bullets of randomness

• I made these for Josh's birthday and they were divine.  I had extras left over and took them to give away at school and got rave reviews.  I will definitely keep this recipe and I strongly encourage you to make it this weekend. Yum! (I found the original link on Pinterest, of course.)

• I'm at a standstill on my weight loss.  I'm down 27 pounds and hope to lose about 15 or 16 more.  I know what I need to do, but right now I don't think it's going to happen.  I need to let go of some stress which is almost impossible until we get to Mexico.  I also need to ditch the bowl of Halloween candy.  I think I can work on that one.
• I think we've finally found a chore system that works at our house.  It's taken a long, long time and I'm still hesitant to say that it's stuck but I think we're there. We've had the Melissa and Doug chore chart for a long time, but Julianna wouldn't stick with it even with paid incentives.  What we do now is put all of the magnets on the board at the beginning of every week and when she does a chore she can remove a magnet.  Then at the end of the week we could the magnets she took down and she gets a coin for each one.  Every ninth coin goes into a "God" jar and every tenth coin goes into a "Save" jar.  The rest are hers to keep and spend as she sees fit.  We even made a smaller chart for Josh so that he can begin getting used to the idea of helping around the house and being rewarded for his work. 

picture from Amazon

• For our anniversary Jonathan gave me ten gifts one for each year we'd been married and it was the sweetest thing.  I don't really like presents, but have you ever known a girl to turn down gifts?  I got clothes, jewelry, running gear, and books that have been on my To Read list for a while.  (He even bought a bathing suit for me. Isn't he brave?) Hooray for romantic husbands!

picture from White House Black Market

• Years ago we bought the boxed set of Charlie Brown DVDs and somehow over the last one or two years we've lost the disc for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!  I'm so disappointed and I keep meaning to look up when it will be shown on TV this season, but I keep forgetting.

 

• We leave for our trip in ten days.  The list of things to do before then is a mile long, but TEN. DAYS.  YIPPPEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!