{Celebrate China} Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Our Spring Festival celebration has gotten off to a fabulous start!  We spent Friday with our dear friends dressing up in our Chinese silks and makings lots and lots of jiaozi!  I mixed up chicken, turkey, and beef fillings.  The turkey was definitely the favorite - it was mixed with Chinese cabbage and hen hao chi (literally meaning " very good eat").  If you are looking for some amazing jiaozi recipes, I highly recommend the cookbook, Asian Dumplings.  You won't be disappointed!  We did attempt to make our own dumpling wrappers but I gotta say, it's not my favorite thing.  Sweetie was able to do something with the dough when she came home from school, but we ended up with wrappers that were a bit too thick.  I think I'm sticking with the pre-made ones from the Asian market from now on, ha!

For dinner on Saturday night, I made my most favorite Chinese dish, Kung Pao Chicken.  I had never made it before, but I am thrilled with how it turned out!  I followed the recipe from RasaMalaysia exactly, except for adding thinly sliced carrots.  Even Sweetie had only good things to say, she loved it!  I also picked up a couple pork and salted egg-stuffed zong zi (a traditional dish served during Dragon Boat Festival, but available all year).  Yum.

{Celebrate China} Her Birth Heritage

I can remember our China trip to adopt Sunshine like it was yesterday.  If I close my eyes, I can remember stepping off the plane, smelling "China", and hearing people speak Mandarin everywhere.  The food, oh the delicious food.  Making a fool out of myself trying to eat with chopsticks.  The hustle and bustle of everyday China going on around me.  The young children following after their mamas in split pants.  The food carts and street vendors.  The sweet little stores.  Chinese flute music.  The stunning architecture.  The lanterns hanging everywhere.  People willing to help in any way they could.  A country so beautifully alive and rich in culture.  A country I fell in love with.  The country where my precious daughter was born.

Before our adoption trip, I didn't realize how naive I was about my understanding of China.  I knew I was born in the year of the monkey on the zodiac calendar, but didn't know anything about celebrating Spring Festival.  I knew the basic things you learn in school about China, knowledge that is so limited and without a true appreciation of the country.  I didn't know much else about China except for how to say "nĭ hăo" and "zài jiàn" in an obvious American accent.  I didn't truly know the culture.  The holidays.  The traditions.  The language.  I didn't know why I needed to know.  I didn't realize how important it was for me to embrace my daughter's birth heritage.  But being in China was the beginning of a transformation for me.

I fell in love with China.  It has a beautiful culture to be celebrated.  As Sunshine's mama, I tried to learn everything I could about China while we were in country.  I took thousands of pictures to help me remember.  And through the years of being her mama, I have yearned to learn even more.  To joyfully embrace the culture that my daughter was born in and came to us from.  To find out about her beginnings as much as I can.

Why?

Because she needs to know who she is, where she came from.  Her Chinese heritage is a vital part of who she is and should be honored.  She is Chinese and American.  Both cultures make up the person she is growing into.  Neglecting to teach her about either one is a disservice, to her and to our family.  In order for her to know herself, she needs to know China.  Our family needs to know China.  To joyfully embrace it.  The holidays.  The traditions.  The language.  The beautifully rich culture.

Her Chinese heritage has become a part of our family, and I'm so thankful for that.  Although our household is American, China is very much alive also.  Sunshine has blessed us by being our daughter and sister, and also by sharing a culture we didn't know we'd adore so much.  We have more reason to celebrate holidays and be with family because of her birth heritage.  More reason to share traditional Chinese stories, learn the Mandarin tones, and sing "Liăng Zhī Láo Hŭ."  More reason to learn how to cook new foods, steam dumplings, and decorate for Spring Festival.  More reason to be forever connected to the country that is my daughter's birth heritage, to honor where she came from.

I am thrilled that tomorrow is a dumpling making day.  All day long.  And all the kids will join in on the fun, and we're bringing a couple friends along for the ride too.  It's a family and friend affair, one that is sure to be enjoyed by everyone.  We will be celebrating Spring Festival for the next 15 days in American Chinese fashion, with food, hóngbāo, music, crafts, and a very large FCC New Year party to round off the festivities.   Xīn nián kuài lè!  Mǎ nián dàjí, my friends!  Let the celebration begin!

A 10 degree swing

Did you know that it is in the realm of sorta-maybe common for your child to have a 10 degree temperature swing when she's working through a virus?  No?  Yeah, me neither.  Until yesterday.  After hitting 105.5 degrees (which in itself can be scary), 24 hours later Sunshine's temperature was registering at 95 degrees.  Yikes.  Surprisingly, the 95 degree reading was much more worrisome to me than the 105.5.  With Sunshine generally running high temperatures when sick, it's very common to see those types of readings.  But the 95 degree temp?  Yeah that one freaked me out. A quick call and then visit to the doctor revealed that she was just dealing with a virus and her temperature swing was nothing too serious to worry about.  Geez.  I'm hoping this is the most excitement we have this season in sicknesses!

New Year's Eve at the beach

I am a week late in posting about our celebration with good friends at the beach ... we couldn't have asked for anything better to ring in 2014!  Lots of silliness, delicious crab cakes (pizza for the kids), fun decorations, hours of games, and just having a good time pretty much sums up the night.  It was a great party that I'm sure none of us will be forgetting.  What a blessing all of our friends are!

Christmas gatherings

I usually forget to pull my camera out during all of the Christmas festivities, especially because we host a lot of it.  I at least managed to snap group shots with the timer this year though.  There were a lot of laughs involved, but I think I managed to at least capture the people there :)  Christmas is my favorite holiday for many reasons, but I adore all the family time.  We spend two days together, and it's really just wonderful.  Lots of chatting, coffee, and eating.  Ohmygoodness, the food.  So. much. food.  We will have leftovers for awhile.  We are also still digging out, but I am beginning to see more of my floor.  It was a magical day for the kids, it's so fun to see Christmas through their eyes.

Visiting Washington DC

We had such a great day!  We took the kids to DC today to finish up our astronomy studies with a visit to the National Air & Space Museum.  We ALL had a blast.  I have such fond memories of the museum as a child, and today's experience was just as fantastic.  We hit the planetarium for a look into the planets and stars; and walked through all of the other exhibits as well.  I loved the Apollo exhibit, especially after just studying about the trips to the moon.  We ate a picnic lunch on the mall and then relaxed and hung out for awhile, soaking in the amazing 70 degree weather on the first day of winter.  We then took a long-ish walk to Chinatown which, unfortunately, was a bit lacking.  But at least we know for the future!  We ended the day with a funny self-family portrait in front of a very large mirror, and then headed home.  Everyone was exhausted, but I know this day will be talked about for years!  Such  terrific memories were made!

A Christmas Pinterest Success

I'm not quite sure what happened to December.  It has somehow managed to almost disappear without us doing any Advent or Christmas activities, aside from a very small amount of Bible study.  In fact, I don't really know what happened to September, October, or November either.  The whole first half of the school year has passed me by in the blink of an eye!  "Surviving" is the word that comes to mind when describing these last several months.  I'm hoping the new year brings less busyness and more opportunity for me to relax, read, and blog.  I've been neglecting my corner of the blogosphere and our family's virtual scrapbook, yikes!

We did manage to fit in a Christmas craft yesterday for our art lesson - pour pain Christmas ornaments.  I pulled the idea from Pinterest and am so thrilled with the results!  The cost of this project was only $1 for the ribbon I picked up in the dollar section at Target.  We had the glass balls and acrylic paints on hand already.  The kids picked their paint colors and then slowly poured the paint into the balls, letting the paint run together.  I helped the younger two, but Angel happily worked on the ornament herself.  She loved it so much, she wants to go buy more glass balls.  Aren't they cool?

Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le!

We had the honor of celebrating Sweetie's 17th birthday on Friday with her!  I've never put 17 candles on a cake before, it was so fun to see all of them lit up :)  I baked a Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake" with delicious chocolate fudge icing, and we practiced all day to sing Happy Birthday to her in Chinese. We also got her a few gifts, hoping to make the day special for her.  It must be difficult to be away from family and friends for such an important celebration.  I hope we made it a memorable day for her!  Sheng ri kuai le, Sweetie!