Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our resident fairy princess with a butterfly hat! We loved celebrating Halloween in our new neighborhood.  It is a great neighborhood for trick or treating.  Tonight, as is the tradition in our home, Zoe chose a few pieces of candy to keep, and she left the rest in a large bowl outside her bedroom door as a gift for the ancestors.  Sometime this evening, the ancestors will come and take the candy away and leave her a few presents.  This is a tradition that we learned from our dear friends Clara and Aoife.

Zoe's 5th Birthday

 We celebrated Zoe's 5th birthday today with a small gathering of friends.  Here are a few pictures from the event.  We are in the midst of moving from our old house to our new house, and when we gave Zoe the choice of which house she wanted to have her party at, she asked to have people come to the old house first and then walk together to the new house, which is so appropriate given the dual home situation that we are living in right now.  It was quite fun to throw a party in an empty house, and we were glad that we just bought a large dining room table at a tag sale last weekend so that the kids had a place to sit and eat cake!

 Zoe enjoyed showing the other kids how she climbs her climbing tree.  She is totally fearless!

 Zoe and Nico climb the tree together.

 Baba baked a fantastic blueberry and lemon curd cake and cupcakes for today's celebration.  Zoe loved helping decorate.

Here are some of the kids who walked with us from the old house to the new house.  They loved holding hands and walking together in a long line.  Very cute!

Our New House!

 We get the keys to our new house today!! We are all very excited.  Lester and I haven't started packing yet because we didn't want our apartment to fill up with boxes before we had a place to put them, so today is the first day of packing for us.  Zoe has been very eager to start packing, so she packed her first box of toys and blocks this morning. We have some work to do on the house before we move in, so we have to be thoughtful about what we pack and make sure we leave all the necessities at our old house until we are ready to move in. We can't wait for 1pm today when we get to walk through our new house for the first time!!

Oregon Dogs

 Zoe and I are in Oregon this week visiting Zoe's nana and her dog, Tara.  Tara is a relatively new addition to Nana's family, and this was our first time meeting her.  Zoe and Tara fell in love immediately!

 Above, Zoe snuggles with Gracie, a dog belonging to Nana's friends Barbara and Judy.

Zoe enjoys walking Tara on the leash, and Tara is very patient and gentle with her.

Celebrating Sheila's 39th Birthday

Wedding dresses

 While we were at Ginnie's house for 4th of July, Ginnie got out her wedding dress and Arner Granner's wedding dress to show to the grandkids.  Zoe enjoyed trying on Baba's wedding dress.

Above, Emily wears Arner Granner's wedding dress, Sheila wears Ginnie's wedding dress, Zoe wears her flower girl dress (consignment store find) and Asher wears Zoe's Chinese outfit which was a birthday gift from Jane and David last year.  It was no surprise that the littlest Humphreys were the biggest fans of dressing up in fancy clothes.

Happy Canada Day!

 We celebrated Canada Day with Zoe's Canadian cousins.  We had a nice picnic in a garden in East Calais, VT, and Zoe ate a red, white, and blue 4th of July tart in honor of Canada Day. :-)

 We were all amazed by this giant plant called butterbur which was growing in the garden, and we got a little silly, as you can see:

 After the picnic, we stopped in Maple Corner, VT to check out this new sculpture.  A truck built entirely of rocks! Pretty cool.