Chinese New Year

Ever since I gained a sister-in-law from China a few years ago I have been learning a lot about Chinese culture, language, and holidays.  Thus, it caught my eye when a local Children's Museum was hosting a Chinese New Year celebration.  We invited Ping (my SIL) and her family to join us and it was a really fun event!  They had a full schedule of events celebrating the year of the Rabbit.  Everything from chopstick lessons and free chinese food to getting your own name in Chinese calligraphy on a bookmark to a traditional Chinese New Year music and dance show! Sadly I didn't get a ton of pics of the littler cousins but here are some shots we did snag.

Sadie was a Baby Bjorn hero and enjoyed the sights and sounds of all the big kids running around

Ella was SO nervous to walk on this rope bridge (it was 3 stories up) but brave with me in front and Aunt Stacy behind.  She did it!

In every kids museum I'm a sucker for the water play area.  This was no exception-it was so much fun! And this one had raincoats and crocs you could wear and then a full body dryer to use when you were done!

I watched a bunch of kids get this bubble to their knees and then Chris my nephew tries and voila! full body bubble!

I love that Ella sticks her tongue out when she's concentrating :-)

The Chinese Dragon Dance/Show was awesome! 

There were 3 guys underneath making the dragon "dance" and they had to keep switching out, presumably because it looked like an insane workout and they needed a break!

Artsy-Craftsy

We've been rather crafty lately. We made necklaces at a new bead place in town today, puppets yesterday, and lots of play doh this week. I'm hoping to continue with this trend because we both really enjoy these projects so it's good bonding time.




A couple days ago when we were playing with play doh we were making animals and Ella was putting each one on a circle on the placemats we were using and calling it our "zoo." I just kept cranking out the animals and giving them to her until I noticed the zoo was getting smaller not larger. I asked her what she was doing and she explained that she was squishing all of the animals now to make dumplings. I had never heard her talk about dumplings before but I asked some questions and eventually found out that she learned how to make them from "Yeh-Yeh" (the grandpa) one of her favorite shows "NiHao Kai Lan." We talked about how Aunt Ping is from China just like Kai Lan and she agreed that Ping makes very good dumplings too. We spent about 30 minutes having our "dumpling party" with her play doh creations. That girl cracks me up!