I'm a wife and mama that cooks out of both necessity and for enjoyment. I prefer to bake and leave the grilling to my husband. Most of my great recipes come from my mom who is known as a wonderful cook. I'm constantly trying to cook a little healthier for my family than I grew up eating as a child. However I'm still a sucker for mom's chicken tetrazini recipe and her "White enchiladas". I love baking. I make cakes and icing from scratch (my favorite part is dying the icing new colors and decorating). I also enjoy making and decorating sugar cookies, cheesecakes and apple pie for my appreciative husband. Every fall when we would have our first "Norther" blow in, Mom would bake us pumpkin pie. Since we live in Texas, the first Norther isn't a sure sign of permanent cool weather. Sometimes if we were lucky we could talk her into baking us pumpkin pie a couple of times in the fall :) Now that I have a little family of my own I hope to carry on with the fall pie tradition. My first solo baking experience was somewhat of a disaster. I made brownies when I was about 10 years old and read right past "sugar" on the ingredient list. I realized my error as my younger brothers licked the beaters and complained loudly asking if I had put any sugar in the brownies. I thought they were just being mean but admitted that no, I hadn't. Since then I have improved drastically and always check twice through my ingredient list!