"Friend Cafe"

Shane has such an amazing preschool teacher. She was such a blessing to us this year and just the teacher Shane needed. She has been so excited about Shane's new little brother that we are adopting from China. She put together a unit on China and Shane was so excited. Shane would wake up and ask if it was preschool day. When I would say yes he would say "Oh good I get to learn about my baby brother today!!" It was so fun to see the things that he learned and his excitement for the culture and country that his new brother is from. At the end of the unit they were going to go on a field trip to a ChineseRestaurant. The field trip fell through so Shane's teacher decided to have a Chinese Restaurantright in their classroom. It was called Peng You Cafe which means "Friend Cafe!" Shane was so excited for us to join him on this special day. It just so happened that a pipe by the girls school broke and the water was contaminated so school was canceled so the girls were able to come to the cafe as well. The girls were excited too!

Shane and some of his friends were busy in the kitchen making some stir fry!

MMMMM doesn't that look yummy!

The kids were served stir fry, rice, Mandarin oranges and of course tea. They also had the opportunity to try eating with chopsticks. It was fun watching all the kids try to carefully pick up their food or just try to stab it!

Alexa and Emma had fun too. Shane felt like such a big boy that the girls got to come to his school and be a part of his special day!

The kids also made homemade fortune cookies. Shane's teacher made fortunes for each of them to put inside the cookie. Shane's read "Shane, you are intelligent, kind and fun. You bring joy to so many and you will be the BEST big brother ever!"

What a fun morning!

Shane's teacher sent this special book home with him as a gift. She wrote a note to him inside. As I read to him the note that talked about what a great big brother he was going to be he was going to be he grinned from ear to ear.

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