Hi - I don't know if you are thinking of taking the little darlings skiing this year, but I can offer a few words of advice. Driving to the Alps is terrific provided that you stock up with plenty of booze at the Duty Free shops and don't try and do it in one go. You'll need the booze in your village as night life with youngsters is prohibitive or non-existant.
Invest in a portable DVD player, a couple of pairs of headphones an i-pods for each child and a psp or other divice for each child. That'll smooth the journey and will pay dividends once you are in the Alps.
Of course, ski school is de rigeur! It will keep the children out of your hair for a couple of hours eacn morning and you can have some fun for yourself.
Self catering is definately the order of the day - provided that you stick to a routine - no matter whether your children are infants or aged 12, children should be in bed by 19:30 each evening to allow you and your partner a few hours to yourselves. You must not compromise on this point. They should be tired from exercise, altitude and the heady atmosphere of mountain life and if not, they cannot have been trying that much!!
A great company from which to rent a property is Interhome based in Twickenham. They manage literally hundreds of thousands of properties on their books and are brilliant whether things go right or start to go wrong. Their number can be found from a simmple google search. No I don't work for them or have any pecuniary interest, just have been skiing too many times!
The next word of advice I give is that you should not try to be too ambitious. The first time you go skiing, just book 3 days ski school and don't go for longer than a week. In this way, if children really don't like it, then they have only a very short time in ski school and if they do like it.... well the few extra francs/euro won't make that much difference.
Bear in mind that skiing is very, very expensive -almost double that of a summer holiday. Our usual summer holiday for one week costs roughly £4,500 and our skiing holiday between £4,000 and £7,500 depending on what extra equipment we buy for that year.
Get you car serviced a couple of weeks before you go. Invest in snow tyres AND snow chains. If you have a diesel car make sure that the glow plugs are working properly. Most mornings the temperature is well below freezing (this year it was -35 every monring in Switzerland in February!) and you do need to have the car start first time. Mine had a problem and it would take 40 minutes or so getting the car to start. It eventually expired due to the strain that the temperature placed on the battery. Very expensive!
Cooking at altitude takes longer than at most height in the UK. For example, a perfect 3 minute egg will take 4 minutes in Val d'Isere but 5 minutes in Zermatt. It depends on the height.
If budget is a constraint (and it is for all of us!), then look to the smaller resort that shares the same facility. For example, if you usually ski in Verbier, then consider the chalets and apartments in Nendaz - gets to the same slopes far quicker than those from Verbier (or herpes valley) and at a fraction of the cost.
Anyway there's a few ramblings to whet your appetite.