Cowboy

This is Sterling with his new cowboy pajamas and his new John Deere blanket.
By the way, still no baby...we're still waiting...impatiently.
We're just hanging out at our house for New Year's Eve, we'll probably play some games or something. We hope you all have a happy New Year!!

Christmas 2008

On Christmas Eve our neighbors came over dressed in Santa suits and gave Sterling a little present- it was so hilarious! I love our little apartment complex, I think we have the most fun neighbors. This little girl is Rio and her parents. On Christmas day, Luke, Sterling, Kayla and I walked around and gave our neighbors little boxes of treats that I had made them. It was fun to do.

So this is how we spent Christmas morning- at the clinic! Sterling has pink eye or some type of eye infection that just kept getting worse. We had tried to take him to the clinic the day before and sat for 2 hours waiting and never saw the dr. So we took him back Christmas morning instead of opening presents. But it was okay because we did later with my family on skype which was really fun!

Early on in the day Sterling got in trouble and was sent to his room. While he was in there he started opening presents! This present was supposed to wait until we were on skype with our family, but he opened it anyways and was SOOO excited because it had John Deere on it. My cousin Olivia made it for him and now he's been sleeping with it every night. I was actually really thankful for this blanket because it's starting to get really cold here and all he has is two little baby blankets. Thanks Olivia!



Sterling opened his stocking and presents- he loved every second of ripping into the packages.


Luke got a new scarf and coffee mug, Kayla got a new eco bag.

Billy the Kid

My brother sent this picture to show me the resemblance between Sterling and this picture of Billy the Kid. We're all Western lovers in this family, so we thought it was pretty cool the way Sterling has his hat cocked and a little half smile just like the picture.

The week before Christmas...

On Saturday, Sterling got to open his Christmas presents from his Grandma Linda and Grandpa Chase. The best part was that we got to be on skype with some of his cousins/aunts/uncles/grandparents while he did it! It was so much fun. His favorite present was this elephant game that has butterflies that fly out of the trunk and you catch them with nets. He played it ALL day long. And the other picture is Kayla reading to Sterling, which she has done a lot of since she's been here!




Last night we went to Nagoya to my teacher's daughter's Christmas musical. It was really cute and she was one of the lead roles (she was a Christmas tree). It was all in Japanese, so it was hard for me to understand, but even harder for Kayla! Since it was a kid's show, it was easy enough to piece together though.


Before the show Sterling put on my hat with his nice clothes and said he looked like a cowboy. It was pretty funny.

Aunt Kayla's Here!

When we went to pick up Kayla we got to see all the cool lights and decorations at the airport. It's funny because they decorate and light everything up like crazy here, but Christmas isn't even a recognized holiday. Sterling enjoyed it all though. Especially the picture below that shows him in a TV screen. There was a hidden camera and if you walked in front of it you would show up in this little TV.



Here is Luke and Sterling waiting for Kayla, and then her finally arriving!


Sterling got to open 2 presents that my parents sent with Kayla- new cowboy boots (he is a little replica of Kyle now) and a light up, squishy yellow ball which he LOVES.


Yesterday we took Kayla to Nagoya and walked around a while to show her some of the sights. Here we are in the underground mall.

Pregnant Girls

Well, I think my friend Kayla (my very first roomie at college!) is right, I need to post a pregnant picture- so here they are. ALL the girls on our team are pregnant, which is crazy, but really fun! I'm due in 2 1/2 weeks (obviously hoping to go earlier than that!), Erin is due Feb. 8, Rachel and Caitlin are both due in May. You might keep Caitlin in your prayers because she has had some pretty serious problems/complications already and is currently on strict bed rest. So today we all went to her house and had lunch and enjoyed visiting together.



And I know this is not a good picture, but Jay took it while I was just standing in their kitchen and I think it accurately displays how tired/big/uncomfortable I feel :)

New Toys

The other day we got a box in the mail from my aunt Carolyn, uncle Maurice, and my cousin Miranda and her husband Brent. It was a GREAT box full of very fun things, including some new games/toys for Sterling. So the pictures below are all of him playing with his new things. He got a candy land game, which is the video below. It's hilarious because it shows just about how long Sterling could play before he was ready to just win :)

Christmas Program

On Wednesday evening we went to my teacher's kids Christmas program. They go to the International Christian Academy of Nagoya (where we hope that Sterling might be able to go in the future). It was a lot of fun and very encouraging to see all the Japanese kids singing and telling about the birth of Jesus.




After the program, the kids all got their picture taken together. Sterling adores Taiyo and Hinako. He still calls Taiyo "Kaiyo" because he gets the name confused with his uncle Kyle.

Shu san (In Japan you use the suffix "san" for all adults, it's a polite thing to call people, even your close friends, usually) and Luke after the show. They are beginning to be good friends!

After the program we went to a Chinese buffet to eat dinner. Sterling was still going strong and playing with Taiyo and Hinako.

PEZ

I know I already had a picture of Sterling in the bath, but when I walked in and saw bubbles covering the entire bathroom area I just had to get a picture of the little culprit. Luckily, our bathtub is in a room with the shower, so he just got the shower area wet, not anything else.
And the other picture is Sterling LOVING the pez dispenser (nascar) that his grandpa and grandma chase sent.

Luke's Prayer in Japanese

This is Luke's prayer before the meal. He goes on after the prayer to tell about the different kinds of food we were serving since most of them had never eaten anything like the stuff we had!