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...

To celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, Jason and I took a little weekend getaway down to Colorado Springs at the beginning of August. Neither of us had been, so it was fun to get to be tourists together! On Thursday night we dropped Kingsley off with his friend Charlie and drove down to the Springs. We had a bit of trouble getting checked in, but once we had the right room, it was great! We went to dinner at a little French place that I saw on Yelp and it was amazing! It couldn't have been a better start to our weekend away. We also got some Black Forest cake from a bakery there, since that was the flavor of Jason's groom's cake. Friday morning we got up and drove to Manitou Springs to get on the cog railway for Pikes Peak! We rode the railway up the mountain and it was so cool. We could watch out the window the whole way. It took about an hour and a half to get up there. We got to stay at the top and take pictures for about 45 minutes, then we rode back down. ...

I am so proud. After over a month of working on it (off and on), I finally finished my first quilt! For some reason I was having anxiety about quilting and especially binding it, but it ended up being totally fine. I don't know why I was so worried. It turned out great! Mission accomplished... he likes it!

While I was gone at Kadesh, Jason went to New Orleans for his first conference with his new job. When we both got back, we were exhausted! We had a couple of days before... our friends Drew & Jared came to visit! We met Drew and Jared when Jason taught a U100 class at ACU when we were juniors. I helped out during Welcome Week and off and on throughout the semester. It was so much fun to get to help introduce new students to ACU! We've kept in touch with a few of the kids (right, kids and they're 2 years younger than us) in that group. Drew and Jared wanted a road trip destination, and we happen to live in an awesome place, so they came to visit. While they stayed for the weekend we went hiking, ate lots of good food, watched movies, AND introduced Drew to Arrested Development. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and talking. These guys are our kind of people!

I went to ACU Leadership Camps every summer for 12 years in a row. TWELVE YEARS. The last two, I was on staff. Camps was a huge part of my life, and it was where I did a lot of spiritual growing up. I can genuinely say that camps changed my life. The only thing I never got to do for camps was be a group leader. My sister was on staff this year, and my dad planned to go lead a group so he could be there and spend some time with her. It worked out perfectly for me to fly down (with them, since it was the week after they were here) and lead a group with him! It's hard to describe what Kadesh (the high school camp) really is. It's not exactly a fun camp. You are in a small group with 8-10 other kids and 2 adult group leaders. And you study the Bible. In the afternoon, you do service projects. And you worship worship worship as a camp. It's amazing. Kadesh is set up in a way that you get to know people really fast and really REAL. It's incredible to see the way God wor...