omg... my baby is 7!!! (tomorrow)

so clay is going to be 7 tomorrow. i'm thoroughly disturbed! we celebrated his birthday sunday at my in law's house on the hill... even though clay had decided that he did NOT want a birthday party. "mom, i do NOT want a birthday party." "so should i call everyone and tell them not to bring the kids out?" "uh, no... well, then i don't want a cake." "so you don't want the dirt bike cake that you begged me for? then i guess i will take the new dirt bike toy back that was going to go on the cake." "uh, no. i guess we can have a cake."
this is not like my typical million-frosting-star birthday cake. just a regular funfetti cake, green frosting and crushed up peanut butter oreos for the dirt. then i took a (washed) dirt bike toy and squished it on there... the "mountain" came with the dirt bike toy.

not one of my best... but he loved it!

we spent the day frolicking in the snow... skiing, snowboarding, sledding, tubing and snowmobiling.

the really long hilly driveway served as a fabulous slope!

clay all geared up in his new xmas helmet...

and we christened the new jacuzzi tub (not that way you sickos!). the kids LOVED it! they didn't want to get out!

stay tuned for pictures (and possible video) of me snowboarding. yeah, that's right... i snowboarded. i apologize if you just split your pants laughing... :)

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

so we went out to franklinville today to have a day of fun in the snow... good gravy it was cold out there! carter and i played outside for MAYBE 13 minutes. it was really chilly! i was trying not to be a weenie about it, but when i asked him if he was cold he said "yeah." and then i asked him if he wanted to go back inside he said "yeah!" i was SO glad! the radio out there said that the temperature was 13 with a wind chill of -4!now clay and gerry on the other hand... they did a little sledding. the driveway out there is 1/2 mile long... they made it REALLY far!

for some reason, after the kids were really overtired and trying to thaw out, we then attempted to take our annual christmas pictures. this is always an incredibly torturous event. there is always 1 kid that won't cooperate... today it was carter. we had clay carter and david in their matching (adorable) sweaters, and grace had on her cute red dress. carter would NOT stop sticking his fingers in his mouth, fish hooking his cheeks and sticking his tongue out... it was really pretty funny. but we didn't get any good pictures. we will give it another try this week... but this just might have to be another year of separate pictures. oh well... my question is this- how do families with numerous children pull off the group photos where everyone is not only looking at the camera, but are sitting nicely and looking adorable? HOW DO THEY DO IT? WHAT IS THE SECRET? anyone???