virginia christmas

We spent another wonderful Christmas with the whole Huston gang down in Fredericksburg, VA area at Rob's sister Mary's house. (Pity I didn't get a photo of the 16 inches of snow!) 

With nieces Raina and Tessa. Their older sister Victory wasn't feeling well, so Ann stayed home with her, which meant I got to sit with these lovely little ladies on either side of me at the Christmas Eve service. I felt like such a mom, and I LOVED it! :-)

Mary (left) absolutely IS the hostess with the mostest, and there was NO lack of delectable delights all weekend, including shrimp scampi, zuppa toscana, quiche Lorraine, strawberry spinach salad, monkey bread, shrimp cocktail, a multitude of desserts, panini sandwiches, baked ham, deer sausage...I could go on but I'll stop!

My niece Sarah and I went nuts with the crepes again this year. I even brought my crepe pan, so we were extra efficient. (I can't wait till New Years, as I started a New Years Day Crepes tradition last year. I'm eager to try some of the savory crepes out of my crepe cookbook...mmm!)
I always enjoy this chance to catch up with Sarah's life while we stand there cooking crepes for 45 minutes. (And yes, she looks 12, but she actually just graduated from JMU with a nursing degree this December.)

Raina's thing was cats this year, so we got her two beanie kitties and a cat calendar. Here she is all decked-up in her curls for Christmas. They look a little odd here, but they fell quite nicely by the evening.

 

Mom and Dad Huston, aren't they great? And what Christmas would be complete without someone falling asleep by the tree with the cat on their lap? (Well, a Waltner Christmas would never have a cat or any animal in the house--but there would be plenty of people falling asleep ;-p)

 

And here's Rob playing some down and dirty Fussball against the brother-in-laws. (I think he won this game, but basically, whoever had Aaron (tall red cap) on their team won everytime. ;-] )

Ahhh good times...many games played, including Fussball, Ping-Pong, Sequence, Buzzword, Tri-bond (NOT my favorite) and Catch Phrase...but the highlight of the weekend was probably playing Telephone Pictionary, a brilliantly fun game where you write a one-line story and hand it to the next person who tries to draw what you wrote and then covers up what you wrote and passes it along to the next person who writes what they drew and so forth. It is a complete RIOT and I highly recommend it b/c any age can join in and you end up with these fantastic stories and crazy drawings.

Rob gave me a really nice slick little mp3 player, which was great since I left my old one on the train (duh). I gave him clothes; how boring! (poor guy.) We did get a nifty little TomTom though - a combined gift from our family gift exchange. Lots of fun messing with that on the way home!

I am aware however, that these things pale in comparison with our greatest gifts: our faith in Christ, and our families. I am so blessed to have married into Rob's wonderful family - really I am. Now I have two wonderful families and the hope of a precious little son waiting for us in Kazakhstan. The day when we can be together with him can't come soon enough for my liking, though I'm trying to be patient!

Thank you Jesus, for all you have given me. I am rich indeed.