Luke and Kacie

I meant to put this picture on my last post but I didn't get it on there, so here it is.

Icy Indiana

We went ice skating on Friday night with our friends Brad and Heather. While we were there "cupid" showed up in a swim suit, curly wig, bike helmet and a scarf....and that's it! He had never skated before and was evidently at the skating rink for some sort of TV show or publicity stunt. It was pretty hilarious.

The weather has been FREEZING lately and we just got about a foot of snow and ice. School has been out and we've been going out and having my dad pull us on a sled behind the truck. It's been fun but very very cold :) Sterling rode in the truck with my dad and had a lot of fun watching us. He wore old carhartts that probably belonged to me when I was little!

Cold Weather!

It has been SO cold here in Indiana for the last week or so. The schools have had 2 hour delays every day this week because every morning it is below zero and the wind chill is usually about -15. It also snowed a lot on Tuesday so Luke and my sister Kayla took Sterling outside to experience snow for the first time! He actually loved it and didn't want to come back inside even though he was freezing. We put socks on his hands because we don't have any mittens :)
Sterling's most favorite thing to do right now is walk around with someone (anyone!) holding his hand. Here he is with his aunt Kayla making laps around our house. Last night he made laps around the basketball court with my dad while Luke was playing. He thinks he's pretty big stuff.

Just Playing

Sterling has been a little bit sick lately. He's had a fever and now a runny nose. So he's been lounging in his little chair, cuddling with his pig. When he's sick he really likes to just chill and watch his baby einstein video :)

I just think this picture is kind of cute. He looks really grown up. He can walk all over the place now, although he still prefers to have someone hold his hand!

Here he is supporting the Colts! We had to wear Colts blue a whole lot lately and luckily Sterling got this little shirt for Christmas. In the picture he's holding the new tractor that Luke bought him. It's got soft tires so he loves to drive it all over the place.

The Children's Museum

Sterling and I went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum on Tuesday and he had tons of fun. He loved playing in the water, seeing the Clifford exhibit , climbing around on everything and riding on the carousel.

Fun Times in January

Sterling has started to walk! He has taken up to 6-7 steps at a time, but he still prefers crawling. He's still pretty wobbly. Aren't his little cow slippers so cute??

Here is Sterling at the middle school basketball game. We've been going to a LOT of basketball games- middle school, high school, church league, Depauw University games...Luke is trying to make up for lost time not watching any games over in Thailand! :) Sterling usually gets pretty bored at the games, but snacks are always a good distraction.

And here is Sterling's first "official" hair cut! We actually went to the salon and got it done. They gave him a sucker in hopes that he would sit still for the cutting, but as you can see, he still wasn't really about letting them get to close to his head. They didn't take too much off, he still pretty much looks the same.

And here he is watching his movie in the chair his grandma and grandad got him for Christmas. He looks like such a big kid sitting up there like that :)

Sterling over the last month

Here is Sterling in his carseat- something he definitely had to get used to. In Thailand he didn't have to ride in one at all, so it took him a while to be okay with so much restriction.
This is Sterling with his buddies Nathan Rector, Neal Woollard and his future girlfriend (ha ha) Cameryn Rector.

We took these two pictures while we were traveling from Thailand. The top pic was a stop in Taipei, Taiwan, and the bottom is still in Bangkok. After riding in a taxi, his stroller, on a plane, and waiting forever in lines, Sterling was always ready to get down and crawl around when he had the chance. (by the way, why don't we have nice play areas like that in American airports??)

Random X-mas pics

Here are a few random pictures from our Christmas in Iowa, plus one of Sterling at Luke's uncle Tim and aunt Rhonda's house playing with their dog, Skittles. Sterling LOVED Skittles and pretty much loves any other animals as well. The other two pics are just cute ones of Sterling and his girl cousins, Paige and Ava.

Parsons' Visit

Well, since I'm SO far behind, and there's no way I could get all my pictures on here from Christmas and everything, I think I'm just going to skip them...maybe I'll put on a few here and there over the next few days, but it is going to be very difficult to keep up with this like I used to because now that we're in America we don't have internet at our house! Anyways, our teammates came to visit last weekend and we had such a great time with them. We went to Marvins, saw all the animals at the farms and the kids all had fun playing together.

Last Night in Thailand

Luke and the guys...
Kacie and the girls...
Everyone praying for us at the cookout they had for us on our last night in Thailand. It was a bittersweet night as we were very sad to leave everyone, yet also anticipating coming home to see all of our friends and family here in America! It still feels a little bit surreal that we will not be returning to Thailand- we feel like this is just another furlough or short visit. We think it's going to take a while to really set in.

Update

Hello! We wanted to let everyone know that we haven't forgotten about our blog, but Luke's mom doesn't currently have the internet so we haven't had a chance to get any pictures or anything. Sterling has been sick since Wednesday with a fever and diarrhea, so we would appreciate your prayers on his behalf. We saw the doctor yesterday and he said that Sterling just had the flu and we should wait it out. Other than that, we are doing well. We are all pretty much over jet-lag, although Sterling is up a lot at night because he feels sick. We have been having so much fun spending time with Luke's family this week. There are so many babies! We just hope that Sterling feels better soon so that he can play with all of his cousins. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and emails, we love you all and are anxious to see everyone!

We're Coming Home!

Hey everyone! We're coming home! We are all prepared for the freezing temperatures of America :) We are leaving in just a few hours (it will be midnight Sunday night for most of you) and we will arrive in Los Angeles at 7:30pm Monday evening. We will then spend the night in LA, and leave around 2pm Tuesday afternoon to fly into Kansas City where Luke's mom will pick us up. We love you all and are looking forward to seeing you!

Sterling's Teeth

Sterling's teeth have really come in and you can see them when he smiles. He has 8 now, so we're hoping he's done teething for a little while. Lately he's been making this "growl" face, which is what the bottom picture is. I think that picture pretty much describes Sterling's personality perfectly...intense, loud, crazy and tons of fun :)

Long Live the King Race

Well, I ran my first ever 10K today and it was fun! I did it in 1 hour 12 minutes, which I was happy with because my main goal was just to finish and keep running the entire time! :) The first picture is once I got home- Luke and Sterling were very proud of me :) The other picture is me and Laura, the teacher for the missionary kids. She walked the 1 mile walk. The race today was in honor of Thailand's king because it is his birthday. Everyone got t-shirts but mine was an extra large, so I didn't wear it :)

Playing guitar and reading

Sterling was playing the guitar with Luke the other day. It was pretty cute, but I don't think Luke got too much practicing done.
This other picture was one day when he got his books out on his own and acted like he was reading them. It was funny- like he thought he was really big or something. The book was actually upside down :)

Sterling Is Standing!

Sterling just started to stand on his own in the last couple of days. Luke has really been trying to get him to take a step, but Sterling isn't at all interested in that yet. He's quite content to just stand there and feel really proud of himself for standing so well. His legs are like little tree trunks and it seems like it's going to take quite a bit of effort to move those things! It will probably only be a matter of time before he does start taking steps though!
The bottom picture is him in the laundry basket. It has wheels, so we have been pushing him around in it and he thinks it's great fun. I guess there is a benefit to these hard concrete floors after all! :)

Other pictures from their trip

This is us girls eating roasted duck. It was the girls' first time to try it and we all liked it! This was one of Kara's favorite restaurants. You cook your meat and veggies in a soup right in front of you. They have really funky things like pork intestine, pork knuckles, and lots of weird fish that you can put in the soup, but we stuck to crab, chicken and beef.

Here is Sterling trying on a fish hat at Ocean World. I think it was a dog fish. The only way we could get him to keep the hat on for a picture was to let him play with another one. It's still a pretty cute picture of him though :) Luke wouldn't let me buy it for him.

Luke, Kayla, Kara and I got to play soccer at the youth center with the kids on Wednesday. We had a lot of fun. Kyle stayed home with Sterling while he took a nap. Kyle is a good babysitter!

This is a fish we ate at a restaurant called S&P. This is a very common way to serve fish in Thailand, but Kara thought it was very weird that it still had it's eyes. It was sweet and sour flavoured and we all thought it was really tasty! As you can tell, Luke and I have definitely expanded our repertoire of eating over the last two years- it's been really good for us!