KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer!

I was playing around on eBay today while taking breaks from packing (always a dangerous thing) and I found a 5 qt Artisan Stand Mixer for a VERY decent price. I paid less than half for what they sell them for in the store! Needless to say, I am extremely excited and I can't wait to put it to good use! I see many sugar cookies in my very near future. Now, was it the raspberry color that I think would just look so fancy schmancy in my kitchen? No, it is white..... but I wasn't about to spend another $100 just for the color.

Dino Cookies

I had some leftover frosting and I just couldn't bare letting it go to waste... it took 20 minutes of  mixing with my hand mixer to get it to set up! (I desperately want a fancy stand mixer... preferably pink). Christmas present! **wink** **wink** So I used my new BOX of cookie cutters and found some dinosaurs and whipped up 1/2 a batch of cookies and this is the result! Joe came home just in time to decorate an egg. You can probably guess which one is his. He's so creative and I'm so lucky I have a boyfriend who actually likes to decorate cookies with me!

Dierks on Cat Nip

Joe wanted to get Dierks a toy the other day (he just loves that cat) and so he picked out a cat banana that had a little cat nip in it. I don't think Joe had ever seen a cat on cat nip before, and after a while we had to just take this banana away so the cat would give it a rest!

Creepy Crawlies

One very valuable lesson that I have learned from moving from the midwest to the south is that Iowa really has it made when it comes to their lack of natural disasters and their lack of deadly, large, hairy, creepy, and disgusting bugs. Now I have seen a few wolf spiders.. plenty of wolf spiders, but mostly they stayed on the bricks and never got into the house (pretty sure Eugene Wheeler has used some illegal pest control product to prevent this from happening). This is not the case in Warner Robins, GA. I have seen more bugs in my home then I care to admit and I am also hoping and praying heavily that New Mexico is slightly less buggy. I know there are scorpions and tarantulas, but for some reason I am letting myself live in a dream world for now where those types of creepy crawlies only exist in the middle of the desert and not in the middle of my Albuquerque apartment. I will continue to live in this dream world until I am proven otherwise.

What I am really trying to say here... is that I hope that by moving from Georgia to New Mexico that I am moving far.. far.. faaaaaaaaaaaar away from what I just found outside of my BEDROOM WINDOW......

Allow me to introduce to you to the North American Banana Spider. Joe has lovingly named him Peter Parker.

School Sugar Cookies

I have been thinking of all the DCG students and teachers lately and I am hoping that everyone had a great start to the new school year! Today I decided that I should send the teachers at DCG some love and support for their new year and so I made some "school" sugar cookies! I'll be sending them out tomorrow. I'm getting much better at perfecting my sugar cookies... and have been finding any reason imaginable to make them. I think these are the 4th batch I have made this week!!!!

Flower Sugar Cookies

Yesterday I decided to try out a new sugar cookie recipe... this one has white chocolate in the batter. Joe took a bite and instantly his eyeballs popped out of his sockets, "These are the BEST sugar cookies I have ever tasted," were his exact words. So... I guess these were successful! I learned a new technique for decorating via pinterest (my other obsession) and I made my way to Michael's for some supplies. Here are the results!

I can't wait to make some festive Halloween cookies using my newly found spider web design!

The batch only made about 20 cookies... the flower cookie cutter was so large! We are having another BBQ this weekend so I think I'll make some more, maybe try a cream cheese recipe, and make some smaller cookies. They sure were tasty though! I'll bet in this picture... you can guess which 2 cookies are Joe's. I decorated most of them and had to make myself slow down so he would have some to decorate. He does such an intricate job!

HOTlanta!

Joe and I decided that we should spend just ONE more weekend in Atlanta when we only have to drive 2 hours to get there. On our Atlanta bucket list we decided we needed to stop at the Vortex Bar and Grill to get some of the best burgers we've had (plus it was featured on an episode of Man vs Food).

This is the delicious Yokohama Mama Burger with tots.... and I swear, those were the best tots I've ever had. And if you had any doubt in your mind... I practically licked the plate clean.

After the Vortex we went shopping at probably the nicest mall I have ever seen in my life. I was in heaven! They had Prada, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, and countless other stores I couldn't afford and didn't bother going in to. However, it was fun just window shopping. I walked away with a new pencil skirt for job interviews at a whopping $23 from Express (I am a bargain shopper).

Those Vortex burgers could only fuel us for so long after the marathon shopping we did, so before leaving and heading to the hotel we got some pizza to go from the California Pizza Kitchen. I love the frozen pizzas from California Pizza Kitchen that I get at Walmart.. so of course fresh was way better!

Joe is totally rubbing off on me and my food choices and I think I may be rubbing off on him. When it comes to pizza I am a cheese, cheese, and more cheese girl as far as toppings are concerned and he is always ordering something unique and different. Well, we traded places at the California Pizza Kitchen where HE ordered the 5 cheese pizza with tomato and I ordered the Gorgonzola Pear pizza with caramalized onions. They were both very good. I was proud of myself for stepping outside the box.

This is the best picture I took from the World of Coke. But like a dedicated photographer, Joe had his fancy camera and took many great pictures that I will put up as soon as I get them on my computer! The BEST part of the World of Coke was the Tasting room where we got to taste over 60 flavors of pop or what some might call "soda" that Coke makes that is popular in other countries. Some were DELICIOUS.. some where like syrup... and some I can't believe people would actually spend money on. But to each their own! Needless to say, we got our caffeine fix for the weekend. All in all it was a great trip and we will miss Atlanta!