General Updates, Graduation, and Moving to St George

Well, with everything going on in our life this blog kind of gets put on the back burner. I do really well at updates to Elli's blog but not so much this one. Unsurprising since shes the cutest one of the bunch anyway. To see more about her life and updates you can read my blog for her here:

http://ourveryfirstpeanut.blogspot.com/

The rest of us are doing good too. I am almost done with pharmacy school. Just 6.5 more months. 193 days to be exact until I graduate on May 6, 2016. I'm super excited. I have two weeks left on the rotation that I am currently on and then after that I have four more 6 week rotations left until I graduate. It's been a rough road but it's almost over. I don't currently have any jobs lined up, though I do have some really good possibilities that I won't find out about until this spring a little closer to graduation. I'm not too worried about it and wouldn't mind a little time off to spend with Elli after full time rotations for a year.

Colton is almost halfway through his second year of his master's in Occupational Therapy. After this semester he only has two semesters left of class and two semesters of 12 week rotations and then he'll graduate in May of 2017. He is doing amazing. His teacher on his fieldwork currently says that his intervention plans are good enough that she will be using them as examples for everyone else. Needless to say, I am very proud of him and how well he is doing. He will have classes this spring and next fall with rotations this upcoming summer and the spring of 2017. He is still unsure exactly what he wants to do, but we are leaning towards school distract OT which would be great because he's be off school when our kids are off school too.

But that brings me to my next point that we are super super excited about!! WE ARE MOVING TO ST GEORGE IN MAY!!!!! It was a tough decision, but we were hoping to eventually get to move down there after we both were graduated. But we got to thinking about it and after I have graduated and am looking for a job it would make it harder to get one and then move just a few months later after Colton graduates. So we were able to work it out with his teacher so that he will do his rotation over the summer at Dixie Regional, and then his rotation over the spring will be at Washington county school district. It does kind of make it hard that those two are broken up by a semester of classes but we decided that we will just rent an apartment in both places just for that fall semester so he can attend classes but we can move and be where we want to be. So we will live in Salt Lake as well as st. george for the 15 weeks of fall semester.

We can't wait to get down there and be closer to family, though I'm a little nervous about the heat...but it will be good. It makes graduation even more exciting than it already was. I can't wait.

Breastfeeding, Blessed, and Toddlerhood

Today was a very momentous, exciting, and heartbreaking day at our house. Now I know I promised a full life update, and I promise that is still in the works, but before that I just have to write about this too. My sad/happy news of today is very much in-line with my last post on here, but as of tonight, Elli is officially weaned from breastfeeding. She's been only nursing at bedtime for more than a month now but tonight she fell asleep without nursing and without any sadness. It's such a strange mix of emotions for me that she is done. Breastfeeding has been such a huge part of my life. I spent my entire pregnancy wanting to do it and then for the last 15 and a half months it has been an everyday thing, some days an all day thing.

I feel very grateful, blessed, and proud that I was able to nurse her for as long as I did, to be honest, I never expected to make it that long. I'm grateful for the bond it has helped me have with her, for the comfort I was able to give her when she was upset, for how easy it made putting her to sleep. While I'm excited for the next chapter in her life as she grows and learns, it's also quite heartbreaking that my little baby is growing up so fast. This just drives it home to me so much stronger, she's not a little baby anymore, she's my strong, smart, independent, toddler, and I love her with everything I am. So now if you'll excuse me, I need to go cry and celebrate for reaching this milestone.

Nursing, Nighttime, and Growing Up

I've had this topic a lot on my mind lately so I finally decided to write about it on this Mich neglected blog. This is mostly spurred because I have a friend who decided not to wean her 14 month old baby yet, because her baby isn't ready. She was then told by others that "nursing is for babies" and that she needed to be more strict with her toddler. Well, Elli is almost fifteen months. I still nurse her 2-4 times a day (judge me if you will I don't care.) Everyone I know has been so supportive of my breastfeeding journey and for that I'm so grateful. I know I couldn't have done it without their support, especially Colton's. I am starting to get asked a lot more when I'm going to wean Elli completely and the truth is, I don't know. When she decides she's ready I guess. But the truth is, it's more me that's not ready than it is her. I don't understand how I can be expected to give it up, that sweet quiet time every day that is ours. Watching her drift easily off to sleep as I comfort her as I have since she was born. It hurts, saddens, and scares me to think that once we stop it's gone. Never again will I have the cure that always fixes it when she sad, tired, teething, gotten shots, or has a fever. Never again will I be able to console her when she wakes up scared like I do now. And there is some thing about stopping, a finality to it that means my baby, isn't a baby anymore. And I'm not so sure I'll ever be ready for that.

I wish the world would be more silent. That they wouldn't feel the constant need to push us into making our babies grow up faster. From making them cry it out at a few months old, to stopping nursing just because your child reached some milestone of hitting 12 months old. The truth is they are little for such a short time. They will grow up and sleep through the night and those quiet moments will be gone. I'll be well rested, and love watching her grow but a part of me will always miss the baby times when she was my whole world but I was hers. So for now, I think I will just let my baby be little, and soak up this time before I blink and it's gone. Elli will let me know when she's ready to be done nursing, and by that time hopefully I'll be able to say the same for myself.

I do want to add a disclaimer...while I have loved nursing for as long as I have, and am grateful and proud that I was able to do so, I don't think moms who choose to bottle feed for ANY reason love their children any less or are any less  amazing of a parent.

Elli, Education, and Life in General.

I'm not the best at updating this blog anymore. I keep up with the one about Elli often enough that I kind of forget about this blog. But I guess it's time to update about me and Colton's life. Things have been kinda different this summer. I have my second year rotations, meaning I have worked unpaid for eight weeks. The school was really good and worked with me so both of my rotations have been in Cedar City, one at the hospital and one at township pharmacy. Which means that Colton and I have been living down here in Cedar for the last six weeks. We lived with his parents for the month of july and then are with my parents for this month until the weekend before school starts up again. I can't believe that I am through my second year. Halfway done with pharmacy school. I also only have one year left of classes ever in my whole life and then it will just be rotations for my last year. It's all going by so fast. I have really enjoyed it so far. I'm both excited and terrified that I am over half way done with pharmacy school. It's going to be a whole other world when I have to get a real job and all that.

Colton's school life is going well too. I don't remember when I last wrote so I'll just start from the beginning. He ended up getting on the waitlist for the Occupational Therapy program, which was incredibly stressful not knowing what was going to happen and if he needed to find a job if he wasn't going to get in or if we needed to have a daycare lined up so if he did. But after about two months they finally offered waitlist spots and he got one! We are so excited. There were only seven spots and 20 people on the list so we are pretty happy. We are both super excited for him to start. Once we found out that he was in we had to find a daycare, which we probably should have done sooner since for infants there are huge waitlists. All of them we could find close to the U had both large waitlists and also you have to pay for full time care even though we need only 12 hours a week this semester. Which 1200 a month for 12 hours a week was a little outside of our price range. We finally found one in Sandy that we like, that had an opening, and that we only had to pay for two days a week so we can actually afford it. I'm pretty excited about that. Then when we found out about Elli's cast, which you can read about here: http://ourveryfirstpeanut.blogspot.com/ I was pretty nervous about what our options were going to be and if the day care would still take her or if we were going to have to try and find a nanny. I called the daycare and they said they could accommodate her cast as long as we came in a few times to show them all the ropes with it. So we are so excited and feel very blessed that things have worked out so well with everything. So Colton will start up on the 22nd of this month.

I am still loving my job. I'll work just one day a week, most likely Saturdays so that we can have a little income and I can still work. Colton is going to take this first semester off work until he sees how hard his program will be and then if he feels like he can do it then he will try to find an on campus job to do so I guess we will see what happens with that.

We had our two year anniversary on 5/26. We didn't do much. Just went for a short hike and then went out to a nice dinner. It was nice just to have the time away from everything and not have Elli with us, that doesn't happen very often. Luckily she's usually pretty good though so it isn't too bad having her with us. We also had Sarah take some family pictures of us that turned out adorable! I seriously love them.

School, Semester, and Elli

Well. Big things are happening at the Savage house. The semester of school is going in full swing again with two weeks of the 16 down. It's been very stressful already with everything up in the air with the baby. But it's been good still. I have been able to work things out with my teachers so far for doing things at home for a little while with Elli. Which, she was born on January 13th, 2014. If you want to read about her birth story you can find it on her blog here.

http://ourveryfirstpeanut.blogspot.com/

Colton is doing great with school. He graduates with his degree in Human Development in May, and then he just found out that he has an interview for the Occupational Therapy program at the U so he will be doing that on February 14th, and then by the beginning of March we will know if he got in. I'm so proud of him already for getting as far as he has. So whatever happens now we know that his application is great because he got an interview and now we just get to wait and see again for a bit. 

My mom just graduated with her master degree in counseling and will walk in West Jordan the same weekend that Colton's graduation is. I'm really proud of her too. She has been working very hard to get to where she is now. Everyone else is good too. Dusty is almost two and is as cute as ever. I just can't believe how big he is already. 

But anyway. That's really everything. Our lives are really amazing. We are so blessed, more than we would ever hope for.  

Minutes, Miracles, and a Dare

It's been a little while since I've updated this blog. Most everything has been on my pregnancy blog instead of this one, and life has just been busy overall. But yeah, in case you missed it, we are having a baby!!! I will be 26 weeks tomorrow. Only 99 days left! It's going to be a little girl, due on January 15, 2014. We are so in love with her already! And since everyone asks, we have picked out the name Elli Bernice. Though it may or may not change at some point if we feel it just isn't what her name is supposed to be. Colton is hard at work with a crazy busy semester and will finish up his application for the U's master of OT program next week. Interviews are in February so keep sending up prayers that he gets one. I have no doubts that he will be fine and get in but it never hurts to have more people praying. I'm just going through my second year of pharmacy school and it's flying by faster than I can even comprehend.

I mostly just wanted to post because I wanted to talk about something I have started to learn since being pregnant. It's been a hard lesson for me, and one that I wish I would have learned earlier in my life. But it is a beautiful message to understand and know now. Anyone who knows me personally probably knows that I have some body image issues (what girl doesn't in our society, right) but mine are bad. I have little to no self-esteem at times and I struggle to feel like I am good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, etc. But so many things have changed with this little life growing inside me. I have begun to realize and see my body for the incredible miracle that it truly is. It's amazing. Truly. It has the capacity to grow this little life, and provide her with everything she needs to become a whole person. It is strong, healthy. I can lift incredibly heavy objects for a women, I can hike for miles without stopping. I am working on my feet 20 hours a week, going to school full time with 18 graduate level credits, and 6 months pregnant, yet my body just keeps on going and giving me all it has to give. I walk one hour 4 days a week now, to and from class, and it just does it. It has run two half marathons in under 3 hours with no training, simply because I asked it to do so. It's always been amazing and has never let me down. So why do I hate it? HOW can I hate it? It is beautiful. It is a miracle unlike anything else in this world. And slowly, my whole world has been shifting around this concept. My body is imperfect. But I love it anyway. I love those imperfections that make me me. I love the fact that I have incredible strength and stamina that makes it possible for me to do everything I love and want to do, things that I might not be able to do if I had the perfect skinny body I used to dream of. My body has been good to me, and I want to start being as good to it as it is to me. I want to be able to instill in my daughter a love of her body. A realization of the miracle that she is, to me and otherwise. So I will still exercise, I still plan to run and train for a half-marathon next year, but it's different now. I don't want to run because maybe if I do so then I will be skinny and finally be worthy of my own love. I want to do it because I do love my body, I love it enough to treat it right. To exercise it and make it as healthy as it can be. And everything about that thought process is amazing.

So guess what? I dare you to try. To try and see your body for the miracle that it is instead of the imperfections that it has. To try and love it, because it is so good to you. It makes it possible for everything that you do and have and love to be available. I promise you that if you can do it, if you can find the miracle within yourself, your world will never be the same again.

New apartment, Nephew, and Life in general

We moved into our new apartment!! I'm so excited. I like it so much better than our old one. It's a little smaller than the old one was but it has two bedrooms and the space is just used sooooooo much better. I actually have some counter space, and a pantry and a coat closet and cupboards in my bathroom. Its so worth the move. We bought carpet and my dad came and helped us put it down then Colton's family helped us move everything over and unpack. I'm so grateful for all of the help everyone gave us. I love living here!! Our new living room and kitchen with awesome giant windows.

I also had to post a few pictures of my nephew because he is so stinking cute and I can't even believe how adorable he is!! I love this stinkin' kid!

Well, life is good right now. Just living and Colton is taking a summer physics class. I'm just enjoying my time off for the summer even though I'm working so much that it isn't really time off. At least my brain isn't being so overstimulated.