January Activities - 2015

We started off the year with a Gardner family gathering with my Aunt Doris and Cousin Paul. In the picture below, my brother was showing my aunt his smart phone and she was absolutely ASTOUNDED when he took a picture and sent it to my phone. ;) She had no idea such technology existed.

Anyone else see the resemblance between Ben and my brother? I've always thought Ben takes after the Gardner side of the family more than the other kids do.

The men enjoyed playing with Ben's new logic game he got for Christmas - it works for all ages! :)

I continued to struggle with beastfeeding issues - the biggest being a dip in supply every couple weeks, severe enough that I would have to supplement with breastmilk from the freezer. The easiest way to keep on top of when my supply might drop was to keep doing several weighted feeding sessions a day. It was a pain. But we managed. We also tried the pacifier again (she never wanted it before her laser surgery for tongue tie, but I kinda forgot to try it again for awhile!). She liked it so-so and it was nice to be able to have another option to soothe her at times for a period of time.

Whenever I put the kids to bed, Jakey would often ask me to put Lizzy down on the bed next to him for awhile (as I'm writing this in December 2015, Jake still likes Lizzy to snuggle with him before bed, but she's on the go so much now, it doesn't last long!).

 Lizzy loved Abby reading to her (again, as I type this in December 2015, I find it almost funny because Lizzy never sits still for stories anymore! Ha!).

The 4-year project shed that was only supposed to take a few months (!!) got close enough to completed that Kevin was able to finally moved some of his office furniture out to the shed (his new office). The kids decided to have a sleepover in the new open floor space in the old study that was soon to be Abby's room. After this, Abby started sleeping there sometimes and other times back with the boys.

Abby working on sewing an embroidery square for a blanket for a new baby at church. Her first time doing one all on her own! :)

Kevin was busy crab fishing in January, but occasionally he'd bring a bunch of rope home to splice into lines for the crab pots. That way he could at least be near the family and the boys had great fun helping out.

Saying goodbye to Daddy as he heads back to Westport. We always wave goodbye at the front window....which is very dirty as you can see. Housework that wasn't absolutely necessary took a back-seat for a year following Lizzy's birth! :)

There was one exceptionally warm January day where the kids spent all afternoon outside - it was glorious!

The pool is muddy because they boys used it as a mudpit during the fall and it never got put away!

 Ben found a carrot in the garden that we'd not harvested - it was amazing how large it had grown!! (it's green)

The only other activity of note was our several walks, one of which I did actually blog about back in January:  http://ksmarks.blogspot.com/2015/01/january-spring-walk.html