Cock-A-Doodle-Doo look who turned Two!

As if Mya hadn't had enough sugar with cake
and ice cream earlier in the evening, Grandpa
decided to feed her a rootbeer float. Oh well,
I guess Grandpas can get away w/ stuff like that.

Jenn & Mya

Grandpa Morris & his beloved buffalo & cows

Mya's cousins & friends

My buddies & their kiddos: Jenn & Peyton and Kelly & Cole

Cousin Wyatt giving pony ride.

Cowboy cousins: Maddex & Mavrik

Maddex is already a better roper than his dad!

Mya turned 2 on Oct. 7th! Can you believe it? I sure can't. Anyways, for her birthday this year we decided to have a barnyard/farm theme because if you've read my previous posts I did today, you already know that she has been obsessed with horses lately. What better place to have this barnyard themed party than at Grandpa & Grandpa McConnell's farm. We started out her party at my brother Matt's house; they have about a dozen horses. We did pony rides there; it was Mya's first time riding a horse. She wasn't so sure about it once the horse started moving. She loved feeding them though. She would get a handful of hay and feed it to the horse & then say "AWESOME!" It was so funny. Then we headed to the farm for a hayrack ride and to watch the buffalo and cows eat their dinner. That was quite a hit. My parents have been working on redoing the old milk barn so it worked out perfect to have dinner & cake in the top of the barn. See that amazing cake & cupcakes? That would be my incredible friend Jenn's talent. You know you have a wonderful friend when they take all of that time to make something like that for your daughter. Mya got lots of fun gifts & has enjoyed having some new toys in the house. Mya had a fantastic birthday party & thanks to all of our family & friends for their help. We couldn't have done it without them.

Mya's Top 3 Loves

1. SILLY BANDZ - You can see from the above picture that this girl has no shortage of silly bandz. They are pretty much her favorite thing to play with and hold her attention longer than any other toy. She spots them at every store and thinks she can never have enough of them. The other day we were at the park a little girl came up to her and wanted to trade some silly bandz with her. It was the cutest thing. The question is do you think she can fit any more silly bandz on that little arm of hers? She is so funny about just wanting to put them on the one hand.

2. HORSES - A couple of months ago Mya grew this instant love for horses. I'm not sure where it came from (seeing how Brad & I are far from horse lovers); I guess maybe it's a bit of that McConnell blood in her. Jon & Alex were so kind to let us have the horse in the above pictures; she loves it. Just like the silly bandz, Mya has no shortage of horses. She has a huge stuffed horse, little stuffed horses, mini horses, and a hundred other little horse toys & figures. Not to mention the like 10 horse movies her dad bought her.

3. PARKS - Mya has to visit the park at least twice a day. Thank goodness our new house has a lot of parks within walking distance. This is one thing I love about our new neighborhood (there's 3 or 4 private little parks very close) and 2 bigger ones. She would live at the park if she could. I am a bit worried about winter time & not being able to frequent the park every day. She is going to have major withdrawls. I got a children's museum membership so hopefully that will help.

Look who's all grown up!

Here's my Mya girl looking so big! Don't you love this cute sweater her little friend Emmie gave her? It's perfect for her because she is quite the horse lover these days!

Mya gets "Trooper of the Year" Award

Yes, I'm sorry but another blog post on Mya tonight. I just want to give this girl a huge THANKS for putting up with much craziness this year. Here's some of the things that she's been a total champ through:
1.) Multiple ear infections this year (many of them double ones). She just had tubes put in this month and she did fabulous with that little surgery. Sidenote - I have no idea how parents function when their child is in surgery. Mya had a 10 minute very minor, minor surgery and I was crying & the 10-20 minutes went by way to slow.
2.) Other various illnessess: bronchitis and yeast infection. We also found out she has a small umbilical hernia that if it doesn't work itself out by the time she's about 4, she'll have to have surgery to remove it. Another sidenote - Did you know that if someone has an "outie" it's most likely a hernia? I had no idea until the dr. was telling us this when he was checking out Mya's sometimes "innie" and sometimes "outie" belly button. I'm not trying to freak out any of you that may have an "outie" but thought this was interesting.
3.) Three moves.
4.) A pretty much total house remodel the month of June & complete chaos that month b/c of it.
5.) A working mom that's recently been scrambling to get things done @ my current job for the next person. August 6th is my last day. Cheers to haning out with Mya all day after that!
6.) Many hours in the car in July but was a great traveler overall.

YOU ROCK MYA!

CUTENESS=MYA

So don't these pics of Mya spell CUTENESS all over them? Thanks again to Stacie for capturing so many cute pictures of my baby girl the last couple of years.

This girl has learned soooooooo many new things since I've last blogged. All I have to say is she's too smart for me already. I used to try and write down in her journal all of the new words she says but I can't write them down fast enough anymore. She basically tries to repeat everything she hears. Here's some of my favorite words she says (even though I think each word she says is adorable): painting, oh shoot, show, noodles, Jesus, tractor, yogurt, Stone, applesauce, swing, Grandma, Grandpa, puppy, church, hippo, elephant, chair, toys, and blanket. Mya has also started combining words to try and say sentences or phrases; here are some of my favorite of those: help you (I think this is funny that when she wants help she says "help you" instead of "help me"), need some more, I see you, watch it, and need mommy. In addition to building her vocab, she's been learning other tricks too. She can give you eskimo kisses (aka nose to nose kiss), gives fist bumps, count to six (w/ just a little help), march & say march while doing it, she's learned to move a little stool or chair around & climb onto it so she can reach the things she couldn't otherwise, jump high, attempt a peace sign and say peace out (mainly you just hear out), and when asked how old she is she holds up two fingers & says two (we'll she's almost 2 so I guess I won't bother to reinforce that she's actully still 1), and go down the big slides by herself. This girl is non-stop fun & craziness. I can't believe how she's this big toddler now and not my little baby anymore (tear).

Summer Snack of the Week Handout

One of my big projects this spring at work was to design another "Summer Snack of the Week" handout. I developed one last year and it was a hit at health fairs, farmers markets, etc. There's a total of 10 recipes and an activity/lesson about MyPyramid for each week too. To download a free copy go to this website address:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/nep/resources.shtml

It's the first link/title under "Educational Resources." I was really happy with how it turned out this year. By the time I was done with it though, I was so sick of it and didn't want to see it ever again. However, I wanted to share the resource with everyone because I know parents are always looking for fun, free stuff to do with their kiddos in the summer time. Have a wonderful summer!

Mya's 3 Favorite/Most Frequent Words

Mya is learning new words every day & she is saying all sorts of things. Lately she's been on a "sh" kick - saying brush, fish, show, wash, shoe, etc. However, right now Mya has 3 words that she says constantly (besides mama & dada of course). Here they are:
1.) Emmie - Emmie, our friends Brenden & Julianne's daughter, is one of Mya's best buds. She is about 5 months older than Mya. Even though they don't see each other every day or anything, Mya is always, always wondering about Emmie. Today when I got her out of her crib this morning her first word was Emmie; they did get to play together all day yesterday which was so fun for them. Anyways, it will be a sad, sad day for Mya and for us whenever they move.
2.) "Me Me" - Who is "Me Me?" Well she is also known as Jamie, my friend who is staying w/ us temporarily while she finishes up her student teaching. Mya can't quite say Jaime so she says "Me Me." When Mya is wondering about "Me Me" during the day, I have to keep reminding her that she is at school with the kids and will be home later. Then Mya misses her on the weekends especially b/c Jaime usually goes up to Omaha. It will also be a sad day when Me Me moves for us and for Mya. Mya is liking having a roommate on her end of the house.
3.) Baby - Mya LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES babies. There's a billboard on Hwy. 2 of 3 babies and she looks forward to seeing that billboard every day we go by it. Before she can even see it, she knows it's coming up around the corner b/c she says baby over and over and over. She is a good little mommy to her dolls at home, feeding them bottles, giving them stroller rides, swaddling them. She gives baby "Jace" aka Jason (at daycare) tons of loves and always looks forward to seeing him. She is always on the lookout for babies - anywhere we go. Well, you may ask then when is she getting a little brother or sister since she loves babies so much? All that I can say to that is I can't even think about that at the moment! So once again a sad day for Mya b/c life has been soooo crazy lately that despite how cute babies are it is about the last thing on my mind. Life needs to settle down first.

How many times have the Hulse's moved?

Well today I figured that I better start packing (seeing how we need to start moving our stuff on Monday & have all of our stuff out by Wednesday night). However, I could hardly muster up one ounce of energy to pack. I started thinking why am I having such a hard time getting motivated to pack (well besides the fact I don't want to leave our beautiful new construction)? Well, I shortly realized it's b/c I've moved one too many times in the past 6 1/2 years. Not that it's exciting or anything but if I don't write it down here I think I'll start to forget pretty soon. Anyways, here's a run down on where Brad & I've lived since we've been married:
1.) Highland View Apartments - While Brad was finishing his degree, he worked as a leasing agent at Highland View. As a wonderful bonus, we got to live in one of their apartments for free. Boy do I miss those days of no rent/mortgage payment!!!!
2.) Highland View Apartments - Since Brad was a rockstar leasing agent, we were able to upgrade to a bigger apartment @ Highland View. This was a pretty easy move but nonetheless a move.
3.) When Brad first started his career at Home Real Estate & I was finishing school, we decided to rent a little two bedroom house. It was a cute little house in a quiet, old neighborhood.
4.) About 6 months later, we bought our first house. It was a 100 year-old fixer-upper. Boy did we learn a lot from that house; I will never own that old of a house again. Enough said there. (This was Mya's 1st home.)
5.) We then decided to try our hand at new construction & build a house. However, that would take about 6-7 months so we needed somewhere to go in the meantime. Here's where we started calling Colonial Heights Apartments our home temporarily. Boy was it a change going back to an apartment. I'm not going to lie though; it was a bit of a nice break after all the projects we did on our previous home.
6.) Well we finished our new construction but various things occurred and we decided it would be best to try and sell it. However, I did not want to be paying a mortgage for the house, rent for our apartment, & then possible rent on our rental house we own (b/c sometimes the tenants don't think they need to pay their rent but that's another story for another day) so we decided to move into our new construction while it was on the market. We took a chance - it could sell in a month or it could have been 6 months. Well, 2 weeks of living in it, we SOLD it. We were thankful but at the same time I knew this meant another move in a couple months.
7.) After selling our new construction, we started looking for houses. We weren't seeing much (it seemed like houses were pretty picked over after the tax credit ended). Then we were thinking we would have to go back to an apartment while the house search continued. Our prayers were answered though and we find a house to buy. More details on our new house soon. We are thankful we could start doing renovations very quick & close on it so fast.
Well, so there you go, after our move next week we will have moved 7 times in the last 6 1/2 years. Averaging a move a year; way too many moves in my opinion! I don't know how people do it (like military familes) who have to move constantly. I told Brad he has to give me 5 years in this next house. If not, I may go absolutely crazy.

P.S. A special "THANK YOU" to all of the people who have ever helped with any of our moves. You are awesome!!!!!!!

Last but not least post - Emily

Well if there haven't been enough changes and craziness for us I have another one. And no I am NOT pregnant. Recently, there's been some changes with my current job and I've decided to soon spend my days hanging out with Mya. Yes, I'll be able to call myself a stay at home mom (except I know being a mom is the hardest job & I don't really care for the stay at home title b/c you're working hard all day long). Anyways, this will probably occur by August 1 so I have about 3 months left of working full-time. I am really excited to be with Mya more and devote more time to just her. Hopefully, this slows life down a bit too and I won't be so crazy busy. I of course will miss some stuff about my job but I'll be doing the most important work of raising her. She is the cutest little thing and I have no doubt she'll keep me entertained all day long. Brad is already getting many ideas for me to be his "assistant." I've always teased him about being a husband/wife realtor team and he just laughs about that. We'll see what he thinks after I'm his "assistant" for awhile. On another note, I would like to finish my masters degree (I have about 15 crediets left) but not sure how big of a rush I am in to do that. After all, not even sure what I would do w/ it but it would be nice to have. That's all for me now.

Housing situation

So obviously a lot has happened in the last few months with the house we built. So originally we had the intentions of building a house for us to live in. Well by the time we were completed with it (which was about a month ago) we decided it would be best for us to sell it. Brad did an amazing job with this project for it being the first house he's acted as the builder on. I am so proud of him. It was a ton of work and stress with contractors, crazy weather, etc but he did great dealing with it all on top of all the other normal work stuff. I'm glad I only had to do the fun part like picking out cabinets, countertops, carpet, etc. We both learned a lot. So anyways, back to our housing situation. Okay the house got done mid march and we were still living in our apartment. The house hadn't sold yet (we had it on the market while it was being built) so we decided to move into it but still leave it on the market. We moved in the end of March; it was the craziest, fastest move we've done yet. Then not even 2 weeks later we got a pretty good offer on it that we couldn't pass on. The couple seems so nice and they love the house. I don't blame them; I'm getting pretty spoiled living here & I'm not going to lie it's going to be hard to move out (oh well I got to enjoy it for a couple months). We close May 28th so that means we have about a month to regain some energy to move again. The question remains: Where are we moving to??? Well, good question. . . . we don't know!!!!!!!! We thought about building again but decided against that for now. Brad's been looking for houses for us like crazy. I'm not sure if we'll have to head back to an apartment or short term stay in the mean time. I really hope some good houses come on the market soon!!!!!!!! We've learned a lot from the last few houses we've owned so now we're a bit pickier so it might take us a little longer. I am ready to be done moving though at least for a couple years. On a little side note related to housing, we are gaining a roomate for the month of May. One of my good friends, Jaime (I worked w/ her at Union Pacific), will be staying with us. She is finishing up her masters in teaching and has to be out of her apartment this weekend. I'm so excited to get to hang out w/ her more b/c even though we've lived in the same town for the last year and a half we've both been crazy busy. Now I get to see her every day for almost a month, woo hoo! Brad will be a bit outnumbered w/ 3 girls in the house but he'll survive I think.
Of course pics will be coming soon of the house so stay tuned for those too!

Mya - 18 months

I can't believe it's been 3 months since I've blogged! Agh!! Crazy times. Anyways, I want to start off by blogging about the cutest 18 month old around. That's right, that would be my Mya bear.

Mya loves the following:
- mini MM's
- bubbles & she can say bubble so clearly
- side walk chalk (she would carry her pail of sidewalk chalk everywhere if I let her)
- going to the park (she loves slides)
- babies
- kids (she randomly goes up to kids at the park and pats them on the back, it's so funny)
- dried fruit
- Madagascar 2, Little People DVD, & Kung Fu Panda (She is taking after the Hulse side b/c she is turning into quite the movie lover. Don't worry I do try to limit her screen time.)
- being rocked for a little bit before she goes to bed
- making complete messes (this is nothing new however)

Here are some of her new words: amen, choo choo (Derek has taught her all about trains & she now loves Thomas the Train), puppy, dog, Emmy, poo (& point to her booty - now I wish she would already by potty trained), and uh oh. You can ask her what a dog says and she says "woof woof." She can say "moo moo" when you ask her what a cow says.

Mya is quite the character. I love to watch her little personality develop. She is a bit stubborn, impatient, and demanding, just like her mama can be sometimes. She had like 3 ear infections in March (had never had one prior to this) and that was no fun; I hope we're she's all done with those. The nights she came down w/ them were just like she was a newborn again and I don't know how I ever functioned on that little of sleep. I've been totally spoiled with her pretty much sleeping through the night since she was like 2 months old. Other than that she's been healthy as can be. Keep tuned for pics of her at easter time.

What's new with Brad (according to Emily)?

(The little shingles in the peaks and the front door need to be pained dark brown still and the columns need stuco and stone still - other than that the exterior is almost done. In the interior, we mainly just need carpet and faucets in, along with touch up painting done and then it will be pretty much done too. Hopefully about 2 more weeks to completion!)

Well, first off it's Brad's birthday on Thursday, the 4th so happy early b-day to him and he'll be the big 28 this year. (It's also his 10 year high school reunion this year.) We'll be celebrating his birthday on Tuesday with some friends watching the Lost premiere and eating prime rib and red velvet cake (hopefully it turns out). This last month we've been watching all of the old seasons preparing for this big event. Then on his actual birthday is a Home Real Estate Awards dinner that we'll be going to so that should be fun. Brad has been busy this month with trying to get all the contractors to our house at just the right time so that we can get it done ASAP. He's done great and am glad that it's him doing this though and not me. I just like the fun part of picking stuff out and that's all - he's done fabulous. The house that we started out building for us we actually have on the market though just to see what happnes. If it doesn't sell by the beginning of March then the plan is for us to move into it. Therefore, we're in a bit of crazy, stressed state of having no idea what will happen. Either way I am good - if it sells it would be great extra money and if it doesn't well then we have a beautiful place to call home soon. And if it sells then we get to start all over (or Brad gets to start all over would be more truthful). There's a lot in the same development that we like and we would already have a lot of the stuff picked out that we used on this first house. However, we'll know some things we would change the second time around - for example the crazy, intense blue color we chose for Mya's bathroom (a sorry goes out to our painter for having to repaint it - I hope I can find a better, more calm color tomorrow). Other than being busy with our house, Brad's busy selling houses. We pray for another great year of real estate transactions. Mya loves her daddy and they are always goofing around being silly. I am so glad that Brad has a flexible schedule that allows him to be with her more. She is his little helper and whenever his phone ring (which is a lot!!!) she's very concerned and makes sure Brad heard it.

What's new with Mya Bear?

Mya is almost 16 months old - above are her 15 month pictures. Stacie continues to amaze me with her photo taking skills b/c Mya is quite the handful for pics and is usually not too happy and always on the move - despite this Stacie always ends up w/ some cute photos for me. Mya had a huge growth spurt betwee 12 and 15 months, she grew 4 inches and gained 4 pounds!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it? She has quite the cute personality and is already my little drama queen. Here are some of her latest tricks:

- she can fold her arms for prayer, it's the cutest thing ever

- she gives high fives

- she waves to anyone she sees

- she says the following words: ball, mama (usually when she's mad), dad, this, eyes (& can point to them), hi, buh bye, juice (kind of), Jason (well she just says "Jace" but she tries , she loves baby Jason and is constantly giving him hugs - the poor guy), and her latest thing is "oh no oh no oh no" It's so funny, so many things are "oh no oh no oh no." She tries to say lots of other words but I can't quite make them out yet.

- she can "dance" - meaning stomp her feet around and kind of shake her booty

- she can reach almost anything I swear no matter how high I seem to put it

- She understand so many things that I say, despite her lack of ability to completely communicate back to me - I can't believe it; it's so amazing. For example, yesterday I asked her to go get her socks. She went straight to the dresser drawer with socks in it. I then asker her to get her coat - straight to the coat closet she went. I asked her to get her shoes - back to her room she went to get them out of the closet. Whenever, I say "Mya, let's go get your milk or food" straight to the fridge she goes. I sometimes forget just how much she can actually understand already.

- she is constantly brushing her teeth and into the toothpaste/toothbrush drawer

- she can throw fits

- SHE CAN MELT YOUR HEART!

She's full of energy and keeps us on our toes but is the cutest little thing.

What's new with Emily?

Well, once again I am behind on blogging but I am determined to be better this year about posting more. I can't believe it's 2010!!! That's crazy, it seems like it was just the year 2000. I am definately finding out that time goes even faster once you have kids, so scary. 2010 is off to a way busy start for me. January through March is about the busiest time for me at work and I am out doing a lot of presentations for all the kiddos. This last week I would have to say that I saw one too many 1st graders and made one too many "yummy bugs." The kids are so cute though. I was at Everett 1st grade doing a healthy snacking presentation and I was reviewing w/ the class about MyPyramid and some other things they learned from their "Healthy Me" kit when one little boy politely interrupted me and said, "Um, can we just get to the part where we get to eat our snack?" Either I was totally boring him or he was really hungry, probably the first one. I had to laugh; it was so funny. Luckily, I'm still getting to work at home when I can. I am only taking 1 credit hour this semester for grad. school and it's an independent study so that helps to make my schedule a little less crazy. I hope to be done in a year and a half or so but we'll see about that. I am also serving in the Young Womens in our ward and am busy with all sorts of fun-filled activities. We have a great group of girls that have good parental support which makes a huge difference. I almost forgot to mention too that I am a member of the YMCA and am very excited to be back in the gym. After a year of inconsistent exercising, I told Brad this had to change. I missed working out and the gym atmosphere and was way out of shape. Of course, I was pretty sore the first couple of weeks of exercising but it's getting better. I also have a couple events I am looking really forward to these next couple of months:
1. Feb. 15 (hopefully nothing gets in the way) I will be at the spa all day long!!!!!!!!! Brad and Mya got me a day at the spa package for christmas and I haven't had a chance to use it. I am going to feel like a new woman I think afterwards.
2. In March (also hopefully nothing gets in the way of this) I am going to a weekend scrapbooking convention in Grand Island. This is the only way I will ever get any scrapping done I think. I haven't done any of Mya's book since I was on maternity leave. What's even better is that my sister and hopefully a couple of my sister-in-laws and buddy Jenn will be going too. Girls weekend crafting!

Other than that the highlight and joy of my day still revolves around Mya - oh yeah, and Brad. More to come about those two crazy cats in the next posts.