courtney rebecca

Earlier this week, I found out that this Saturday would be National Banana Bread Day. You know I can't resist any sort of reason to bake, and conveniently, I had three bananas ripe and ready to be made into bread! I've been working on making my baked good healthier by using better fats, whole wheat flour, and honey rather than sugar. I sneaked a little granulated sugar into this, but only for the topping and cinnamon swirl! So here you go! My very best recipe for banana bread... Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread! This is adapted from my very favourite recipe blog, Lovin' From the Oven . Just about everything I have tried from there has been amazing. Ingredients 3 ripe bananas 1/3 cup melted butter (salted or unsalted) 1/3 cup honey (raw, unfiltered, and local if you can find it!) 1 egg, beaten 1 tsp vanilla (or as much as you feel like pouring in) 1 tsp baking soda dash of salt (if you used unsalted butter) 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour 1/4 cup granulat...

When we drove to Texas for Christmas, Jason and I tried something that we hadn't before. We listened to an audiobook on the drive! I actually checked out 10 audiobooks so that we would have plenty of choices. A little overkill... We settled on Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I don't think we could have picked a better book for the two of us! It's set in the future, but it all centers around a massive treasure hunt inside an all-encompassing video game called The Oasis. The treasure hunt will give the winner control of The Oasis, but you have to be incredibly knowledgable about the game creator's personal favourites - classic video games and 80s pop culture. Perfect! Even better, it was read by Wil Wheaton. We are a big fan of him since he's kinda a super nerd. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in video games or 80s pop culture. It was a fantastic book and so much fun for us to listen to on the road!

2013 Goals 1. Leave work at work (including stress) 2. Make 4 quilts 3. Hike a 14er 4. Build strength & stay the same size 5. Read 30+ books 6. Don't be lazy Leaving work at work is something that I think I will be able to accomplish in my new job! I haven't posted about it yet, but I am really loving my job. And I do think that I need more balance in my life related to job stress. I made something new almost every month last year. I know there is a lot of change coming in this year, so I wanted to set a goal of just 4 quilts. At least 2 out of the 4 will be baby quilts for friends that are expecting. ;) Hiking a 14er! This is a goal that Jason has, and I am happily jumping in with him. This is our 4th year in Colorado, and it is also going to be there year we hike a 14er. We are going to start little hikes on the weekend to get ready. Building strength and staying the same size. I love having a more consistent fitness routine. I'm working on a body...

Here's a month by month recap of our year! January We started the year housesitting at our friends house. I made cookies to leave for them! They found the guy that hit us in a hit & run, and we got our $500 back from the deductible. Jason found out his first article was getting published! We recycled 3 of our Macs and bought this one iMac. We totally bought a bar , but it was a giant hassle to get it here. I pulled a muscle in my back moving it in. I read The Fault In Our Stars and it was amazing. I started writing in my Question a Day journal. February We started the month with a snow day! I made the curtains for our back sliding glass door and marathoned Revenge. We found out Brad & Hannah were moving to Denver! Teacher librarians got taken off the cut list and were safe for one more year. I did my GG Book Fair. I made my first Happy Christmas mix in years. Kyle & Liz came to visit! March I bought a Brother sewing machine. I interviewed for my own job for ...

Every year, I like to go back to what my goals were for the year and do a little update as to how I did on them. Here's how I did last year! 1. Find the right job for me You know what? I think I may have accomplished this, right at the very end of the year. It was exhausting to have my job be in jeopardy every single year I've been in education, and it's a relief to go to a "normal person job" that will hopefully just be there. I am taking a risk in leaving my school district and taking a leap to a non-profit, but I'm very hopeful that it will pay off. And that I'll be less stressed. The stress was not working for me. 2. Create something new every month I think I almost did this! I don't know if I did something every single month, but I definitely increased my creativity a lot! I made so many things this year. Ruffle pillow , Kindle case , 2nd Kindle case and sunglasses case , mini quilt , Kingsley's bow tie , Kingsley's quilt , maxi dre...

Christmas was so wonderful this year! We celebrated early with Jason's family when his parents were here for Thanksgiving. We decorated our townhouse really fast to have all the festive decorations up the day after Thanksgiving. It was so much fun having everyone at our house for Christmas, even though it was super early. Sweet Kingsley is the best present! Rachel & Jarrod about to open presents Our next Christmas event was down in Texas with my family! We drove down to DFW last Saturday and spent a few days there. On Sunday of course we went to church and saw my church family, then our friends Kyle & Liz drove in from Abilene to spend the afternoon and evening with us! We went out to Grapevine to see Carlee perform in her seasonal job, the North Pole Express. We even got to ride the train after Carlee's little performance. Carlee in her costume Our good friends! We had Christmas on Christmas Eve with my immediate family and Papaw! He drove fr...

Since my birthday fell in the middle of the week this year, we decided to celebrate my birthday the weekend before. I have been wanting to eat at this local restaurant with our friends, ever since I met up with some old coworkers there for happy hour a couple of years ago. We kept talking about it, but it never happened until I decided to make it my birthday brunch! We went to Root Down for a delicious brunch! We had scones and muffins for our appetizer. I had a mimosa and lamb burgers with sweet potato fries. It was all so good. It was super fun to spend the lunch with Jason, Jarrod & Rachel, and Bradon.  After our yummy lunch, we went by Target to get snacks, then we headed to the theater to see The Hobbit! It was super fun to see another LOTR movie for my birthday because the other ones all came out around my birthday as well. It just felt right to see it for my birthday. The movie was great, and I would recommend it! We didn't end up doing a cake or anything, b...