It's Been Another Year Already?!

WELL, hello! It's only been over a year since my last entry. I did warn anyone who reads this in my first post, right? Anyway, here's the first thing I should address. Meet Wren!

The first photo was from when she was a couple weeks old and the other she's around 2.5-3 months old. I'm too lazy to find a connector thing to put more photos on the computer from my iPhone (where we are finally able to capture some grins of Wren's), so I'll get Jance to do it one of these days. Every man likes to feel important and handy right? And I know how much he loves to do it and do all those techy/computer things for me (hehe, not really but he's kind enough to do those things for me anyway). So in case you didn't catch it, we had another sweet little girl on March 19, 2013. Just four days before Kinnley's birthday. And so of course we had a little party kind of to celebrate for both girls. Probably something they'll have to get used to throughout their lives. I'll probably even have a combined cake for a couple years before they start remembering their birthdays ;). I'll at least let them blow out their own candles. So now I get to experience being a mother of 2. So much has happened in this last year that I could write a novel. I'll write a bunch, but trust me, I won't be offended if you just skip all the writing and just look at the pictures or what-not. I would do it too sometimes haha. So I'll try to be brief.

Let's start with Jance as he is the old man in the family:
Jance is now a father of two and still a student. Talk about busy guy. Pretty demanding wife, and thus a demanding life with everything he has to do. He's a pretty amazing guy I must say. He's just finishing up his third year in Med School, ending with obstetrics and gynaecology at the Grey Nun's Hospital. I was about to write an inappropriate pun, but seems more vulgar in writing so I'll just keep it to myself for now. But he seems to be enjoying the surgical part the best so far, and overall just keeping busy daily. I guess cause his day goes by faster? And since we have 2 kids now, he has more responsibility at home mainly taking one kid if I'm busy with the other and other numerous tasks that need to get done. He's been trying to get Kinnley rolling with her new bike she got for her birthday so they go for lots of little rides in the evening when he has a chance. And then studying somewhere within all the craziness. Very supportive and willing to help whenever he can.

As for me there's been much going on and yet at the end of the day I think I probably should have done more work around the house, maybe not have had such a long nap or think I should have played more with the kids. Either way there's always something to be done and something I'm procrastinating with. Since my last post, I started subbing in Wild Rose School Division in Rocky Mtn House at the end of April where I spent most of my time at the junior high school and it was good. There was a particular French Immersion class that just melted my heart and the kids were so amazing (and no I don't speak french...just taught them ELA for about a month). Made me enjoy my job for the time being. Kinnley was looked after a lady from my parents ward and she loved it. Then in June 2012, Jance had a month off of school and watched Kinnley while I worked and golfed during the week and came home on weekends. I discovered I loved golfing on my own. Then I got preggers and had lots of summer fun and whatnot with family mostly. Pregnancy went well (had to take my twice daily heparin shots, but it was good). Labour was awesome as crazy as that may sound. I love drugs! Okay that sounds bad, but with Kinnley I couldn't get the epidural, so when they offered this time I took it and I was calm and relaxed and after half a day of contractions (got induced 2 weeks early because of the whole heparin thing) and 3 pushes out came little miss 6 pound 15 ounce, 18 3/4 inch, Wren McGale! So little! And such an awesome little baby. Her first couple days were a little rough as she wanted to be held and didn't like her bassinet at the hospital too much. Made me nervous as to what kind of baby she was going to be! But she figured things out and has been an absolutely AMAZING baby. Not to brag, but so far that makes for two awesome babies. Both started sleeping at about 9 weeks through the night and both pretty chill throughout the day. Eat, sleep, and poop is what they do! So that leads me to some more recent events. Since having a baby, I had to set some goals to make sure I didn't get lazy and had some motivation to exercise. After living in Rocky for a month right after we had Wren (Jance was on his rural rotation) and walking on the rare occasion, I have been needing to get my butt in gear. So I signed up for the Spartan Race which I did with most of Jance's family last week at Rabbit Hill. It's a race with lots of obstacles, lots of mud, and the roughest part? Hills! Rabbit Hill will no longer seem like a little hill anymore. It was fun, but next time I'll need to train a whole lot more. Right after the race I said I didn't want to do another, but of course now I look back and realize I would do it again, but not right after having a baby. And maybe one with not so many hills, unless I'm super ripped and in shape or something. In addition, I signed up for the Color Me Rad run in Calgary Aug. 3 at COP. Looks like fun, and I'll do that with Ashley (my sis in law) and one of her friends. Then comes the big one...the Fort Macleod Sprint Triathlon. My swimming is not the greatest so I've been swimming about twice a week and then I play soccer on Mondays. I definitely need to get running more! I ran a few times with a friend before soccer started and then I got lazy because my body hurt so much from playing soccer for the first few weeks. And now I just started hooking up our bike trailer and going on little rides with the kiddies to the park. So some training is needed but I'm less worried about that in comparison to swimming. It's been pretty good though. I've gone from doing 500m in 16 minutes to just over 13 minutes so it's coming! Just need to get used to that water and breathing properly.

First postnatal run, and me posing with our new wheels! I entered my mom in a chariot carrier draw (along with a few other family members) and she won! This isn't the one she won, we actually just sold it and bought this one a couple months ago. So it worked out well!

Kinnley is now two and full of personality. She started walking at about 14 months and talking quite well at 17ish months. She figured out all her colors before she was even in nursery and is just a little smartie in her moms eyes. Now she has lots to say and loves to call Grandma and Grandpa on her play phones. She loves to play pretend from the moment she wakes up until she goes to bed. We've been working with her on riding her strider bike and she's slowly improving. We just need to learn to let her do it at her own pace and she'll eventually get there. She also loves going to the pool and the park on a regular basis. On rainy days we try to hit the gymnastics drop in as it's pretty cheap and keeps her entertained for an hour and a half or go to the library. We also took her skating a couple times on bob skates in the winter which was fun. Right now she loves her rides on Grandpa's quad and even got to ride in "Uncle" Rick's big tractor this weekend! When Wren came and with the move to Rocky for the month I think it may have been a tough transition for her. She was potty trained for about a month before Wren came and then regressed to the point that I had to put her back in diapers after about a month of constant accidents (approx. 5 a day!). So we'll get back on that when both of us are ready to tackle it. I'm learning more about what the "terrible two's" are all about, and constantly trying to figure out good discipline tactics in hopes that she'll grow up to be the wonderful child that every mother wishes her kids will be. Of course there is no correct answer to everything, so we'll take it one day at a time. Either way, as soon as she goes down for her nap or hops into bed at the end of the day, you can't help but think how it's possible to love someone so much (to the point you just want to squeeze/hug her SO TIGHT!). Love her to pieces. I especially love the times when I leave to go somewhere and she says, "Love you too!" when I walk out the door. And of course her hugs and kisses (on the lips! as she would say). And on side note...she's got the craziest curly hair! And her mullet is starting to go away too.

She let me straighten her hair once!

Lastly there's little Wren. She's now 3.5 months and is trying to talk as much as her sister (mostly in the evenings when she gets a little more attention when her sister goes to sleep). Full of coos and smiles, but tries to be humble and hides all that when the camera is on her. She's so patient while we run around throughout the day with errands and various activities to keep us busy. The poor girl came into the world with her family all sick with colds and stuffy noses so she had to fight through a few of those illnesses in her first month or so of life. She has a sister that loves her (maybe a little smothering at times), and parents that adore her. We just put her in the jolly jumper this last week and she's slowly getting the hang of it. A little bit of riverdance so far. She's a little petite thing where she was in the 15th percentile for height and 50th for weight and head. We'll see where's she's at in a week when she goes for her 4 month immunizations. She had her baby blessing at the beginning of June so we were able to have some family out for that which was good. She cried a little during it but overall did well. Things she can do:

-roll over front to back (only a couple times so far)

-grab and hit toys

-coo

-smile

-hold her head pretty steady (has the occasional bobble head moment)

-watch and listen to things going on around her

-backflips (just kidding ;))

Anyways, that was long. And it's almost midnight. So until next time...keep fit and have fun!