lets hit the mountain already ..

in the village there are several great bronze sculptures .. this is my favorite .. i told ellie she can tell everyone that she had her picture with albert einstein .. 

these girls are wonderful .. they help you put on your ski boots .. 

and they help pull them off your super tired legs when you get back ..

they made the trip ..

so after you have a hot chocolate ..

 had the super sweet ski boot girls help you get ready ..

you come outside and josh got your skis all ready for you .. 

he put them on his little cart and pulled them over to the ski lift .. 

the only thing you have to do is follow him ..

you don't have to walk in your ski boots carrying not only your skis and poles but also a kids skis .. their gloves and hat .. their half eaten bag of chips that they want to save for later and their hot chocolate which then spills all over your glove so that you have a cold wet hand for the rest of the day ..

you just follow him .. 

when you get to the lift he takes the skis off the cart .. carries them over close to the lift .. helps you get in your skis and then gives you a push into the lift line ..

now .. if josh could just have the sore leg muscles i could truly say they take care of everything .. 

i might have to put that in the comment section of the hotel survey .. 

and then you ski all day ..

and look at the pretty trees ..

and enjoy the time with your family ..

i will have to say this is the best vacation the 4 of us have been on .. 

the adventure park .. at night ..

at the top of the gondola lift they have .. the adventure park .. it is open until at least 7 .. weather conditions permitting of course .. you can ..

ride "mini snowmobiles" .. 

we are going to do this on saturday .. 

bungee jump .. 

or if you are ellie .. bungee jump so high that your momma gets on to the really nice guy that is operating the bungee jump telling him that "that is high enough already" .. at the same time that he is saying "hey there little ellie i can teach you how to flip !" ..

and yes .. she can now flip !

and then there is this .. a football field length tube run .. 

cash got the "lets get crazy shivers" just looking at it ..

oh mom .. it am so going to rock that .. rock what i said ..

that .. mom .. that 

oh .. i said .. i think they are closed ..

WHAT !!! he said ..

just kidding cash ..

mom .. i don't like you .. 

so we listened to the safety instructions .. which included nothing related to safety ..

grabbed our tubes and headed for the magic carpet ride up to the top ..

me first .. cash says ..

as you can see .. i was last ..

yes they wore their go-pro helmet cams that mike was so nice to spend half of his morning attaching to their helmets ..

and yes .. i got some amazing video .. especially when ellie went down on her belly .. 

i can't wait to share it with you !!

scenes from the hotel ..

christmas morning at moms ..

jeff was actually the first one up this year .. i could hear him making all kinds of noise in the kitchen trying to wake up the kids .. he did everything short of hollaring "santa came santa came" ..

after playing with our santa presents we headed up the hill to mom and dad's ..

cash is quite the present opener .. rip and tear is his moto ..

he got his own pair of carhartts .. mine are just a bit big ..

now he will be just like grandpa when they are out on the tractor .. 

and warm to ..

uncle richie got a new chamois shirt from woolrich .. he will look very handsome in it ..

i got a little camera to take when we travel .. 

sweet christmas morning faces .. 

delicious christmas morning breakfast ..

we hope that everyone had a wonderful christmas morning .. 

merry christmas ...

christmas cards ..

we are lucky enough to get lots of great christmas cards .. 

we love seeing all the sweet pictures of our family and friends

 and catching up on what they did this past year .. 

for some reason .. actually i have a whole list of reasons .. some good .. some not .. we just didn't get to our christmas card this year .. 

it is a production .. ordering paper .. cutting paper .. gluing .. glitter .. embossing .. 

i keep telling myself that next year i am just going to upload some pics and send it that way ..

i just can't bring myself to do it ..

so this year we are going to send out new years cards .. 

for some reason i think that i will have more time to tackle a new years card

when we get back from our trip ..

i can cut and glue between loads of laundry .. 

i know .. doesn't really make sense to me either .. 

this has to be my most favorite of the cards we got this year ..

these are the ballet girls .. 

and yes .. i totally agree .. 

a very BEAUTIFUL family ..

elf wants to go skiing with us ..

elf has been camped out on cash's helmet cam for the last several days .. 

every morning when the kids wake up the hunt for elf ensues .. 

they are disappointed when they find him at the same spot 2 days in a row .. 

cash says that it is because elf wants to go skiing with us ..

i told elf that he can't go .. i reminded him that come christmas eve he will lose his magic 

elf says .. but oh please let me go .. i promise i will be good .. i will not create any mischief

this is where we found elf this morning .. 

i think he has finally accepted the fact that he is not going on our trip with us .. 

cookie ..

on monday the kids and i grabbed our one batch of sugar cookie dough and went up the hill to mom's 

she had another 3 batches of dough waiting for us .. 

so we cleaned off the counter .. put on our aprons .. floured our hands and got to it . 

first though we ate a big bite of dough ..

ellie has the cookie cutting down pretty good .. she wants to jump ahead to using the rolling pin though and rolling out the dough .. i have tried to explain to her that she is still at "the kids table" and can't roll out the dough yet .. she is still in the cookie cutting position .. 

she can't move up until there is a vacancy .. 

and this .. it is these moments that she will remember forever .. 

ugh .. that pulls at my heart strings .. 

we ended up with about 500 or so cookies .. a few pans of trees stayed in the oven a bit longer than they should have .. we have nicknamed those the forest fire trees .. 

those are the cookies that we get to eat .. 

everyone else gets the really perfect ones .. 

and i will have to say .. they are one of the best batches that we have made .. 

Elf has made himself at home .. In the M&M's ..



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this week as mrs. spielmann ..

this is what our mornings looked like this week .. 

everyone's school bags lined up and ready to go .. 

i am hoping that you have figured out mine is the one on the right .. 

i had the best week being mrs. spielmann

and no i did not do science all week long .. we barely had time to fit it in between reading .. vocabulary .. rocket math and multiplication .. 

we did do brain teasers for candy bars though .. 

they had a great time with that .. those little turkeys wouldn't quit until they had them all solved .. it hurt their little brains to think upside down and out of the box but by golly they did .. 

and then they ate their king sized snickers !!

i am pretty sure that you are not allowed to give kids king sized candy bars at school .. 

but i was just the sub .. what do i know 

an elf update ..

our little "elf" has been quite funny this week .. 

and yes .. he made a total mess with the m&m's .. 

cash didn't know what to say !

Oh elf !!!

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elf on the shelf ..

our elf on the shelf .. whose name is elf .. has been spotted in some great places .. on the shelf in the kitchen so he can watch the kids eat breakfast .. he caught cash getting ellie a napkin the other morning .. 

we have found him on the card table watching what goes on in the living room .. 

on the pool table and peeking out from the tree .. 

but this morning ..

elf was in my oreos !!!

oh elf i said .. this is not going to work .. you see for one thing those are my oreos .. they have nothing to do with the kids .. you are supposed to be keeping an eye on my children .. NOT my oreos ..

oh but jenny the elf says .. 

santa is watching everyone !!

cash said that santa must have heard that i don't share my oreos and that when elf was at the north pole the other night santa told elf that he should keep an eye on me to .. because my kids are being so good .. especially the little boy named cash ..

santa .. you better watch out .. 

my oreos are not for sharing .. my oreos are for therapeutic purposes only