Grant and I visited Houston with my sister Tanya and my nieces, to see my new niece and family. It was a fun trip,but it was very exhausting, I felt like all I did was cook. Other than that, I got to hold my new neice, and I think this was the only down time I had with Grant.I told Grant I wanted more pictures of us, and this is what we came up with. I meant the fake posed one,but this is all I get.

First you get the typical girl angry face look… Makes me laugh even now.

This is a little bit more normal, I just thought Grant looked good here, so that is all I have to report.

While Grant isn’t helping Paul with his lawn service, working contract work for my company, or looking for a job, he is making friends. We haven’t named this squirrel,but we started leaving our old bread out on our balcony rail, and we have had LOTS of squirrel visitors. One of the more noticeable friends was a blue jay that made it a habit of coming and checking our area a lot. Now, that Grant and I are trying to eat healthy, we aren’t eating as much bread,but it was fun watching all the wild life outside our windows.

I was wanting a spoon holder, but I hadn’t found one that I liked yet. This wasn’t the total look I was going for, but it was free, and I figure it looks very eclectic! So, this is a very short post,but what else can I say,but it was a cool random thing in the mail.

Gail, Grant’s mom visited us this January, and while Grant was getting some pictures off of her camera, he noticed pictures that we had never seen before. She had pictures on her camera still from our wedding shower which I think was in June of 2008. So Grant copied these pictures, and I now have  these pictures which is very exciting. So, here is a picture of us more than 1 1/2 ago.

So, here is the tale of our KitchenAid Mixer. I grew up with only using a hand mixer, mainly the Braun brand because it is German, and my mom is gung hoe about it. So, the first time I ever saw a KitchenAid mixer in action was when my mother in law Gail was making our wedding cake. Hers was an older model,but it worked great, and I was very impressed. I still had my hand mixer, but we registered for a KitchenAid anyway. Grant’s sister, mom, cousins, and aunts all came together and bought us a 5 quart mixer, and I was so excited.

This is the Mixer that we got in black. I was so excited about using it, and when I started to use it, I was very disappointed. Mine made some weird high pitch noises anytime I had it on. Grant assured me this wasn’t normal, so we went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and exchanged it for the same thing no problem. That was mixer #1. So, mixer #2, this mixer worked great until you added any liquids to the dry ingredients. If you did, then it would start a weird grating like you were rubbing metals against each other, only they weren’t. So, back to Bed, Bath, & beyond for us. That was Mixer #2. Then we got the Mixer #3 the replacement. We both had high hopes for this one,but right after we got it, it went into storage while we were looking for jobs. So, it was in there for over a year.  During that time, Grant and I were able to house sit for the Amaros who had a Professional KitchenAid mixer. I used it and fell in love because it had a stronger motor it didn’t have any issues with the thicker doughs.

So, we are finally in our apartment, with our smaller nonprofessional mixer still in the box. I knew that we had discussed exchanging it for the professional series, but it is $100.00 more than the one we had. We figured we should save up, and do this sooner rather than later because otherwise it might never happen. Well, the hand mixer I had was dumb to say the least. It would mess up, I couldn’t make an icing for a cake I wanted to make this week, and that was the last straw. So, I talked to Grant about getting the Professional mixer. We called Amanda(Grant’s Sister) who had the original receipt thinking we would need it for this. She found it, sent it to us, and then we lost it… go figure.

We knew that she had used a 20% off coupon on the purchase and figured we couldn’t use one again when purchasing the mixer, but we decided to go look and give it all a try.

We got to the store, finally picked a color that we liked, “Pearl Metallic,” and went to pay. Since it was on our registry, they looked it up. Then they said it had cost $299.00 which was subtracted from the total amount of $399.00, then they let us use the 20% off coupon which took off $80.00. So our total was about $22.00, but I had a gift card for $25.00 from Christmas from my mother in law Gail which we used. So, we were able to upgrade to the brand new mixer that  I wanted without paying a cent out of pocket. THEN on top of that there was a $40.00 Rebate for this too, and today the 27th was the last day to purchase for this rebate. So, we made $40.00 for the upgrade. This was such a God thing; we didn’t need this new mixer. I mean I needed some form of a mixer, but I could have bought a cheap hand mixer or stuck with the KitchenAid that we already had,but it was definitely so exciting to get what I want without spending money since we are on the don’t spend money budget!

Here is our beautiful Mixer in its new place. I honestly haven’t baked anything with it yet, so I am praying that it works, and I don’t have to mess with exchanging again.

When I had first ever used a KitchenAid mixer, I was dissapointed with the fact that it never mixed well enough. I was having to clean out all the areas with a spatula. Well, now I know that there is a way to adjust it so it goes closer to the bowl and mixes better. So, if you have ever had issues that is something to look into. I am soooooo excited about baking with this, and I will be sure to post whatever fun recipes I come across with my new toy!!!