On the Verge of Spring

As I start this post I can hear Katie practicing scales on her flute in preparation for an exam next week, Sophie playing away at the piano, and James listening to music on his computer reading program. All we need is a double bass, at least according to Cameron, who is eagerly awaiting the delivery of the instrument that he has been longing to learn to play for the past eleven months. That will be a post of its own I think when it does finally arrive tomorrow.

Yesterday marked the first official feel of spring in the air. We all noticed it at various times throughout the day, and were the happier for it. It has been a true old-fashioned winter, we have been told. An old-fashioned winter makes me think never-ending blizzards and ice storms, but in Melbourne of course it's a bit different. Never-ending rain and icy winds are more like it, but all the same, we are ready to welcome warmer temperatures and more frequent sunshine.

Here you can see a typical winter landscape in Melbourne:

These blossoms are desperately trying to break through winter's prison, symbolized here by our fence:

The trees and bushes have shown signs of spring in spite of the persistently cold weather, and I have taken the odd picture from time to time to prove to myself that spring is in fact on the way. The following few are all from a couple of azalea bushes in our front yard which I find somewhat ugly when viewed from afar. They look much prettier when their leaves and blossoms are viewed through the macro lens I think.

The children have had a busy week at school thus far. Monday marked the start of Book Week in Victoria, meaning the younger three had to dress as a favorite character from a book. I always dread these sorts of weeks. Devising costumes is not a strong suit of mine, and in fact, Cameron was so traumatized by how pitiful his was last year compared to his classmates' that he declined to dress up at all this year. Instead he went as Rush Melendy from Then There Were Five. Reliable Rush wears jeans and a t-shirt most of the time. I had considered renting a costume for him, but then a notice came home from school saying that the school did not encourage the hiring of costumes, and that the best costumes were those the children made themselves. Baloney in my opinion, but we didn't end up renting anything.

James insisted on dressing as a character from his favorite book, a Bible story book that Ross has been reading to him nearly every night for the past year. They are on their second time through now. He didn't mind which character exactly, so I chose Joseph thinking that would be one of the more well-known stories. Fortunately I found a colorful striped dressing gown on sale at Target, and that, combined with a kitchen towel for his head, constituted his costume. I was told by another prep mom that during the costume parade he proudly said into the microphone in front of the entire school that he was "Joe, from the Bible."

I tried to take a better picture when he came home from school, but Joe wasn't in a cooperative mood.

Once the boys were sorted, I turned my attention to Sophie. This was starting to feel like the dreaded build-up to Halloween costume season in the U.S., which I thought we had escaped by moving to Australia. I started digging through her closet with very little hope of finding anything useful when I happened upon an American Girl nightgown that had been given to Katie several years ago. It was a matching outfit to her doll Kirsten, and most happily, it not only fit Sophie, but we also had the American Girl book that showed pictures of Kirsten dressed in this nightgown.

We even managed to include two hand-made items for Sophie's costume. The first, and by far the best, was not something made by us, but rather a gift from a very special friend in Pittsburgh, a shawl. I am not sure that the Kirsten of the early 1800s would have worn these exact colors, but I suspect she would have been wearing a hand-knitted shawl of some kind during those cold Minnesota winters after she emigrated from Sweden. We also tried to make a Christmas wreath, something the eldest girl in Sweden wears on her head, but this was not so successful. Katie did her bit by doing Sophie's hair this morning, with the following pretty result.

We are most grateful for this shawl today as the icy wind must be coming straight from the south pole. Spring is surely on its way, however. I took this last picture yesterday to prove it.