Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

2010

It is that time again--time to let many of you know that we are indeed alive and well, and living a full life at that! We have had many wonderful times with friends and family throughout 2010.

Julianna is 14. The countdown to 15 is less than 2 1/2 months away. She is growing up into a beautiful young lady. We are so thankful to the Lord for her. She helps us out in many ways. She is our tech queen around here. Thanks to her, there is a new look to the blog, including some banners on the right side bar. She is now a 9th grader, and the school load is heavy, but she is doing well with it, despite some illness this fall. She is still tickling the ivories and enjoying other musical pursuits--most recently (along with her friends) recording and publishing a CD from start to finish. We were pretty impressed with what she was able to do with a Macbook! She also enjoys a high school Bible study led by Fixed Point (check out the side bar), and she is continuing with her speech club this year. She entertained many with her rendition of Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood, indulging her parent's numerous requests for encore performances for family, friends, and near-strangers! This year's selection promises to be equally amusing. She has added other speech events including Apologetics and Extemporaneous (current events). By the way, the braces came off just after taking these pictures, and she is pleased with her new smile!

Oh, our John-Nathan Sheng! We love that boy! He is a blessing. He is now 5 and doing some kindergarten work: learning to read, spell, write, add, draw, and soaking in anything he sees or hears. He doesn't miss much. His favorite thing to do is PLAY, and outside play is even better! He learned to ride his bike without training wheels and he is really good at it. He began piano lessons this year, after asking Julianna's piano teacher, "When do I get MY lesson?" We only endured 1 cast this year--a broken arm, a "trophy" we brought home from our Illinois trip this summer. Otherwise, he had his yearly check-up from his surgery and castings, and we are grateful to say all is well. We rejoice that he doesn't even have to wear his "night time shoes," as we called them, anymore.

Double blessings!

Double trouble!

Lovin'

Our summer was marked by a unique opportunity which we will share with you here. We were heading to Tennessee to meet up with some dear friends, so we decided to drop in at Show Hope south of Nashville (check out that side bar again!). John-Nathan is a "Show Hope" kid, meaning we received a grant from them to help with our adoption costs (seems like forever ago!). It was truly a blessing. So we wanted to just see some of the Show Hope staff in person and thank them. In our last-minute-sort-of-way, we called and said we would be through the next day. "Great," was the response and, "oh, by the way, we are video-recording another grant family's testimony tomorrow. Would you be willing to share yours, as well?" Ummm...sure! Here's how it turned out:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL70qWMQGTc. Little did we know that it would lead to a very interesting and encouraging day spent with staff from Show Hope in the Chapman's barn, being able to peek at Caleb Chapman's home recording studio (which Julianna was VERY excited to see), and to meeting Steven Curtis Chapman himself! Later in the year we were able to serve Show Hope here in Birmingham during their concert tour, A Night with the Chapmans. (see side bar for that...)

Thanks for reading! We pray you have a very wonderful CHRISTmas!

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men..."

Titus 2:11

May you know His grace in the coming year!

With love,

Peter, Celinda, Julianna, and John-Nathan