Happy new year

I'm able to take a minute to do a blog post because both kids are upstairs playing happily in my closet. Yes, you read that right. They each got a new flashlight for Christmas. B's is shaped like a horse, and Z's like a chicken. When you squeeze the tail, the mouth opens up, it makes an animal sound and a flashlight shines out through the open mouth. They adore those flashlights. Right now they're hanging out in the walk-in closet with them, but they've been known to cram themselves into the two-foot square coat closet together too. They also like to turn off all the lights at night and have me hide things for them to find with their flashlights. That was $10 well spent by Grandma, I think.

B and I started out the new year with a hike yesterday morning. We went up to an open space park in the foothills west of here where you can see an actual castle from the trail. B must have asked me at least half a dozen times if a king and queen lived there, or if they ever used to live there a long time ago. No, I told him, I'm afraid it's only regular people. Or as "regular" as you can be if you choose to live in a castle, anyway. And a rather creepy looking castle at that, if you ask me. He decided they probably didn't have a dragon either, since "dragons aren't real, and neither are dinosaurs or unicorns." Lots and lots of hiking pictures follow.

We spent New Year's Eve pretty quietly, considering the monkey house we live in. Not that we used to go out and whoop it up before we had kids, at least not since we were in our 20s. My sister & her husband (and their unborn baby -- I'm going to be an auntie!) were here with us that night, and left for home (Maryland) yesterday morning. Here we are roasting marshmallows on the back patio on new year's eve:

Last week, we started a new family tradition. We went to volunteer at a homeless shelter/food bank/clothing donation/etc. center, all four of us. I had thought we'd sort food in the food bank (a job that sounded like it would suit itself to the skills of a two year-old and a five year-old), but we ended up filling little bottles with lotion and shampoo out of bigger bottles. They wanted one-person sized bottles to hand out. This wasn't really something that Z had the dexterity for, so she lost interest pretty quickly and multiple hizzies ensued. We're going to do this once a month though, and next time we'll make sure we find a job she can help with too. It was fun, and B keeps asking if he can go back. Doing this together as a family is my sort-of a New Year's resolution.

Frozen Bear Creek

My hiker B

Clutching the new digital camera he got for his birthday -- he's taken hundreds of pictures of the floor, the walls, the dog's paw, etc.

This was the highlight of the hike for him, even better than the castle

Look at that sweet, shy grin

And how quickly it turns sassy

Back to sweet

Then he shoots me with a stick-blaster

I love this pair of pictures. You can just see the wheels going around in his head as he gazes at this stick: Can I possibly hold a third stick?

Look at the expression of pure satisfaction when he figures out a way to do it

B doing one of his absolute favorite things, although he didn't enjoy the rock climbing class he took last winter, which is odd