I LOVE Fall!

Fall is my favorite time of year! Cooler weather, leaves changing pretty colors, college football, and the holidays approaching! I just love fall! We've been enjoying all the college football these past few weekends and take turns watching McKinley during each other's football game so we can fully enjoy them. Yesterday, we were able to enjoy the leaves changing colors by taking a drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon. The leaves weren't as vibrant as we though they'd be, but it was still pretty to see them.



It was also nice to get some fresh cool mountain air. McKinley seemed to really enjoy being outside in the canyon as well.


We did get some fun pictures of us and McKinley with some of the changing leaves. We had a wonderful time getting to spend sometime together and look forward to some more cooler weather since it's almost October (just hopefully not snow yet)!

One Month old!

Today officially marks one month since we had McKinley! Travis and I can't believe it's already been a month, but also we can't believe it's only been a month that we've had her here! I can tell she's getting bigger! Her cheeks are a little fuller and she's getting a little bit of a tummy. She was so long and skinny when she was born it's cute that she's starting to fill out a little! You can see her chubby cheeks in this video of her sleeping. We say when she does this in her sleep she's dreaming about eating... It's pretty cute :)




She still likes to sleep a lot and takes quite a bit of naps! She'll eat every 3 hours stay awake for about 15-30 minutes, then go back to sleep again. That's kind of her schedule. Most nights she sleeps pretty good and only wakes up 1 to 2 times to eat, so we're getting a lot more sleep around here which is really nice :)


McKinley likes to be held and doesn't like it too much when we put her down! High Maintenance, haha! She's found a few things that she likes though. She likes her swing and will usually fall asleep if we put her in it.


She also likes to lounge around in her boppy pillow. We'll put her in it when she's having some awake time so we can talk with her and play with her. Here's a video of her playing around in her boppy. A nickname we gave her is Squeaks, because she likes to make lots of squeaking noises when she's awake. You can hear some of them in this video:



It's fun to put toys in front of her because she'll focus on them and follow them with her eyes, a new skill we discovered she's developed. We love our little girl so much and have loved having her here with us! She's a lot more fun outside of me than she was inside :) She makes us smile everyday! We love to cuddle with her, watch her move around, and listen to her squeak! We're so grateful for the wonderful blessing she is in our lives and that she is a healthy little girl!

State Fair

Friday night we got to go to the Utah State fair. We had fun meeting up with Nicole and Jeremy there, once we finally met them. We had trouble meeting in one spot because cell phone service wasn't working at the fair and who knew there were 2 ferris wheels to meet at. We had fun walking around looking at all the booths, eating fair treats like fried oreos, and seeing a sculpture made completely out of butter! McKinley enjoyed her first state fair experience sleeping the whole time, until she got hungry and then she let us know! She's in this picture too just hiding in her stroller sleeping :)

Hulse Family Reunion

I haven't had a chance to post about the Hulse Family Reunion we had August 12th - 15th. We've had a lot of things happen between now and then, which explains my month late post :)

On Thursday, August 12th Travis's whole family arrived in Salt Lake. All 5 of his brothers and sisters and their families as well as his parents were here for the reunion. Thursday morning, we went to Temple Square to meet up with Ryan and Amy and their two cute girls Afton and Ella. We then picked up Rachael and Matthew and their 5 kids and Brad, Emily and Mya from the airport and headed up to Hyrum to Mike and Natalie's house. We had a barbque at their house that evening and once Travis's parents arrived in town they joined us there.

Friday, everyone headed out to the Hyrum Dam for fun in the water and jet skiing. Travis got to enjoy this part of the fun, I however being 39 weeks pregnant didn't think it would be such a great idea for me to ride around on jet skiis! So instead, I helped Jan, my mother-in-law, at the grocery store buying groceries for the weekend! That afternoon, we all loaded up and headed out to Heber City to stay in the house Travis's parents rented for the family to stay in for the weekend. It was a really nice big house and it was great to be able to all stay in it together. That night, we had a surprise 60th birthday party for Jim, Travis's Dad. All of the extended family from around the area were invited to join in on the fun. Travis and I were in charge of getting a cake for the party. Luckily, my cousin Lindsey makes really cute cakes! So Travis came up with a cute idea and she made it for us. It turned out really cute and was a hit at the party.

Emily and I had fun creating a game for the night called "Jimpardy", a Jeopardy like game featuring questions about Jim's life. I unfortunately came down with a stomach bug that night and spent most of the night in bed. I did get to see the "Jimpardy" game being played which I enjoyed!

Saturday was spent fishing at the pond near the house, shopping in Park City, doing crafts, playing games and hanging out together.

Sunday was another day just spent hanging out together. We did have our own sacrament meeting as a family. At this meeting we created the "Hulse Family Timeline" which was neat to go through and have everyone share all the important events in their lives with everyone. Unfortunantely, Travis came down with the same stomach bug I'd had 2 nights earlier Sunday night. It was because he did such a good job taking care of me when I was sick that he got sick too!

Here are the pictures from the reunion. Jim and Jan made matching shirts for everyone that say, "Hulse 2010 Families are Forever" and we took a picture of everyone together in our matching shirts. McKinley is in this picture, just not completely yet. You can still see her in my belly!

Labor Day Weekend

We had an amazing Labor Day weekend!! My whole family was in town and my parents rented a house for us all to stay in together. The house was right at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon and had an indoor basketball court, which the kids and the boys loved! We had a great time spending time together, playing games, and visiting with family :)

It was so fun for us to introduce everyone to McKinley! Oliver and Gabriella both enjoyed getting to meet and hold their newest cousin, and only cousin on our side of the family!


And Melia enjoyed meeting her newest cousin as well! We enjoyed meeting Melia too, since this was the first chance we had to meet her since she was born in June. McKinley and Melia are only 2 months apart so it'll be so fun for them to grow-up together! I always loved having cousins my age when I was growing up!

We did a fun photo shoot of McKinley and Melia in matching cupcake onesies.

They let us know when they'd had enough of the photoshoot :)

It was also fun to introduce McKinley to all 3 of her aunts on my side!

Aunt Mandy

Aunt Natty

Aunt Emmy

Saturday was my 25th Birthday! It was an amazing day and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than with my whole family! We got to watch the first UT football game of the season!

Have a yummy lunch at one of my favorite restaurants The Cheesecake Factory! And get pedicures with the girls!


Gabriella even got one too! Her first pedicure! Melia and McKinley came, but no pedicure for them! One day though I'm sure they'll join in on the fun!


We had a great time getting to see everyone! I always love getting together with all of my sisters :) We always have a blast!


I'm really looking forward to November the next time we all get to get together for Emily's bridal shower! And then December for Emily and Basilio's wedding and Christmas!

Here are a few more fun picture of me and Gabby from the weekend! Gabby is so much fun and cracks me up! I always love when I get to spend time with her!

Living with McKinley

It's been fun adjusting to life with McKinley. The first few days after we brought her home from the hospital were kind of rough because she had her days and her nights mixed up. Starting about 11pm she'd be awake and wouldn't want to go to sleep and stay asleep no matter what we did! Luckily, we had Travis's mom here to help us and take a night shift to allow us to get some sleep. Naps during the day were a must those first few days! We all got a little silly from a lack of sleep! We had a few good laughing spells which made our lack of sleep a little more bearable!

Travis exhausted

Grandma Hulse who helped us survive those first few sleepless nights!

After about 4 sleepless nights, she finally got things figured out and started to sleep at night! She still would wake up every 3 to 4 hours to eat, but that's what babies are supposed to do! Waking up every 3 to 4 hours is so much better than only sleeping 3 to 4 hours a night! She's gotten into a routine and has been doing great sleeping since then!

We were also able to give McKinley her first bath. We had to give her a sponge bath since we didn't want to get her umbilical chord stump wet so it'd fall off (which it has now). She didn't enjoy her first bath too much, as you can tell by the picture! She's getting better and starting to like it a little more these days!




When McKinley was about 5 days old we took her out for the first time on a walk. We were getting a little cabin fever so we decided a walk was needed to get some sunlight and get out of the house for a bit. We had Natalie, Mike and Clay down visiting from Hyrum so they were able to join us on our outing.




Clay loves his new little cousin. He wants to hold her and kiss her all the time. He gets mad when we don't let him pick her up and carry her like he wants to, but that will have to wait until they're both a little bit bigger!

When McKinley was a week old she got to meet her Meme and Pepe (my parents). They flew in from Houston and spent 10 days here with us!



Life with McKinley has been great! She's a great baby and doesn't cry all that much! She's squirmy and likes to wiggle a lot! She likes to kick her legs and move her arms all around! She's also awake a lot of the time and is really aware of what's going on around her. Everyone comments about how she doesn't look like a newborn because she's so awake and alert! People are always surprised at how many pictures we have of her awake! She's such a cutie and we're loving life with her :)

McKinley's Birth Story

The morning of Tuesday August 24th, Travis and I woke up at about 7:30am and I got out of bed and started working on a bow holder I had painted the night before, that I was waiting to let dry over night. I got up and started hot gluing the ribbon on to the wood piece when all of the sudden I realized my water had broken! It wasn't all at once but a little at a time, so I wasn't quite sure what to do and if in fact my water had broken. I asked Travis what to do, and he said pick up your craft stuff and take a shower, and he started vacuuming. We laugh about this now because both of us were a little out of sorts not quite sure what we should be doing. After doing these things, we decided we should call our doctor. Our doctor wasn't on call but I talked to another doctor, Dr. England, (the Dr. who ended up delivering McKinley) and I think he could tell the unsureness in my voice because he asked me if I was a first-time mom. I said yes and we both laughed. He told me to come on in to the hospital and get checked out. So we got our hospital bags we had packed and ready to go, grabbed a few movies and headed to the hospital. When we got there, they sent us to a room and I got into my hospital gown. They came in and checked me out and confirmed that sure enough my water had broken. So they hooked me up to my IV and Travis and I put in a movie to make the time pass faster. They then came in to put me on pitocin, at 10am, to get my contractions started, I only had a few very small ones before they put on the pitocin. Travis and I watched movies, called/texted family and friends to let them know what was going on and waited for things to start happening. After about 2 hours on the pitocin, my contractions started getting stronger and I started being unable to talk or focus on other things while I was having them. At one point my sister called while I was having one, and I told Travis sorry I can't talk to her now you're going to have to! So at that point, I decided it was about time to get my epidural. So at 1pm, after about 3 hours of labor on my own, I got my epidural. I told Travis I felt like I was cheating because I had hardly had that many painful contractions, but I was so relieved when the anesthesiologist arrived! He was really nice and friendly and we had a conversation the whole time he was giving me my epidural. I laid on my side and held Travis's hand and it really didn't hurt! I felt instant relief from my contractions! It was amazing! My legs really didn't get numb and I was still able to feel a little pressure from my contractions, just not the pain. So apparently I got the "perfect epidural" as my nurse called it! When I got my epidural I was only dilated to a 2, so we were a little discouraged and thought we were going to be at the hospital all night waiting for this girl to come! Natalie, Travis's sister, came to hang out with us. We watched some more movies and I took a little nap. Then we started a game of Phase 10. After about 4 rounds of Phase 10 and 3 hours of my epidural, I started to feel a lot of pressure with each contraction, and we looked at the monitor and my contractions were only a minute apart and pretty intense. So I called the nurse to have her come and check me. She checked and said her head is right there, you're dilated to a 9 and ready to start pushing! I was shocked I had only been in labor for 6 hours and I was already ready to push! In a matter of 3 hours since I got my epidural I dilated from a 2 to a 9! So at 4pm I started to push with my nurse, Cody. She was great, really friendly and very helpful! We really liked her. So after about 10 minutes of pushing with her, she decided it was time to call the doctor! The doctor couldn't get there fast enough! I felt the urge to push really strong and didn't like having to wait to push until he got there. Luckily, when I thought I couldn't wait anymore he finally got there! So we pushed for about 10 more minutes with the doctor and she was here!! Travis didn't get to cut her umbilical cord, because it was wrapped around her neck and the doctor had to cut it. They took her over and weighed her and did her measurements and cleaned her up. She peed all over the table while the nurse was doing all of this! She was born at 4:27pm, weighed 7 lbs 6 oz, and was 20 inches long. We didn't have a name for her right when she was born. On the wall in our hospital room they had written "Baby Secret Name Hulse". We decided about 10 minutes after she was born to name her McKinley Elana Hulse. We had a few names we were choosing from, but that's the one we thought fit our baby girl the best. She was really healthy and everything looked great! They came and put her on my chest and I thought she was beautiful. It was so nice to finally have my baby girl here and to snuggle with her! I thought she was so cute and I loved kissing her head!






I was so surprised with how easy everything was. In my head I had pictured it to be a lot worse! Right after I had her, I said to the doctor "That wasn't bad, I could do that again!" She was so alert after she was born. In fact, the 2 days we spent in the hospital, she really didn't sleep all that much! She stayed awake most of the time and everyone was impressed with how alert she was. In fact, in the pictures that the photographer took at the hospital, all the nurses were so impressed with how alert she was and all remarked about how she didn't look like a newborn! In the hospital we were visited by Natalie, my aunts Sally and Darla, my cousins Lindsey and Ashley, and my friends Heather and Jeremy and Nicole.

It was so great to have so many visitors and to relax and be waited on by all of the nurses. I felt like I recovered really well and was up and walking the next day after I had her. It felt good to get out of the hospital bed and walk around. In fact, one time Travis was laying in my hospital bed and I was up sitting in the chair and one of the nurses walked in and remarked, "What's wrong with this picture?" Thursday morning around 10am, my doctor and McKinley's doctor okayed it for us to head home. We were ready to leave the hospital and begin life at home with McKinley! That morning Travis's mom came up to the hospital and we were able to introduce her to McKinley for the first time. She was able to help us take her home for the first time. We were no longer a family of 2 but now a family of 3!