We're back!!

We are back from our 5th annual ski trip to Deer Valley, Utah. As usual it was totally awesome. Despite the rotten week I had prior to the trip (a horrible cold and 2 root canals!), the trip went smoothly. The following is a list of the highlights of our trip (in no particular order-- I am not that organized!)

1. The snow
We had incredible snow to ski in. It snowed almost constantly for 3 days,. This was, at times, a bit cold to ski in (a wimp, I know. Don't forget I am from California) but was so much fun for skiing.
This was our rental car after it snowed 11 inches overnight. The kids were obsessed with wiping the snow off it.

2. Hanging with my 7 year old cousin Kelly.

She lives in San Diego and is the youngest daughter of my Aunt Margie. I was close to her 2 older sisters when they were little, but had moved away before Kelly was born. She flew up by herself to visit. I was excited at the prospect of getting to be a mom to a girl for a week.
She was a total kick and immediately fit right in with my boys. As for getting to mother a girl? Not much different. She was as wild as my boys and talked about farting as much as they do. Go figure. She was so much fun that we are going to have her come visit for a week this summer.

The kids after ski school with Uncle Harry.

Kelly had a super loose tooth one night (which wigged out Joey. He has some weird issue with loose teeth. Drives Peter nuts.)

Peter jumped at the chance to pull out her toothMission accomplished!

3. My new hat!

I am a pony tail gal. I prefer to have my hair up with any type of physical activity. This has made it hard to wear a hat (other than a baseball hat). I found this awesome hat at Girl 32 with an adjustable spot for a pony tail.
Don't mind my bushy eyebrows. I haven't worked up the courage to get them waxed since the big debacle last month.

4. Skiing with my kids

We started this trip 5 years ago and put Zachary in ski school. Joey started ski school a couple of years later, and this was Vincent's first year. It is amazing to watch how fast they improve! I have to say that Zachary officially passed us up this year. He took lessons the first 2 days and skied with us for 3 days. He even talked us into going down a black diamond run. He was at the bottom before I even got the nerve to start. I am not sure how much longer he will be willing to ski with us!

Riding the gondola up. This is where we were sitting when I realized we had forgotten to call the kids in sick. Crap. I am sure the office girl at the school really believed us when we told her both boys were sick and wouldn't be in all week. Oh well. They were in school. Ski school. That counts, right?

Joey also did great! He was in ski school for 4 days and skied with us the last day. He is quickly catching up to Zach. He was so wiped out that he actually fell asleep on the chairlift towards the end of the day. Unfortunately he was with Pete at the time, who didn't think to take out his phone and take a picture.

As I mentioned, this was Vinnie's first year and he was beyond excited. He looked so adorable in all his gear! His teacher on the last day was surprised to hear it was only his first week of skiing, because he was doing so well. After class on the last day we decided to take him up on the chairlift and do one run with him. After talking non stop the entire way up ("Wow", said the poor guy sharing the lift with us, "must have been the chicken fingers they had for lunch". ) he proceeded to talk the ENTIRE WAY down the hill. I do not think the ski school charged us enough to deal with that for 5 straight days! He did great though.

5. Our great hosts and accommodations

We go to Deer Valley because my aunt and uncle have an incredible "cabin" there. If you can call over 7000 sq ft on a hill overlooking downtown Park City a cabin! Auntie Dede and Uncle Harry are wonderful hosts and make it truly a vacation to remember.

There is a home theater that the kids love.

A hot tub with views over looking Park City. There is a also a home gym (in case skiing 6 hours a day isn't enough exercise for you!)


6. Delicious food

Nothing beats my aunts home-made chile rellanos after a day of skiing. We have great food for lunch. The resort has nice restaurants that you literally ski up to, pop off your skis, have an incredible meal, then ski right back out. My aunt and Uncle also watch the kids for us one night so Pete and I can go into Park City for a 5 star meal. Despite this non stop eating, I usually don't gain a single pound. Got to love what skiing for 5-6 hours a day does for your metabolism!

7. Coming home to Christopher.

We left him home this year with our nanny. I felt horribly guilty about it, but for various reasons we decided it was for the best. I missed him tons and was excited to see him again. Next year he is coming with us.


Bye Deer Valley and Auntie Dede and Uncle Harry! We hope to see you next year!

Happy Valentines Day!

This week has been a flurry of activity, what with Valentines day and 2 root canals to deal with.

For Vinnies preschool class I made heart shaped rice crispys with M&M's. Yum!

For Joey's class I had to make M&M cookies. They taste good despite the fact that they are so flat (not sure why. I even turned oven temp down)
Then I had to put together 60 treat bags for all 3 of their classes (actually, I didn't "have" to. Don't ask me why I do this to myself)
All done while on vicodin for my dying tooth roots!! Awesome!

And then lightening struck again...

I can't even believe it. I had my root canal 2 days ago. I was definitely improved afterwards, but was having pain in one of my other teeth. I kept thinking it must have just been from them mucking around. I just kept popping the vicodin and was wondering why I was such a wimp when others kept telling me they were completely fine after their root canals.

I was brushing my teeth last night and felt such a shot of pain I literally fell over and started to scream. The same pain, but worse and in a different tooth. I was besides myself. We were leaving on a trip in less than 36 hours and I was in so much pain I could only pop more vicodin, motrin and benadryl to make it tolerable.

Back to the endodontist this morning (who I had to page on his day off. Thanks Dr. Yokota!) to hear I need another root canal.

I would have taken another picture, but really, what was the point? I was wearing the same suffocating latex dental dam.

At least I was wearing underwear this time.

And then I forgot to wear underwear...

To say I have had better days is an understatement. First I have been fighting a cold that took a turn for the worse yesterday. As I was going to bed last night I noticed I also had a tooth ache. I was a bit concerned because we have a flight in a couple of days, but took some motrin and went to bed. I was up a couple of hours later with the worst tooth ache I have ever had. Breathing through my mouth was painful, but I was also so congested I couldn't breathe through my nose. And I had an awful sore throat. And kept coughing. Which made everything hurt more.

Called my dentists office first thing and they had me come right in. It was decided I needed a root canal. Today. Ugh...

The endodontist they referred me to could not see me until the end of the day. I was out of my head with pain, there was no way I could wait that long!

Luckily there was another office that was able to take me right away. I was called at home and told to come right in. I was out the door in about 2 minutes. Halfway there I realized I didn't have any underwear on (don't ask, long story).



Doesn't this look like fun? The worst part was, I couldn't breathe through my nose and they covered my mouth with this rubber dam!! I felt like I was suffocating the entire time.

Now I sit here, numb, drooling on myself, waiting for my 2 pm patient to arrive.

Final count at Mass this morning...

Number of Contini boys at Mass this morning-- 4

Number of Contini boys with shoes-- 3

Note to self- Check boys feet for shoes prior to leaving house

More cupcakes...

The shark cupcakes were for Vinnie's birthday party last weekend. I also had to make cupcakes for his preschool class on the day of his actual birthday. Suzie sent me this great idea for an easy to do rainbow cupcakes. It was a lot of fun and really easy (especially when compared to those shark cupcakes!)

I will skip how to do them since you can click on the link above and see how. The colors started off really vibrant, then turned pastel. While the bright colors look awesome, I found they stained hands and mouths while eating! The cool thing is you can choose different colors based on the occasion.


(As an aside, 1 batch of my cupcakes completely shrank after I took them out of the oven! Like a falling souffle. Any thoughts on why that happened?!)



Vinnie's party was at this awesome sports complex. They had huge inflatable jumpies, slides and obstacle courses. They also had "free play" with balls, bubbles, hula hoops and noodles.

The now famous shark cupcakes.