Gray January Adventures

Winter comes with ice and snow

Covers over the seeds below

Stark the trees and cold the air

King Winter rules the land, beware!

-Betty Jones from "A Child's Seasonal Treasury"

This one is getting adventurous. She wants to be leader.

Picking out the perfect picnic spot!

"Please Mommy take a picture of us and then show me!"

On their animal hunt...

My big strong boy who is refusing to let me cut his hair!

Jonas helped Brynna climb up. She was thrilled. 

Story time!!

Firstly, THANK YOU. All of you. From the blog, to facebook, to email, to even pinterest- thank you. The love you've injected into my life since my last post, before and after, continues to just BLOW me away. In some of my darker moments, I feigned from sharing because I feared judgment and that no one would care. You all have proved this wrong over and over again. I really need to stop over thinking the impulses of my heart and learn to share freely more. You all have given me a lot more courage to do so, so once again thank you...

Now on to the happy stuff :) 

So far this year, we've had no snow. Some ice and cold temperatures, but there has also been many unseasonably warm days. Two weeks ago I actually broke out my favorite summer dress because it was in the 70s. Regardless, it's a bit chiller now and my body is full on into hibernation and soup mode.

We're back from our holiday break and onto our January. This month our theme is snow and our book is Ollie's Ski Trip. However, like last year, focusing on snow is proving hard when there is none. This week were also studying stars in honor of Epiphany. Ultimately though, I think I am going to blend in snow with winter animals, because we keep finding lots of them- or at least evidence of them. I never thought wide open fields would have so many little critters in them!

Today we took a filed trip back to the kids' new favorite place, the Yorktown battlefield earthworks. I explained to them what earthworks were, why they were there, ect... but the kids call this place their 'earth playground' and are fairly convinced that dwarves made the hills and the holes we see all over are the entrances to their mines. Ha! Needless to say I haven't pushed it.

So off we went. We had a picnic and then circle time. We read the Mitten and brought along the mitten Jonas and I made (he surprisingly really likes to sew). Then we hid the animals all over the hills and took turns finding them. Lastly, and this is my favorite part, we went on an adventure. And boy was it an adventure today.

Look what we found in the woods!!! 

Bits of nature we found. I take photos and then we all look it up later in our books or on the "puter" as Jonas calls it. 

Needless to say the kids were overjoyed. I have no idea who built it. The kids added to it and we played with that little shelter for over an hour. I could not get them to leave. They wanted to camp there. I was tempted to at least let them nap there. But then we meandered about some more and saw neat bits of nature. By the end of our adventure all of our pockets were full of moss, rocks, twigs, and leaves.

I could just go on and on about what I 'taught' today or what they 'learned' but the more and more I think about it, the more and more I believe that's not really the point. I don't think that's the point of Waldorf anymore either- but then again I never thought that was the point anyway (which is why I was so drawn to it). This process, this journey, that all of us are on together- myself included- is the goal. I'm sure I could wax eloquent more on that, but I will leave you all here with this photo. I am not sure why it warms my heart so, but oh it does.

Love & Light,