The Cottings have been blessed for the year of 2014.
Mia has changed from cute little baby to a happy little girl. We’ve been very blessed at how healthy and happy she has been. Wendy took her to city parks most days during the summer. She’s shy in new places, but after she gets warmed up to it, she goes up and down the slides all by herself. She has come to enjoy being outside. Guess that shouldn’t be a surprise seeing as her parents met as backpacking guides.
Mia has a favorite stuffed animal black bear who she obviously named, Bear. She talks fairly well and has a surprising understanding of what we tell her. Mia enjoys having her grandparents (Jason’ parents) over most nights while Wendy is at work to help Jason. We are grateful that she gets to spend time with them.
Earlier this year, we learned that we will be having #2. His name will be Cody Wyatt. He is due sometime in mid-February of 2015. We are excited to be having a boy, and Jason is glad to see the gender ratio tip back towards the middle.
Wendy has been doing well with her pregnancy. Other than the annoyances that come with being pregnant, she and Cody have been healthy so far. For that we are very thankful. Wendy is still working for KidsCare as an after hours urgent care pediatrician. She is grateful that her job allows her to spend all day with Mia, and then go to work in the evening. She has been active with a Mom’s Bible Study group that meets every two weeks at our church and meet ups with her friends during the week.
Jason, despite his obtaining the necessary Firefighter and Paramedic certifications, has continued to strike out at fire department hirings. He will continue to apply as departments open up hiring again in the future, but frustration with the hiring process is mounting. In the mean time, Jason has decided to embrace being a stay at home Dad and the blessings that come with it. He gets to spend time with Mia and Wendy every day, something many husbands don’t get the opportunity to do. He sees his role as being the job God wants him in for now, and if God wants him in a firefighting position, it will happen.
Jason spent most of the summer building a raised playhouse for Mia. It has been a dream of his to build something like this for his kids. He has also been finding other projects to do around the house. The latest project is building an ~ 80 ft long stream in the backyard with a waterfall. We couldn’t afford to buy a house in the mountains next to a stream, so he’s bring a stream to the back yard. The biggest part of construction on it has been finished with more work to come once the weather warms up next spring. It makes for a nice soothing noise for sitting on the back porch that Jason helped build on the back of our house this summer. The old deck was rotting. The new deck is now covered and has built in benches. Jason’s backyard transformation project really hit its stride this year.
Our family got to go on a couple of short vacations this year. Mia got to experience camping for the first time when we went to the Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah. She enjoyed playing in the dirt in the campsite the most. We also did some short hikes with Mia riding in the backpack. We also went to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming later in the year. These two backpackers have had to transition from their hardcore backpacking beliefs to a more cushioned and more gear intensive car camping experience. Our campsite has begun to look like an REI catalog, but it was a worthy expenditure of our REI dividends.
We hope this finds you and your family doing well and wish you a Merry Christmas!
Jason, Wendy, & Mia
