courtney rebecca

I've been falling a bit behind on my goal of making something new once a month this year. Jason is in Texas this week to attend Summit at ACU, so as soon as he left, I got busy sewing! I pinned this tutorial a reeeeally long time ago (26 weeks ago to be exact, thank you Pinterest for knowing that) and I finally decided to try it. I picked out the fabric for the skirt a long time ago too... June, I think? Whenever I took that quilting class, I picked it up. And I've had this tank top for YEARS (probably since high school) and it's always been too short. Perfect project for it! This tutorial would have been really easy if I had a sewing machine that worked well with elastic thread. Alas, I have a Brother, which has a drop-in bobbin, which makes it a nightmare to work with elastic thread. Awesome. I decided to attempt it anyway, and gave up on my Brother after about 30 minutes of frustration. Luckily! I still have the Kenmore that my cousin gave me. It has some bobbin i...

I have been wanting to learn how to make pizza at home for a long time, but I was intimidated by making the dough and I had no idea what would go into the sauce. I finally just went for it last Friday, and it turned out great! I shouldn't have been so apprehensive, it was really pretty easy once I found a couple of recipes that had good reviews. I had great intentions of taking pictures when I made the pizza again last night... And then it finished baking and we ate over half of it before I remembered. Ooops! I promise... it was delicious. I made whole wheat crust  and exquisite pizza sauce , then topped it with two cups of mozzarella and two links of italian sausage, crumbled. I also did one quarter of it with turkey pepperoni, just for some variety. I think we have a new Friday evening tradition! Anyone have great ideas for pizza toppings??

You probably already know this if you know me at all: I love to bake! Lately I haven't been baking very much because Jason and I are trying to eat healthier and exercise more. When I have to suffer through half of a Jillian Michaels video for one cookie, it just doesn't seem worth it as much anymore. But last night we went to a game night with friends, so I could bake a bunch of things to share! I started with Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate Brownies . I'm trying to bake with only whole wheat flour these days, and I really love King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour. I can hardly tell the difference between it and regular unbleached. These brownies turned out to be SUPER rich and not very sweet, even though I threw in some chocolate chips at the last minute. They are pretty healthy, only 90 calories per brownie, but it kinda defeats the purpose when they are so rich they can't be eaten alone. They ended up being perfect with a little Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream...