Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year fell on the same week we had two days off school due to extreme weather conditions. So our festivities stretched the whole week.


We started by making Chinese lanterns. Katherine found a YouTube video on how to make origami swans and became a pro at that as well.

The next day we made fortune cookies. They are a trick to make well, but usually by the third or fourth batch we hit our rhythm. It's good (in some ways) that each batch is just 3 cookies. I love the progression of fortunes from year to year. Two years ago our fortunes were things one might really hope would happen. Last year they were outlandish. This year they were 'Googled'. Yes, we have children old enough and 'smart' enough to know that you can and should Google everything!

Here's a sampling:

Meh!

Confucious Say, "If you think we are going to sum up your whole life on this little slip of paper, your nuts!"

Don't eat any Chinese food today or you'll be very sick!

You will read this and say, "I could have come up with a better fortune than that!"

Well, we didn't save all of the fortunes from this year, but that's the flavor of our Googled Fortunes of 2011. Happy New Year!

The kids also pulled out our Chinese Jump Rope and tried that a little.

On the true Chinese New Year Day we had our chinese food dinner. This year I made Chicken Lo Mein, Beef with Broccoli, and Tiny Spicy Chicken all from scratch. It was a lot of work, but a fun tradition and very tasty! It was fun to have the house decorated with our lanters and swans as well as true Chinese New Year decorations that my folks brought us from their mission to Malaysia. We were very festive this year. Katherine even dressed up for the occasion.

Since I ran out of time Thursday night to also make egg rolls, we had them for an after school snack on Friday before James left to go camping with the scouts. That night after James was gone, I took the kids to spend their dollar at the dollar store. Traditionally I give the kids the kids $1.25 in a red envelope, but this year, we just went to the dollar store and didn't manage red envelopes with Kanji characters on them. Oh well!

There it is, our Chinese New Year tradion in review.