Christmas before Christmas!

Since Cody and I were flying to Florida for Christmas this year, we decided to do a mini Christmas with each other the Saturday morning before we left--so Friday night was "Christmas Eve" for us--we had a nice dinner and came home to choose one present to open! 

Our "Christmas Eve" together!

Me picking my present from under the tree!

Cody meticulously chose his, as well!

opening his up... wonder what it is??

A coffee thermos and travel mugs---he really wanted them!!!

I opened mine and got a jewelry holder---i love it!!!
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The next morning we woke up to CHRISTMAS MORNING--

we had orange rolls and orange juice (our Christmas traditions!)

We had the fire going as we opened presents. 

My stocking and all the goodies Cody got for me!

-Lemonade vitamin water, argyle stockings, neck massager, fleur de lis note pad and yummy tea tree lip gloss!

Cody and his crazy eyes about to open his stocking!

Cross pops--lollipops in the shape of crosses. It may be sacreligious, but very hilarious!

Maine Maple Syrup!

Then he got a BIG Ohio State Tervis Tumbler--His cup!

Now it's time for PRESENTS!!!!

I got a black beenie I've been wanting forever!!!

Cody got the 1st and 2nd seasons of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"

He got me a monogrammed necklace!

Cody got his UGG Boots!!

We had a great FIRST Christmas together--now it's time to head to FLORIDA!!!

Recipe of the Week!!

Peppermint HO-HO-HO Cake

1 chocolate cake mix (and ingredients to bake cake)
1 container chocolate frosting
12 candy canes (pulvarized to bits in the blender)
1 8 oz. block of cream cheese (softened)
1 stick of butter (softened)
3 C powdered sugar
1 8 oz. tub of cool-whip (thawed)
peppermint flavoring to taste

Mix cake mix and bake. Set aside to cool. While baking and cooling, mix together the cream cheese, stick of butter, powdered sugar, and peppermint really well with a mixer. Add peppermint a little at a time, (they have different strengths depending on which one you use) and take a little taste after mixing in. You can always add more, but you obviously can't take any out. I add about 3/4 teaspoon of the one I use. Then slowly FOLD in the cool-whip until all is fluffy! Put in fridge to get cool and thicken a bit.

When cakes are cooled and filling is thickened a little, slice the cakes in half horizontally, so you now have four layers of cake. Place first layer on cake stand or plate, spread 1/3 of peppermint fluff close to edges (not completely, as it will ooze when you add more layers on top) and then sprinkle crushed candy canes all over. Repeat this two more times. After last layer is placed on top, place in fridge to chill for an hour or so. After cake has cooled, place frosting in microwave for 15 seconds at a time until pourable. Pour frosting over top of cake and let it "ooze" over the top and down the sides. Sprinkle more candy canes over the top and put back into fridge to stay cool!! Enjoy!!

Oh yah! Be sure your top layer of cake isn't wider than the rest of the layers, because if it is, then all the chocolate glaze drips off the sides and pools at the bottom instead of running beautifully down the sides as it's supposed to!

*I am trying the recipe this weekend --I've heard it's amazing!!! ENJOY!!


~LaRae

6 Months has flown by!

December 21st Cody and I will celebrate our 6 Month Anniversary!!

I truly can not believe it has been six months, oh how time flies by! Today we're doing so much--appropriately enough Cody will be preaching again today, we have our big Northstar Family Christmas Dinner and then tonight we are flying out to FL for Christmas holiday! It'll be a great start to our first six months--VACATION!!!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and remembers the true reason for the holiday....no, it's not presents. It's Jesus Christ!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
LaRae & Cody

Videos of Christmas at the Lyric!!

The video wasn't working on Blogger--so I uploaded them to YouTube...click the links and view them at Youtube.com (they are filmed in HD, so click "view in high definition" on the bottom right of the video once at YouTube--it's better quality!)

Opening Act Link and Cody singing Holy Night

Marys Boy Child Link

New Star Shining Link

Hannah Sewell singing Labor of Love

Little Drummer Boy

We hope you enjoy watching "Christmas at the Lyric"

A Christmas to Remember!

Our weekend started out with Cody's parents coming in on Friday afternoon! They stopped by my office and met a few of my co-workers! Later that night we relaxed, had dinner at our favorite little Italian restaurant then all came back to our house to watch a movie! The next morning I felt like one of those escorts at Disney World. Cody's parents dressed up at Santa and Mrs. Claus to promote "Christmas at the Lyric"--we had a great time!!!

           

Mark and Robin all dressed up downtown Blacksburg!             

       This little girl was so excited to see them--she was jumping up and down!!

       

Later that night we got all dressed up and we went to see The Nutcracker at Radford University. Robin and I were so excited, the boys not so much--but they were good sports and Robin and I made up for it later :)

This was the first time I'd seen it and Robin hadn't seen the nutcracker for almost 30 years!!

The opening scene--we couldn't take pictures so I had to sneak this one!

 

The final act--i figured they couldn't kick me out at this point! :)

The next morning was "Christmas at the Lyric"

They put our service on the Marque sign!!!

Just a small bit of the crowd eating the yummy donuts and coffee

Shane welcoming everyone (cody's fabulous photoshop skills on the screen)

Pictures of the service ...

Mrs. Clause reading "The Night Before Christmas"

All the kids singing for the audience-it was precious!!

*We had an amazing turn out and people loved the service!! Cody did an incredible job at producing this entire event!! I was so proud to be married to the boy on stage!!

****VIDEOS ON THE NEXT POST**********

Love y'all,

LaRae and Cody

Christmas at the Lyric

This year, Northstar Church will be having their annual Christmas service at The Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg. For those who don't live in Blacksburg and haven't a clue what that is--it's an old theatre from the 50's and it's amazing!! It has an incredible ambiance and such a beautiful sense of Old Christmas.



Please pray for us and that many people would come to hear the message of Jesus Christ! We are so excited and Cody and all the worship people have been working their behinds off to make this excellent! Please pray for us and for this to go on without a hitch!

ALSO, Cody's parents are here to be "Mr. and Mrs. Clause"--It's going to be amazing and hilarious! PICTURES WILL DEFINITELY BE TO COME!!

Love y'all,
LaRae

An early morning revelation.

This morning I was reading in John 5--to be honest, I had no specific reason to be reading this particular passage, I truly just thought--"Hey, I'm gonna read John 5 today!" And of course, just as sovereign as God is, He made this passage PERFECT for me!!

John 5 is the passage of scripture that details the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda who can not walk. He's been at this for 38 YEARS! Just a side note, I could not imagine doing the same thing for 38 years to no avail and STILL continuing to do it--I believe this man had some serious faith, or nothing else to do. Either way, that was crazy to me.

So, the story continues and Jesus comes to town, passes by the pool and notices this man. In God's omniscience, He knows how long this man has been an invalid and how long he's been waiting at this pool for healing with no results. Jesus comes to the man and says " Do you want to be healed?" I love the questions Jesus asks--they are so obvious, it's amazing. The man is probably thinking to himself, "who is this guy, he has got to be joking!" At least that's what I would be thinking/saying. I digress, so the man says essentially, yes of course I'd like to be healed but no one is here to help me get to the pool and if I try someone always beats me to the punch. Then Jesus says, "Get up, take up your bed and walk!" So simple, so easy, so to the point. Man, I love Jesus.

So, I'm reading this passage and you're probably thinking, "LaRae you can walk, how is this pertinent to your life??" Well, a little background info--- I have had a rough few months. It just seems like everything in life was weighing down on me. I would say probably the only thing that wasn't was my marriage--but we're newlyweds so I guess that goes without saying. But, I have just had the hardest times with life right now. LaRae-0, Life-1. ding, next round. I felt like every time I turned a corner it was one more straw on this camel's back. Then there were moments when that "straw" was simply too much and they all came tumbling down. I was stuck under this burden, unable to move, unable to function really. Going through each day, not enjoying each day, just making it through to the next. And to be honest, I'm still kind of there at times.

So, in reading this scripture, I am the paralyzed man. I'm stuck, unable to move, unable to get to a place to heal myself or "help" myself. So, I stay here. But, I'm reading this passage and I hear God saying, "LaRae, do you want to be healed? Do you want to overcome this perpetual bad mood?? Do you want to live an abundant life instead of life living you?? I'm like, uhhh YA GOD!! The answer is so simple and God's saying in return, ok then LaRae, 'get up, take up your bed and walk!' Then here I come with the excuses, but God this, but God that, "no one is here to take me to the pool".

Boy, this struck a chord with me. God's like, LaRae stop with the excuses--I'll tell you exactly what you need to do! Talk about making you shut up! So, now I'm just going to be quiet, stop being a victim to my life and listen to what HE has to say for a change. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what it will be, but He's finally got my undivided attention and I'm ready to change! I know it's going to be hard and there may be things I have to change/quit/not participate in, so I'm ready to listen-He has the bigger picture in mind and that makes me so at peace! The only request I have is PLEASE don't make me sit here for 38 more years!!

Thank you everyone for all your prayers for us--life is good and God is too, even if we don't see it at the time or want to acknowlege it. HE IS GOOD. HE LOVES US. Such a hard conecept to grasp at times, believe me, I'm there.

We love you all so much and can't wait until the next time we get to see each of you!!

Love,

LaRae

Recipe of the Week

So, I've been looking for some great blogs with good, tasty recipes--I have found one! I'm either not looking hard enough or there is just a lack of them! So, I've decided to start my own (well, sorta). It's not that I'm some amazing cook or recipe-maker, but I have made my fairshare of recipes and they have been pretty amazing. This having to do with the recipe, I'm sure, and not my culinary skills!

So, here is recipe #1 (We'll start off easy)

Aunt Lindy's Broccolli Casserole

Ingredients:

1 9x13 casserole dish

1pkg. frozen broccoli (12-16 oz.)

3/4 C. Instant Rice

1/4 C. Grated Cheese or 8oz. Velvetta

1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/2 to 1 Can of French's Fried Onions

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees and grease casserole dish. Cook broccoli and drain. Cook rice. Combine the cooked broccoli and rice into one bowl. Stir in the Cream of Mushroom soup and Cheese. Pour into casserole Dish. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, take out and stire (to combine cheese and melt) then top with fried onions. Return to oven for 15 more minutes. Remove from oven and cool for about 3 minutes before serving.

ENJOY!!

A Davenport Thanksgiving!

This year Cody and I decided to go to Ohio to see his family for Thanksgiving and then Florida to see mine at Christmas! Thanksgiving was a great time, but I still missed my family so very much! The Davenport's did a great job at giving us a wonderful vacation!! Here are a few of the pictures from our trip!

After Nashville, we stopped in Cincinatti on our way to Wooster to visit Corey and Cissie! We hung out at their house and talked for a while, then had dinner at Panera!! We were sad to leave, but had a great time while we were there!

After getting into Wooster around 10pm Sunday night, we crashed!! The next morning we slept it (it was so nice!!) and then headed to Cleveland to go shopping!! This is me and Cody's mom in the car headed to Crocker Park for a day full of shopping!!


Cody's Parents at Crocker Park doing some Christmas Shopping!!


The next day, Cody went to Cleveland to spend time with the guys and the girls went to lunch (Vanessa was sick, so she couldn't make it!) So, Robin and I headed to the Pine Tree Barn! It doesn't sound like much, but it was A-MAZING!! After an incredible lunch (great bistro food) It had 3 floors of eveything you could ever want for house decor! It had every kind of style you could imagine--it was amazing!! I got a few goodies for our Christmas Decorations at our house in Virginia and it got me even more excited for Christmas and it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet!!! They had, at least, 50 Christmas trees decorated in every theme imaginable!


Here are just three of the trees!


Another room decorated!

The next day, Wednesday, I went to Cody's grandma's to help bake pies!! We had such a good time! She gave me one of her apron's to wear and we had a blast!!


These are just two of the TEN that we made!! His grandma gets her crust from Canada--it's not made in the United States! It was incredible--she taught me so much! It was so nice!

Later that night we went to Medina, a nearby town and saw an early movie then ate at this great little Chinese Bistro! It was yummy! The restaurant had a wait, so there was this gorgeous gazebo across the street (ironically the same spot where I first met Cody's parents and got a picture taken with them--awwww, so cute!) Anyways, we had a little photo shoot to get a good Christmas Card picture. I think we got a good one! :)


Robin and I were goofing off as the boys were talking at dinner--such a typical scene.

After dinner we headed home and started getting ready for Thanksgiving Day!! Cody helped me bake a Pecan Pie (he's chopping the nuts here!)

I had never made a Pecan Pie before, so I was a little nervous, but....


It turned out DELICIOUS!!! Mark, Cody's dad was so happy!! He loves Pecan Pie, too!


As the pie was baking, I helped Cody's mom decorate the table! She decorates with Christmas decor because no one get's to see her fun Christmas Dishes since they go to Cody's grandparents for Christmas (Robin has decor for EVERY holiday--it's crazy!)

This is the final product!! We had a great time and Marth Stuart would've been proud!


The individual place settings!


Everyone showed up around noon and we ate around One--there was SO MUCH FOOD!! It was delicious!


After we all sat down, Cody's Dad read a passage of scripture about Giving Thanks to the Lord...we said the Blessing and DUG IN!!


Taking a breather from the yummy food!


After dinner everyone was stuffed, so we headed to the sun room and played Nintendo Wii--even Cody's 79 year old Grandpa got in on the action--He's bowling here!


All the ladies, exhausted from Cooking and Cleaning are watching the Hilarity that was the boys playing Nintento Wii!!

Then after all that--we had the family Christmas Gift Exchange Drawing!!


Thanksgiving night we got to hang out with Cody's nephew Noah--we had a great time!! He loved my camera, so I taught him how to take some pictures--he was pretty good!! If it becomes a career, I'll be taking credit for that..hahahaha.

What a great time we had--it was so fun and yet so relaxing!! We didn't want to come home--but Saturday we got in the car and headed back to Blacksburg, so thankful that we have an amazing family and already talking about CHRISTMAS!!!

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving and truly remembered from whom all blessings flow, our wonderful Savior Jesus Christ!

Love y'all and Missed you,

C&L Davenport