CNY 2017

 

With adding some of the Chinese holidays to our regular holidays, it seems like there is always something to celebrate.  This year the first day of CNY also fell on Matthew's 4th family day, bonus!! We had family and friends over on that day for a Chinese dinner.  Last year, was my practice run so this year we added a few more people to the celebration.  We had dumplings, fried rice, noodles, egg rolls, crab Rangoon, lettuce wraps, green beans and egg drop soup.  Thankfully I didn't have to make all of this, since everyone brought something.  I finally invested in some nice red tablecloths (albeit they are Christmas, but they fit the bill for CNY).  I have been able to reuse decorations from each year, so that makes it even easier.  

 

Is this Shelby or Kelly???

        

After our dinner, we played bingo.  The prizes were snacks we picked out from the Asian grocery store.  Some prizes were definitely winners and others not so much.  We had shrimp crackers, melon flavored gum, seaweed Lays chips, dried tamarind candy, haw flakes to name a few.  

We also celebrated a CNY lunch with our local adoption group.  Shelby joined us this year and was able to help me with the crafts.  Grace and Matt since have a strong affinity to noodles and rice, but their taste buds have really adapted more to American food. It doesn't seems that Asian food is their favorite anymore.  Surprisingly Grace is now the more adventurous eater, she prefers vegetable and fruit over meat anyday.  

I know our Chinese celebrations are very far from what they would be experiencing in China, but even the "Chinglish" version is always better than nothing. Matt and grace have adapted so well, it's easy to forget this whole other part of them.  As they get older, I know it will be harder for them trying to figure out where exactly they fit in.  We have been blessed with very diverse cultures in the little kid's schools and even our new church.  

We rarely get questioned about their backgrounds or if they are our children.  Adoption and multicultural families are not too uncommon here.  However, in the fall, we travelled back closer to where we grew up, as soon as we stepped foot into the first public place, we had questions asked to us about them being adopted and where they were from.  At this point in their lives, Grace and Matt seem comfortable with us answering questions.  They are very proud of their Chinese heritage and even being adopted -  I want them to stay that way, but I know this is going to be hard.