Guo Nian Hao!

Happy Chinese New Year! Slowly, but surely we are getting the hang of celebrating this holiday...We took it to a whole new level this year - I actually cooked the food - Yep, you read that right - I braved the unknown! Falling into old habits, I lost my "focus" last night... At dinner last night, Mike and I had decided what we would be ordering from our local chinese food place and had figured out the logistics of getting it home. Well, at 8:30 last night, you know who (me) finds a site with all sorts of cool stuff...Before I knew it, I had made my grocery list and was determined to cook the food myself, I was printing lucky money red envelopes (the plain red ones were no longer fine), I was on a chair hanging red and yellow lanterns in the kitchen, and I was digging through the books for the Chinese New Year books. See.... Here is the proof - I need to focus!
Today, I dove right in - after a trip to the grocery store with all 3 kids because this was so unplanned - and made homemade spring rolls/egg rolls, cashew chicken, sweet and sour chicken, and rice! We even had fortune cookies and tangerines (symbolize good health and long life). Luckily, the kids do not know the difference between tangerines and oranges - I couldn't bring myself to buy the tangerines at the grocery store as the looked gross! How do they expect us to have good health and long life with nasty looking tangerines? ;o)
Since we had yet another snow day we got to do several things to celebrate: Watched Big Bird Goes to China, colored some Chinese New Year coloring pages, read several China and Chinese New Year books, and created fireworks with watercolors and a straw. Morgan also gave a spontaneous little geography lesson showing Rylee where everyone in the family was born.
Whew! I am exhausted! Next year, my goal is to learn how to make homemade fortune cookies. A few photos from the day...