and then march comes

There is something different about March! The snow still sits on the Mountains in heaps, the cold winds howls from time to time, the mudroom is filled with books, skis, snowboards, hats thrown about...but non the less March is a welcomed difference!! Today we celebrate MUD, warm sunshine, the first of fairy tales read on the deck in months, skiing on packed snow and ice covered lakes while sweating! I am ready for this welcomed change. It seems January came in and out ever so speedy and February was a bit of over kill between FREEZING weather, illness, and house chores..and so WELCOME MARCH! A tank top, grilled burger all led to this perfect day! It seems we have kept to our Enki rhythm ever so lightly...and I see a shift coming keeping the outside nature time a priority while carefully dancing the school dance to keep Cedar filled up! We had a great February working with the "Four Friends" a math block following a fun story with Miss Mini Minus, Paddy Plus, Max Multiply and King Dominick Divide. Cedar really enjoys numbers, word problems, worksheets and games so this past month was perfect for a cold indoor kind of month!
In Short this is Cedars drawings as we spent a week with each character. Drawing, reading there verses, and working with word problems relating to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In the end he wanted harder work! I think it was a perfect light way to introduce some old and new math processes!

Miss Mini Minus
"So for each creature grand and poor
I leave a gift at every door
Four, Three, two, one
Till everything I have is gone"

Paddy Plus
"How nice to gather two or three
Someone has left them here for me
So round, so soft, so good to see,
I'll add them up so happily"

Max Multiply
"Ten...I'll scoop with both my hands,
Carry twenty in my pants,
Thirty...I'm not nearly done
Forty now I have just begun"

King Dominick Divide
"As King, I give you this command.
An equal share for every hand.
And when to each has come his share,
The joy can bloom so sweet and fair"

Cedar cruising on a warm, dry, February day!

Truthy doing what she does best, tending to her babies while playing! Mud diggin'

Orien taking the small steps! He says when he is 5 he will peddle this bike all by himself...for now a little holding on from me and a walk back up the hill was enough! This parenting is a work in progress..how to teach w/o teaching!!!

Cedar at Cub Lake one of our favorite places to play in the woods

Happy Orien in the fresh falling snow

the 3 kiddos they are truly the best

fresh snow, happy kids, woods time= happy family

Cedar on his board ready to go, Daddy getting on his new board, and Truthy on skis!

Cedars first chair lift with papa

Riding down!

Cedar and his friend Kahill skiing across Sprague Lake

Truthy and her mountains!

Team Bailey/Eamonns

Kahill, Cedar and Orien (Orien decided wandering and ice crawling was a great choice!)

Orien!

But besides our math, writing, fairy tale verse readers we were outside whenever possible! Cedar has officially ridden his first chair lift and gone down the hills with his dad on snowboards, we have wandered at closing time in the Denver Zoo, wandered many a woods, stomped on thick ice at Cub Lake (Rocky Mountain Natl park) favorite place, cross country skied over frozen Sprague Lake, kicked many soccer balls in the front yard, biked, and simply made fresh air, woods and sunshine our priority and that always seems to feed us all! And so I am ready to welcome spring/winter/summer/winter/spring season!!!!!