Quiet Christmas

Christmas was pretty quiet for us this year. Since we spent Thanksgiving in Virginia, just returned from California and will meet up with Matt, Gwyn and the kids in less than a month at Disney World, we decided a little time at home was a good idea anyway!

Mark had to work Christmas Eve, so he got off a little early so we could get the the kids' nativity pageant at church in the afternoon. We thought Catherine might like it, and a lot of our friends' children were in it, too. Adorable chaos! That's how it would describe it. I'm glad we went, since Catherine fit right in with the chaos. Still, we did put her in child care for part of it when she got a little too squirmy.

Mark's parents arrived just after we got home, and we had a nice dinner, munched on the crazy amount of sweets and played a couple of games.

We woke up on Christmas morning and I had an awful cold! I tried to not let it put a damper on the day and popped a combination of pills to combat every symptom. Catherine was adorable with her new toys, and the biggest hit was a $1 slinky. We tried to not get her very many things, and she seemed genuinely interested in all of the bigger toys she got.

Mark's parents left after brunch, and we headed over to our friends, The Rutledges, to hang out for a little while before they hit the road for Michigan. Did I mention that it was something like 70 DEGREES outside on Christmas? What a beautiful day! We were so glad we got to go over there because Catherine had both room to run and bog kids to play with. Mark and Dan started on a 1,000 piece lego Star Wars ship that their boys got for Christmas.

I kind of expected that I wouldn't be in the mood to make a big dinner for just Mark, Catherine and I, so I didn't plan on it. Good thing. I was so wiped and felt so crummy by the time we got home that Mark ate leftovers while I had waffles. I am such a bum. Maybe I'll make up for it on New Year's Eve or Day.

The Reason We Sing

I love this song by Third Day, and I thought this would be a fitting final post before Christmas. I found this video on youtube. Although there's a lot on the screen because of both the words and the chinese characters, but I think it illustrates how Jesus really was, as a line in the song says, "given for all men."

Merry Christmas!

Exercise Sideshow

I joined the gym about a month ago in an effort to improve my health and, I'll be honest, to improve my appearance. After all, my grandmother did ask me if I was pregnant while we were in California. Let's just say it wasn't because I had the "glow." Anyhow, I've been pretty good about going since it's so close to our house, and Catherine plays in the child care there.

This morning, though, it was so cold outside that I decided to do few exercises here at home and just go to the gym tomorrow. I thought doing it during Sesame Street would be a good time because Catherine would be pretty focused on that anyway. Wrong! Apparently watching mommy attempt squats and lunges is far more entertaining because she could not stop cracking up laughing. At first she tried to copy the squats, putting her hands on her itty bitty hips and bending her knees with this huge grin on her face. It was the lunges that really got her. Every time I put me leg out, she would let out this huge cackle of a laugh, and before long, I was cracking up, too. She then proceeded to straddle my belly while I did crunches while laughing in my face.

I don't think Catherine has a future in personal training. Her clients probably wouldn't appreciate the laughing as much as me.

Chow Time

Yeah, that's not chocolate

The victim

We don't do a lot of coloring at our house yet, mostly because I know that when I take my eye off Catherine for 2 seconds, she will have a Picasso scribbled on the walls and furniture. We sometimes color at home, but it's usually only for brief times. Otherwise we let her color all she wants when we are out to eat, on a plane, or sometimes during a long car ride.

Then the brilliant idea of strapping Catherine into her high chair was posed to me, and I thought, this will be great!

I don't know if it was the sitting in the high chair that made her think the crayon was food or that she thought the brown one was chocolate, but she took a HUGE chunk out of it!

We'll be taking a break from coloring for awhile. I hope she gets over this before pre-school, or she might get a reputation like the kid who eats paste.

I'm 33? Well then I should have 3 birthdays!

Ready to head out to Papapavlos
Yummy Greek food
Coffee Crunch, my absolute favorite!!!!

That's the original "3" candle my mom used for Matt and Me

Nonna and Grandpa Jim with Catherine

The candle in my strawberry

Soooooo good

Mark takes a dip

Heidi gets a little steamy during the meat course.

My sweet Mark

I LOVE the green goddess sauce

Chris, Heidi and Marisa

Christina, Me and Mark

We were in California during my birthday, and I got to go out 3 times! Twice without Catherine! We relish those nice meals out with adult conversation and no interruptions. One night we went with friends, the next with Mom and Jim, the next with Dad. Whew. It was a lot to eat 3 nights in a row, and while it was soooooo yummy, I felt like I could skip eating for the next week and be just fine. The night we spent at The Melting Pot with friends was a highlight for me. It's rare that we are all at the same table at the same time! We also really enjoyed Papapavlos and Dave Wong's and are thankful that so many people wanted to celebrate with us.

I have more from our trip, but I'll post later.

Trip to Africa

More evidence of how far behind I am ... for the past few months, I have been planning to join a team of people from our church and some other churches around Charlotte on a trip to Liberia (on the west coast of Africa).

Our friends Dan and Angel Rutledge are leading the trip, and she will probably be posting more frequent updates than I will. In addition, the Rutledges, who have 2 children adopted from Liberia, frequently post additional information about what is going on in Liberia. Their blog address is http://rutledge6.blogspot.com/ or you can click on the link on the right titled, "Rutledge 6."

I'm excited by how much the Lord has provided already in the way of prayer and financial support for the trip. Generous family and friends have already contributed more than $1000 to help send me, and more have committed to pray for the trip.

I'll just copy and paste the letter below. If you didn't receive a letter and would like to contribute or get prayer updates, just leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

Dear Friends and Family,

During this time of year, festive holiday cards and Christmas letters begin to flood our mailboxes, complete with family photos and highlights from throughout the year. Our children may squirm and protest the necktie or the dress, but in the end we find that perfect snapshot.

Cut to the snapshot above. They’re just a handful of 150 million orphans worldwide (that’s half the population of the United States) who have either lost their parents to war, famine and disease, or have been surrendered or abandoned by parents who are unable or unwilling to care for them.

If you have partnered with me on previous trips to South America, you’re familiar with my heart for short-term missions and helping meet tangible needs for those in tough places. Consequently over the past few years, several friends and acquaintances have adopted internationally from around the world. Knowing these sweet children really brought to the forefront of our minds that we, as Christians, are to care for them.

The sheer enormity of the orphaned population led me to wonder what we, as one family, could do. There are many occasions for us to give our money and resources, but I desired a more hands-on opportunity. I was approached recently about joining a team traveling to Liberia to work at an orphanage from where many Liberian children who have been adopted by families in Charlotte have come.

A 14-year civil war came to an end in 2003, and Liberia has been struggling to overcome the destruction. As we’ve seen in countries like Bosnia and Afghanistan, the years of war strip the land of its resources and infrastructure. Though the political climate is fairly stable, Liberia still lacks basic public services like electricity, clean water and road maintenance. The unemployment rate is 85%, and the average lifespan is 40 years.

In the midst of this transitional time, African Christians Fellowship International (ACFI) provides a home to nearly 500 children through two orphanages it operates near the capital, Monrovia. ACFI is an indigenous, evangelical church planting ministry that was founded in 1986 by Rev. Edward Kofi. Since that time, the ministry has planted 286 churches in six West African countries. As Liberian children lost their parents during the civil wars, ACFI saw the need to care for them and started the orphanages.

The multiple purposes of our trip are working toward the ultimate goal of the orphanages being self-sustaining. Several members of the team with business and technology backgrounds will be working to train some of the ACFI staff in accounting practices and basic computer skills. At the same time, the team will help with immediate needs, like working on a construction project to better secure the main warehouse where food and supplies for the orphanages are kept. Due to the high unemployment rate of the surrounding community, the orphanages are frequent victims of theft, leaving the children with an even smaller food supply.

I personally will be involved in the collection of information and photos of the children for the adoption and sponsorship programs. In addition, much of our time will be spent simply ministering to the children themselves.

We will be traveling to Liberia form March 5-14, 2009. Mark will stay here with Catherine, and a mixture of generous family and friends will take care of her while Mark is at work during the day. We’d like to ask if you would join us in prayer and financially to help make this trip possible. My personal expenses total approximately $3500, and the construction project cost is about $20,000.

I pray you’ll consider partnering with us, in whatever way that you’re able. We trust the Lord to take us there and bring us back, and to help us be a blessing along the way.

In Christ,

Angela Sluder (Mark and Catherine, too!)

Thanksgiving or Christmas?

These are photos from when we spent Thanksgiving at Matt & Gwyn's in Virginia. That's how far behind I am ... pictures of Santa before pictures of Thanksgiving! In my defense, we have been experiencing a lot of technical difficulties with our laptop, particularly with the printer and uploading photos from the camera. Ugh. Those are two of the things I use most often.

We had a good time and did all of our driving on Tuesday and Saturday, so we avoided most of the traffic. Thanksgiving day was more interesting than usual because we had 2 exchange students who had obviously never experienced Thanksgiving before. We fielded lots of questions about the food and the tradition, so that was a fun change. Anna Maria, a 16-year-old German student even joined Mark and I at 4:30 a.m. to get a taste of Black Friday. She was a trooper! We only went to Wal-Mart and Target, and we were in and out of both places pretty quickly. We had a plan, and it worked! We were back home (at Matt & Gwyn's) by about 6:30 and went back to sleep.

We have much to be thankful for this year. We have great friends and family who, even though many of them live far away, we still get to see often. It's a luxury we know we're blessed to have. Catherine is bright and sweet and unbelievably healthy. Mark continues to enjoy his job, and Travelers has remained stable during the economic downturn. We have a caring and supportive church family and are content with where the Lord has us right now.

May we be thankful every day of the year!

Visiting Santa

We're in California right now, and we took Catherine to see Santa this morning. She loved him and tried to crawl back up into his lap after we were done. There were no other people in line, and Santa said she could stay as long as she wanted! There is another cute one that we got a couple of prints of, but I'm not sure if my mom has a scanner, so I might update this when we get back.

We had a great flight yesterday. I have to admit, nonstop is soooooo nice. The plane was more than half empty, and Catherine did really well. She got a little antsy for the last 30 minutes or so, but 5 1/2 hours is a long time to be strapped in a car seat.

Our other notable moment was that Steve Young was on our flight! We were seated right next to him while we were waiting at the gate to get on the plane. Mark and I really wanted to ask for his autograph, but he looked pretty tired (from covering the Monday Night Football game the night before), and it was 6:30 a.m. We never saw him again after we got on the plane ... something tells me he was in first class!

Piano Prodigy?