And on to Monday...

Ahh, finally you are saying!  The peak inside our week continues.  Damn internet. It's been extremely slow since last Thursday and I have attempted and failed to complete my weekday snapshot series several times.  

Mondays for a loooong time have been all about piano and gymnastics and its no different this term.

We're often a bit rushed getting out the door on Mondays as their lessons start at 9am so we have to tackle the school zone/peak hour traffic and such that we precious homeschoolers tend not to find ourselves in all too often.  Oh poor us!!

Hugo is first up for his lesson.  Until quite recently he would only accompany us to Dexter's lesson but then he began begging to have his own special time at the piano with Alina.  I let the begging go on for about a term to be sure he was serious.  (Because any parent whose child learns an instrument - especially in the Suzuki tradition - will testify that its quite the commitment and one does not want to start the long journey down that road unless all parties involved are really ready).

Look at how little he looks sitting up there on boosters with the foot stool.  Pulls at my heartstrings every time.

Dexter is next.  They both work quite hard and even when we've had a clunky week of difficult practices, 95% of the time during their actual lessons they impress me with their concentration and commitment.  (Thats not to say we haven't had our share of mid-lesson tantrums.  Though they're few and far between in recent months compared to those early days).

We usually head for a coffee after piano and home again for a little while before going to gymnastics.  I wasn't able to capture much of the gymnastic action this day.  They move too fast in there!

Monday afternoons can involve any number of things.  Some weeks we go home after gymnastics which we are more than ready for after our early start at piano.  This week though we had our monthly Honest To Goodness co-op order to sort at Ness's house.

Dexter and his friends spent a good while working in their orange juice shop.

There's Hugo in his purple cape lining up to buy a cup of fresh OJ.

Meanwhile in the other room we slowly got through the massive pile of food and sorted them into boxes.  We've established quite the production line with these orders now and its rather efficient - even this day when we had no less than four babies underfoot - and dare I say I get quite the kick out of spending a few hours scooping, weighing and ticking off lists.

In the car on the way home in the late afternoon the children showed me their earnings form the OJ shop.  Dex explained how they ran the business.  He and Carmella were in charge and directed the other other children.   They made Open and Closed signs and a menu with prices.  20 cents for the first glass and 5 cents for any subsequent glass.  A container was used for the cash register.  Zoe and Hugo worked part time in the store where their job was to wash up.  Other children fulfilled the roles of delivery person (we adults in the next room placed our orders and had our juice hand delivered!) and orange picker from the massive orange tree in the backyard.   At one point it was decided they would diversify and hot cocoa drinks were added to the menu until the milk ran out.  (Sorry Dan, they drank all your lovely organic milk for your morning coffee)!