"good morning"

well good morning all you party people! 

i'm super excited for my friend, celeste! 

she has a scrapbook page of hers featured on the cover of simple scrapbooks magazine. congrats celeste!! what an awesome way to watch simple scrapbooks close their doors....on a super special "good note".

hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. we spent part of the day at my aunt susan & uncle dan's. good food. good company. the weather was beautiful - a little on the warm side - but still nice and breezy. didn't get a whole lot of pictures - ella just wasn't feeling well most of the weekend and the opportunity to snap some shots outside eluded me. got a little video of family holding ella - perhaps i'll post that?

"opportunities" awaiting me today:

ella's laundry

exercise (done)

podcast from marianne williamson (done)

home blessing hour (nice tagline from flylady for spending 1 full hour of cleaning)

dinner prep

speaking of food...as promised, let me just share a scrumptious recipe for "not yo mama's banana pudding".  (i have never been a real fan of banana pudding - however, this takes the cake...or rather the "pudding" in this case).  i must warn you, it's very rich...very delish...and makes an enormously heavy 13x9 sized pan. and as with most banana pudding recipes...a child can make it with little supervision. in fact, the whole reason this recipe came to fruition was because ema's night for making dinner was coming up and unlike her sister, clara, she didn't get to make a dessert last time. so i scoured the internet looking for this recipe, in particular.  (inspired by the girls' aunt bre).  it's great for a crowd - otherwise i'd say 3 days in the fridge and that's it. i wanted to post pics of it - i just realized i must've left my camera/bag out at my aunt's?  (darn it).  anyway - this is NOT on the clean eating plan - not by any stretch of the imagination - but oh so indulgent.

and speaking of the clean eating plan....i have news to report that since mid-january, i have lost a total of 18 pounds. can you believe that? it doesn't really "feel" like almost 20 lbs? j hadn't noticed either. hmmm??? that's what the scale says....and i'm sticking to it. anyway, thinking i have 10-15 additional to get rid of. i'll keep you posted. 

have a marvelous monday everyone!!!