Our elves came prepared to travel with us for a day of skiing.

I love these little elf travel cases but any little jar would work! The kids were so excite to take the elves along with us up to the mountains.

We got another prime parking spot even though we left way late again, we really need to work on that. But THANK YOU Keystone Resort for the amazing family parking.

We really wanted to see the other side of the resort and try out the learning hill at Mountain House.

We brought our wagon to lug all our gear and decided to walk instead of taking the shuttle.

It’s a very pretty walk!

We liked these learning hills a lot with multiple magic carpets. We used the ski trainers again with the kids and it worked well. We even moved up to the baby ski lift and bigger hill by the end of the day.

I am so proud of the kids and excited for how much they are loving skiing, I though at least one of them would fight us on it, but they are both stoked.

We are excited to check out some other ski resorts this season as well but are loving Keystone so far.

If you ski or snowboard, where is your favorite place go?

For our first day of winter break we decided we needed a winter hike.

I love the drive into the Canyon, but less so when there is construction.

Luckily I had lots of coffee with me.

We love visiting Lily Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park any time of year. I often come here when I am not sure what the conditions might be because it is a flat easy hike if you want it to be or you can add on as much as you like. We also have big goals to get in really good hiking shape for big hiking trips we have planned for this year.

It was very cold and windy so I am glad I brought all of the kids snow gear, I just wish I had heavier gloves for all of us.

We are also on the hunt for micro spikes for the kids this year so we can hike even when it’s icy. We are considering getting THESE.

We have had these Target snow boots for years and love them, they work really well and hold up. You don’t always need really expensive gear to get out and adventure. Paired with THESE wool socks their feet stay nice and warm.

I have THESE snow boots from Keen that I got the first year we moved to Colorado for winter hiking and snow shoeing. I LOVE these boots after 13 years they are still like new, waterproof, great traction, comfortable and warm. They were such a good buy!

We also bought these balaclavas for the kids for skiing and winter hikes. They wear them under their ski helmets and under knit hats on really cold days.

We have had many different sizes in THESE snow bibs, they have held up well and we have been able to hand them down to Emerald. When the kids where little we liked to get them THESE down bunting.

Under their snow gear the kids both wear THIS base layer from 32 degrees. Then depending on how cold/windy/snowy it is they will wear a sweat suit, jogger set or fleece as a mid layer.

Do you like to hike in the winter?

Do you have a piece of gear that you have loved for over 10 years?

Emmy and I were had a girls day most of the day since Cannon was at school all day but she is already on winter break. I asked her what we should do with our “girl time” and all she wanted to do was play together at home and build. We had Lincoln Logs growing up and my brother bought these for the kids a couple years ago and we love it!

I have a big goal of organizing and donating a bunch of toys over break, we have too many and the kids basically play with the same three building sets. It’s hard because the kids never want to get rid of anything!

We didn’t have too much going on just running around getting kids to and from school, grocery shopping, and finishing up Christmas shopping. Can you believe Christmas is next week?!? We have been having a lot of fun with our elves this year. We added two little babies to the family yesterday so now we also have Pepper and Mint. The babies will sometimes be left at the North Pole nursery when needed LOL.

Here are some easy favorites:

If you do Elf on the Shelf, what is your favorite thing that they have gotten up to?

Do you declutter often? I need to WAY more when we moved into this house it was just the two of us and we had so much room! Now we are bursting at the seems, I get too sentimental but the clutter is driving me crazy. It’s a big goal for 2023 to declutter and let go a lot!

We started our day with a school, I can’t believe we are almost all the way to winter break! Then drove over to our “running trail”

We decided to run easy today and add a little distance. I am so proud of these kiddos loving running and working on our goal of 5k by May.

We ran 1.25 miles before checking out the birds.

We went home finished up so school work, ate lunch then decided we wanted to go to the Children’s Museum.

We always have so much fun here!

The “snow days” theme right now is so fun!

And since it’s baking season I though I would share some of my favorite holiday treats:

It’s officially baking week! I have handful of favorite holiday treats that I make every year to share with family and friends.

I thought I would share a few incase you are looking for some fun easy recipes to try:

Grinch Cookies:

https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/cran-pistachio-cookies/e36c24c7-851f-4785-8a9e-13672ef9d97c

These are so easy, delicious and unique. We call them grinch cookies because of their green color.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge

https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/recipe/057411/creamy-marshmallow-peanut-butter-fudge

This fudge is so good and again easy to make! We also make our chocolate fudge using this recipe by subbing chocolate chips in and adding chopped walnuts.

Cranberry Orange Cake

https://www.alattefood.com/cranberry-orange-cake/embed/#?secret=qsI90CyNRS

I am not a hug fan of pie and right after thanksgiving I like something different. This cake is SO good! It’s unique and a very good replacement for pie.

Monkey Bread

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7110/quick-and-easy-monkey-bread/

These are our Christmas morning tradition. They have to sit overnight but are again easy and so good. Maybe not as pretty as cinnamon rolls but I think they taste better.

Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark Recipe

https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/peppermint-bark-recipe/embed/#?secret=zzeIZBZ1u4

I always make this peppermint bark for my family for their stockings.

Truffles

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/41236/easy-decadent-truffles/?internalSource=hub%20recipe&referringContentType=Search&clickId=cardslot%202

These are Cory’s favorites but I don’t always have time to make them so they are great valentines treats as well.

Please share your favorite holiday treat!

We started our day with a line up of smoothies.

I love that the kids are into green smoothies and actually ingest some spinach!

Our elves thought it would be a good day for a snowball fight, but sadly we didn’t get the snow that was originally predicted. Sad for all of us, we were hoping for more snow!

We did errand things, and school things and Christmasy things and snuggly things….

In the afternoon we made some Grinch Cookies.

They are actually Cranberry Pistachio cookies and are so delicious! We just call them Grinch cookies because they are green and it’s more fun.

I love an easy recipe that is unique and delicious!

We have also be spending a lot of time planning next years adventures. I think we are close to a final list with a few weekend trips that we will just plan on the go…

I am SO SO SO excited for what we have planned for the year! The hard thing is that we want to see everything and there are so many amazing places to visit. Vacation time and money are always the limiters, but we get lots of travel inspiration from full time van life and travel vloggers on YouTube.

When do you plan out your travel for the year?

Where is your favorite place you have traveled to?

Do you have any favorite travel YouTube channels?

We had a typical easy, fun, slow morning.

We had the normal Monday errands to run including a play ground and the library (always the library).

We hurried home to have an early dinner because we had to celebrate Cannon’s grade on his math final. We considered a toy or gadget but we decided to go mini golfing instead and it was so.much. fun.

Westminster Adventure Golf is open in the evenings with so many Christmas lights.

Cannon was ecstatic and we loved celebrating him and laughing so hard.

Up past our bedtimes.

This is one of our new favorite things to do. We can’t wait to come back when all the water and fire features are on.

We woke up early because we had a holiday party to attend for our neighborhood.

It was so cute, they had Santa, crafts, games, treats and elves reading stories. The kids loved it and loved seeing their friends.

Both kids loved giving letter they had written to Santa and visiting with him. We have visited Santa at this party every year except 2020 where we saw him socially distant outside.

The kids have never really been scared of Santa, but the Easter Bunny is a different story. I can’t believe we have already have had seven magical years of visiting Santa.

We did have to leave a little early to get to Emerald’s preschool holiday concrete.

I wasn’t sure how things would go since Emmy usually doesn’t like to preform in front of people. But she did great, sang and danced and seemed to have a great time.

I just love her so much and I am so happy that after three years of getting to do these kinds of things for Cannon that Emmy finally gets her turn. Also love her sequence skirt!

In the afternoon I had the important task of getting my hair done. I LOVE having my hair done I hate spending the time to do it. After that it was time at the bike park on Cannon’s new fat bike.

Must take advantage of these mild days and ice free trails.

The kids have been loving doing little brain breaks with YouTube kids exercise. It would be better outside. But sometimes it’s better than nothing!

Cannon was in need of a haircut so we ran out and got hime a trim.

A little before and after….

I had a doctors appointment in the afternoon so we just hung out and had pizza for dinner.

Any exciting plans for the weekend?

Emmy had her last day of school for the year.

She was SO excited that they got to wear PJs to school and knew exactly which ones she wanted.

We also made little Christmas gifts for her teachers.

All the surveys said that teachers really want gift cards for Christmas so that is what we got them! We added some candy to a little glass tree tumbler that I love and home made tags. Emmy loves her teachers and loved giving them gifts.

We spent the rest of the day running around picking up Cannon from school and listening to the Cinnamon Bear in the car.

I LOVE the Cinnamon Bear when I was a child and I was so excited when I found it as a podcast. You are supposed to listen to one chapter a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas eve. Sometimes we get behind and just double up when needed.

Other things we do daily until Christmas include:

Advent calendars for the kids. Last year we did Disney calendars since we were going to Disneyland for Christmas. This year they have Super Mario and Littlest Pet Shop. We are hoping to go to Super Mario land at Universal Hollywood when it opens 2023.

We read a chapter in How Winston Delivered Christmas every day, but we don’t always do the crafts they suggest as we just don’t have time.

The book is so beautiful!

And of course we do Elf on the Shelf everyday.

The magic of Christmas is so much fun to do with the kiddos.

Do you have any Christmas traditions you do everyday in December?