My husband and I we have 5 kids together, two are his, two are mine and one is ours, they are ranged in age from 9 to 23! I have a cat and a dog along with 4 huge Goldfish! I love to work in my sons class a few days a week and I attend a womens Bible study weekly and love to bring dishes to that when it's our turn. I don't think of myself as an expert cook however I have been making meals for over 20 years and do consider myself to be better than intermediate but felt putting expert was a tad too presumptuous for me. I can't go more than a few days without logging on to All Recipes and finding a meal to make for the day or for a get together. Trying new foods to get us out of that "rut" us Mom's get into is very rewarding and fun to try. Someday soon I hope, I will figure out all the picture uploading stuff and start adding pictures of the dishes I make! I love to make Italian food, my family is Italian and we are very picky about good Italian food so instead of complaining, I just make it the way we like it. I love to make slow cooker dishes too. I like to make dishes up as I go along when I have no real recipe to go by and it usually turns out great. I'm not big on measuring out exact amounts therefor I'm pretty good at estimating that now. I would much rather make dinners than breakfasts for some reason and I love baked foods but I feel I am not a good baker. It seems like it takes a lot of time and a big mess, but everytime I try something it usually turns out good and if I really think about it, I make a much bigger mess making our large daily dinners than making a batch of cinnamon rolls! Our family is big on traditions, especially at the Holiday's. Christmas is always a time for tradition, every Christmas Eve we go to Church and for the last 15 or so years, I have been hosting the buffet which includes terriaki chicken wings, potatoe salad, meats, cheeses and party breads, clam dip and veggie trays and whatever else the others want to bring but we've had those staples for as long as I can remember. On Christmas Day, we have a Prime Rib cooked medium rare, twice baked potatoes which I've mastered and we used to have homemade ravioli when my Grandma was alive, but nobody can make them like she did so we now have some type of pasta and again whatever the rest brings. I'm a fan of big Sunday dinners and try to eat early, but that usually doesn't happen. Anytime I make a meal that pleases everyone especially a big Holiday dinner, I consider that a triumph! When the stuffing is to die for and the turkey is moist and delicious then it's a triumph, when the Prime Rib is cooked to perfection and the twice baked potatoes are what everyone wants seconds of even when they're stuffed than I'm happy. When I first tried to make my Mom's version of homemade macaroni and cheese, I had a house full of people coming over and I couldn't get the cheese sauce to form properly. The milk was separating and curdling and the cheese was a mess, I just kept on cooking and adding and didn't know to add cheese at the end with the heat off to avoid all that, then it burned on the bottom and too much of the flavor got in the sauce and it was awful.