I am a stay at home mommy of our school-aged child and love every minute of it. I try not to take for granted the blessing I have to do so. Bit of a challenge at times but, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?! Husband and I are both very active in our church. Me with the childrens ministries, hubbie with the mens ministries and technical department. Love to take motorcycle rides with hubbie and spend lots of time crafting and doing other creative activities with our daughter. She has begun to ride with daddy too! We do lots of entertaining. Most of the big gatherings are done in summer. Our house is to small to entertain the big crowd in the winter. I love to barbeque so it works. Truth be told, I would give anything to set the big elaborate tables at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love to experiment with my grilling capabilities, and have been pretty successful so far. Love to grill and bake. I really love to just cook about anything. My favorite thing is to be creative and have fun. Like to experiement with different homemade marinades and sauces. Have great success 9 times out of 10. I also really love to can my own jams and veggies! The one favorite tradition that stands out is the birthday cake my daughter and I make on Christmas Eve for Jesus. She and I have had a great time doing this the last several years. I have such joy knowing we are making memories of Christmas she will have for the rest of her life, just like the ones I have of baking with my mom. We started the Christmas she was almost 2 years old. I think more frosting was on her than the cake that year! This last Christmas, almost 7, she had a fire for cooking ignite in her little heart! Since then she has become so interested, comfortable and creative in the kitchen. She asks so many questions hungry for the basics. On the few evenings schedules permit, my husband makes dinner with us. The conversations are always amazing. Sometimes its 2 hrs together, on a weeknight! We do always eat together. I hope this is one of many memories she carrys. Getting dinner on the table sometimes is a big triump! Nothing to terrible tragic has happened thus far. Only the usual mishaps we all tend to run up against and of course the ones that happen at the most inopportune moment... burned garlic toast on occassion, forgeting to thaw the meat you need to begin cooking in 5 minutes and the infamous running out of something in the middle of preparing dinner for a party of 10. I did however dump a whole 6qt. pot of my first ever homemade spagetti sauce all over the floor. As Murphy's Law would have it, it was on the kitchen floor I had just scrubbed that morning on my hands and knees. It went ALL over the walls,ceiling and the cabinets that too had just been scrubbed. It even poured all in the dish towel drawer I had just replenished with fresh, clean linens and the ironed dinner napkins. Yuck! Needless to say we ended up going for pizza that night. Ok, so I guess I would say I was wrong when I stated earlier that I hadn't really had any cooking tragedies! :-)