One More Celebration

We found ourselves having so much fun celebrating Chinese New Year this year.  We had so many amazing groups of people that have touched our lives on our journey to Max and after.  One of those groups that we look forward to spending time with is other adoptive families. 

This is the second year that we have gotten together with a group of other families that have adopted from China.  There was a family that is in process to bring their little girl home that also joined us this year. They drove over an hour.  I love seeing how God continues to connect us with new families that are on this journey. 

We again brought dishes to share and weren't quite as intimidated to bring our attempt at Chinese food or even bring take out.  I have to say we had a really tasty buffet of Chinese food! 

It was fun to connect with old families and meet new families.  There was a lot of story telling and reminiscing of China.  We shared joys and struggles that we had in process and now being at home.  It is so great to be able to connect with other families on this journey. I also love seeing our kids together.

The kids dressed up in their Chinese silks again! 

The kids had a blast together and played hard.

These 3 little boys all were adopted through our agency within about a year and a half of each other. 

Are they not the cutest? 

The kids hooked scooters together to make a train!  It looks like they are all taking the train to China! 

We had another great night celebrating Max's culture with special families.  We can't wait until next year! 

A Celebration

When we went to China we fell in love with the Chinese culture and the people.  We have always wanted to take part of Max's culture and integrate it into our family. We also have wanted to be able to share his culture with friends and family.  We decided January would be the perfect time to do that with our family.  This year January is when the Chinese people celebrate Chinese New Year.  It is the largest celebrated Chinese holiday.  We thought it would be fun to share the customs and food of Chinese New Year with our family and also celebrate Max's 1 Year Anniversary of being in our family! 

This year is the Year of the Dragon so we hung the dragon from the ceiling. 

We spent a large part of the day preparing food.  We are rookies when it comes to Chinese cooking.  I will say it is a little bit hard to entertain a large group of people with a large amount of Chinese food because everything is cooked fresh and it is hard to make things ahead of time.  I really should have gotten a picture of the stove and all the dishes.  I think we used every pan in our house. 

I wish I would have gotten a picture before we all dug in but it was  little bit of a blur as we finished up the food prep and tried to get it all on the table at the same time.  The girls helped make fruit kabobs that we put into a fun arrangement in the empty pineapple.  We also had dumplings and spring rolls. 

We made a chicken dish to make lettuce wraps. We also made pork to put in buns that resembled one of Eric's favorite dishes in China "the Chinese hamburger" well at least that is what we called it.

Our main dishes were beef and broccoli and orange chicken that we served with rice.

The Chinese don't eat a lot of dessert.  We usually had fruit at the end of our meal for dessert in China.  We decided to have some cupcakes for a treat.

The kids had fun trying to teach their cousins how to use chopsticks. 

Max enjoyed his food!

It was fun watching everyone try out the chopsticks. 

It was fun to have everyone over to celebrate! We had a dinning room full and in this picture Eric's sister and husband and kids are missing.  They decided to venture up in the snow and got to our house after we started and I had snapped the picture.  

Happy Gotcha Day Anniversary Max!

We finished the evening with sharing a book about the Chinese traditions of the Chinese New Year.  The kids handed out some bracelets and notebooks to their cousin.

The kids also got to take a Red Envelope home with a special treat in side!

We put together this video of our journey to Max to share with our family.  

We feel so blessed by all their love and support on our journey.  It was fun to share some of the Chinese culture and traditions with them. 

Happy Chinese New Year

The local Chinese Community puts on a large Chinese New Celebration in our time.  We had received an invitation to come to the celebration.  We went with our good friends who have also adopted from China.  There were numerous other adoptive families as well.

It was a family style pot luck and were advised to take pizza or pasta salad rather than Chinese food.  The Chinese woman who emailed my friend advised us to let them take care of making the Chinese food.  I thought that was pretty cute! We all enjoyed the various Chinese and American food! 

These two are quite the pair and thought they would get serious when I took their picture! 

Shane enjoying a brownie.

Miss Samantha enjoying her night out!

The girls had fun putting on their Chinese silks.

Max hanging out with his buddy Jarrod!

Max went through his fair share of oranges!

Then it was time for the entertainment. The Dancing Dragon was a huge hit with the kids.

Some of the kids from the Chinese school sang some songs and recited some poems.

There was sword fighting ....

and Tai Chi.

It local Chinese community was so welcoming.  It was fun to be able to experience this with our family. I know it is something we will look forward to in the years to come.

Happy Chinese New Year

I met Troy and Diane on our agency forum last fall and followed them on their journey to China to get their sweet little boy Aiden. It was fun to connect with another family that was in the process of bringing home a little boy from China. To top it off they also lived in Sioux Falls. They were planning a Chinese New Year Celebration with other families that had adopted from China for the week after we got home with Max. We were hoping we would be up for celebrating with them.

I wish I would have taken more pictures at the beginning of the night but we were busy meeting each other and getting all the kids fed. I wish I had a picture of all the kids sitting and standing around the table and eating. It was quite a crew. There were 5 other families that we met and celebrated the Chinese New Year with.

Max was adjusting so well and made the transition to home like a champ. We felt like adjusting to life with 4 kids and throwing in a huge time change life seemed about as easy as it could be. We were excited that we felt up for getting together with other families to celebrate. The kids were very excited to put their Chinese dresses and Kung Fu outfits (that is what Shane calls it at least) on.

Alexa and sweet Meili. Alexa was in Meili's brother's preschool class a couple years ago when his family traveled to China to bring Meili home. We followed them on their journey and I have pictures of her when they first were home with her and she came on a field trip. Meile and Shane are now in the same preschool class. Meile and her best friend Betsy have already claimed Max as their boyfriend and they have decided they are going to share him as a husband. They are so cute!

This is Max with sweet little Peter. I think they could be brothers. Peter goes to our church so it will be fun to see them grow up together.

Troy and Diane got party poppers in place of traditional fireworks they set off in China. The kids had so much fun. I love this picture of the kids in action.

Shane was in his glory with these fun little things.

Emma was a little on the nervous side. She wasn't so sure what was going to happen.

The kids had so much fun!

What a great night of fun celebrating the Chinese New Year.

And here is the gang! What a bunch of kids! We can't wait to spend more time with these wonderful families in the months and years to come!

Chinese New Year Ideas and Web Sites

I had a couple people e-mail and ask me where I found some of the printables and crafts for our Chinese New Year celebration. Hope you enjoy!

Dragon Puppet

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/chinese-new-year/printable/37332.html

Chinese Lantern

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesenewyear/lantern/

Lucky Money Envelopes - I printed the tiger one on red paper to make it a red envelope

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/printable_lucky_money_envelopes.htm

Chinese Number Symbols

http://www.edhelper.com/ChineseNumbersH1.htm

Chinese Symbols or Character Cards

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese_character_cards.htm

Coloring Printables

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese_new_year_coloring.htm

This web site had tons of fun ideas

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese_new_year.htm

Happy Chinese New Year

Eric and I are so excited about our trip to China to get our little boy. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him, pray for him, wonder what he is doing, what he looks like and all those things that are a great mystery to us but not to our Heavenly Father who has orchestrated this whole process. The kids continue to embrace this journey we are on. They daily ask questions and pray for him. It is fun to see them process and ask questions. Eric and I are excited to bring various Chinese customs and traditions into our home. We hope in time we can share some of these with family and friends as well.

The Chinese New Year is the most important holiday to the people of China. It is a 15 day celebration of a lot of food, parades, fireworks and special gifts. This year the Chinese New Year started on February 14. The date of the Chinese New Year changes every since it is based on the lunar year. The Chinese calender follows a 12-year pattern and each year it is named after an animal. This year it is the Year of the Tiger.

Since the kids didn't have school today we spent a good chunk of the day reading books, making crafts and preparing for our first Chinese New Year Celebration.

The girls had fun coloring a variety of different printables that I found.

We also made some red envelops which I will explain later in the post.

The kids had fun making a dragon puppet. The Chinese dragon comes out and dances and weaves through the streets during the parade. The dragon brings wisdom, wealth and happiness.

The kids then were busy making Chinese lanterns to decorate the table. Alexa wanted to draw Chinese symbols on her lantern so we found some to print off.

Shane got busy drawing a picture of his brother on his lantern.

Emma added some Chinese number symbols to her lantern.

The kids were very excited how they turned out. The quickly ran upstairs to put them on the table.

We got the tea pot and the tea cups out for dinner. Shane could hardly wait for Eric to get home to have some tea. He took one sip and decided it wasn't what he expected.

Oranges and tangerines are a big part of the Chinese New Year celebration. Since oranges are China's most plentiful fruit, food prepared with oranges symbolizes wealth and good fortune. So oranges were part of our dinner.

We also had Chinese Orange Chicken, Shrimp and Orange skewers, carrots and rice. We were going to have Chinese long noodles which represent longevity in life but I couldn't find the recipe I had found earlier in the day for them.

The kids had so much fun trying to figure out how to use chop sticks. Alexa kept giggling!

Eric was giving us all lessons.

Emma trying to figure it out with a big smile!

Shane thought if he had his mouth wide open it just might help him. The kids were a riot to watch but I have to admit I was the first one to put the chop sticks down and use my fork.

After dinner the kids were excited to open their fortune cookies and read them.

We finished the evening with the kids opening their red envelopes. The kids are all given red envelopes, or hong baos. They are filled with "lucky money" for a rich New Year.

Inside were some yummy chocolate coins.

We had a fun day learning about the Chinese culture, reading books, making crafts, eating yummy food but most of all laughing and enjoying our dinner as a family. We talked about how we hope next Chinese New Year we will have one more sweet little boy at our table celebrating with us! It will make our celebration so much sweeter!

Gung hay fat choy

Happy Chinese New Year