I'm a little Monkey

I'm a little monkey
Climbing up a ladder
Climbing to the top to
Pick a pink banana.

I'm a little monkey
Climbing down the ladder
Climbing to the ground to
Eat a pink banana.

A train! A train! A train! A train!

Alina turned 7 on Thursday.  As usual, she's been counting the days.  Here she is:

 And here is her cake.  I was rather proud of it.  Especially since it started out just as a double batch of banana bread, which she had requested and for which I had no particular plans in terms of shape.

 Blow hard, Alina!!!!

Mozart

ALINA (Singing Mozart's Alleluia while I was dishing up food)
MAMA: Alina, no Mozart at the table.  (We actually have a no singing at the table rule.)
ALINA: (A few minutes later, humming an aria from "The Marriage of Figaro")
MAMA:  Alina, I said no Mozart at the table!
ALINA:  But, Mama, he's hungry!

Checklist

Baby gym on Monday.  Check.
Music with babies on Tuesday.  Check.
Students playing at the library on Wednesday.  Check.
Birthday cake on Thursday.  Check.
All-morning meeting on Friday.
Concert on Saturday.

Bag

What is this?  It is two things.  It is my latest, completed sewing project.  It is also the sign of a pretty major paradigm shift in our house.  

This is my new teaching bag.  

On the sewing end of, I'm pretty proud of it.  It's made entirely out of pre-loved material.  Two of Thomas's old jeans, a broken shoelace I found in the street, and a button out of Mémé's button box.  The really, really cool thing is, notice the pocket on the front, onto which the button is sewn?  There's one to match it on the back.  They were the back pockets of the jeans.  The front pockets, complete with beltloops, are sewn into the inside, so I have pockets of pencils, metronomes, etc., as well as beltloops to clip keys and my pocketwatch to.  It will be my faithful companion this year as I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays and...well...I'm going to try to negociate out of teaching on Tuesdays, if it isn't already too late.  Y'all can wish me luck on that one.

Twinkle

Fortunately, all those hours of violin practice have not been lost!