It was a great Father’s Day.