I am married and we have 8 kids (4 boys & 4 girls). i love to cook and bake. i am always experimening with new recipes or trying something on my own. thank goodness there are so many mouths to eat it all huh?!!! Other than cooking and baking I enjoy quilting, reading, and spending time with my family as much as possible. My favorite thing to make is any kind of dessert. It seems to be my way of destressing. I am just recently gotten adventurous enough to start making breads and trying new things. I've always just stuck with what I know works, but am getting tired of the same old routine. We don't really have very many cooking traditions other than holiday meals. Every Christmas my kids and I always bake tons of cookies and various deserts to give to family and friends. My first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself about 10 years ago. I had never cooked a turkey (or much of anything else for that matter) and it came out perfect. Another was when I finally mastered making my own pie crust that came out nice and flaky. There are so many...the first time I made mashed potatoes they came out more like potato soup, scrambled eggs that I wouldn't even feed to my dog (I can now fix them very good) and many more that I don't have enough space to list!