Merry Christmas 2013

2013-12-24 19.28.04

2013 has been one of the biggest years for us here at the Cotting family. Our biggest event was the birth of our daughter Mia. She was born in early January at 5lbs 13 oz. Since then, Mia has become what all of our plans for the day seem to revolve around.

Mia is a healthy and happy 11 month old girl. She has been steadily following the 50th percentile on all the growth charts. Not very long after she started crawling, she started trying to stand up which moved to walking. Crawling was a short time in her life, and we are now on to full toddler hood. Her development has been fairly advanced along the way, but we aren’t signing her up for the smart kid school just yet. Mia is talking a lot in baby talk. She got that from her mother’s side of the family. She is a big fan of her books. She’s turning out to be very independent, just like her mom. Poor kid, everyone says she looks like me.

On the same week that Mia was born, I started paramedic school. It was a very tough program. I spent an untold number of hours reading text books, studying, and memorizing stuff. Learning at this age was much more difficult than when I was in my 20’s. However, I feel like I am now a better student than I was with my study habits. It just takes longer for stuff to soak in. The course ran from January through November. Class met 4 times a week for the first part of the program and then dropped down to 2 times a week for the last part of the program. I had over 150 hours of clinical time (time spent working in hospitals) and over 400 hours of time working with the fire departments running calls. I learned a lot, but also realize I have a lot more to learn. Wendy was incredibly supportive of me this past year. My parents were also a big help with babysitting so I could study at night. We are hoping that me being a paramedic will help me get hired sooner to a fire department.

Unfortunately for me, I haven’t been able to do many of the things that I enjoy this year, mainly because of studying. I didn’t get to ride my bike very much, and I also didn’t get to interact people outside of school and family. Now that I’m done with that, I’ve been able to get back to exercising and doing some of my hobbies. I hope my friends don’t think I’ve forgotten them.

One of those hobbies I enjoy is computers. I’ve decided that it is time for the Anvilgear.com domain to go away. Sometime next year, it will be gone. At another time in my life I thought I was going to start a backpacking equipment company with that name. Well, that never happened, so the more relevant cotting.us is becoming the home for our websites and email addresses. So make sure you make the switch if you want to continue to keep up with us. The even less used anvilheadproductions.com will also be going away.

Wendy continues to enjoy her job as a pediatric urgentologist. This time of year is really busy for her as there are lots of sick kids and not enough doctors. During the summer, she took Mia with her to Texas to see her brother get married. She really enjoyed getting to be with her family for a little while. She has enjoyed being a mother and in my biased opinion has done a great job with Mia.

My brother and his wife bought a house in California. They are living in Lancaster. In even bigger news they recently welcomed a one year old boy into their family. They are currently foster parents, and are moving towards adoption. We are very excited for them.

In spring of this year, my parents sold their house and moved out here to Utah. They bought a house that is about 10 minutes away from us. They have been a big help this year with babysitting, and really enjoy having a grand baby near by. I am glad to have them closer now as flying to Mississippi was not going to be a convenient way to stay connected with them.

Our Christmas plans are fairly simple. We are having my parents come over here for the day. My parents have bought most of the inventory of the baby toy aisle for Mia which she will be getting for Christmas and her birthday next month. I’m not sure where we are going to put all this stuff.

We’ve been very blessed this year. We hope you have a great Christmas season.

Jason, Wendy, Mia

Photos: http://photos.cotting.us

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