Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Chinese New Year! The kids have been studying about the Chinese New Year for the past month and this weekend we topped off all their hard work with a cool field trip to Sacramento to see a CNY festival. They had dancing, singing, face painting, games....the whole nine yards. The kids thought that the dragon and lion dances were the best and that the Chinese opera singing wasn't really for them (I would have to agree with that). It was fun for me to teach them something new and I learned quite a few things along the way too.




For those of you that don't know- it is the year of the rabbit. We studied a little bit about rabbits as well



KJ did an excellent job writing facts about the CNY. We checked out about 20 books from the library that helped us learn lots




This is what Anton enjoyed doing while his sister's were painting



Paper plates are great for all kinds of art projects. The girls are busy painting their plates, soon they will be cute little rabbits






And there you have it, a cute little bunny



Chinese lanterns


Painting egg cartons to make our dragon











All the children get lucky red envelopes filled with money



Dig Raija, dig



Mom is cheap- so they each got a dollar and three chocolate gold coins
(the chocolate was an instant hit)









And now for the dinner portion of our studies and celebration!






Notice there are NO forks
I'm so proud of my family, they all ate with their chopstick without complaining, and surprisingly enough RJ took to it without much effort, she loved it-we all did.



Got fried rice? This is one of my favorite recipes, it always tastes d-lish






Anton is soooo excited for dinner
































All gone! Let's have dessert



Fortune cookies- How fun!









And oranges too- they bring joy, luck, and wealth



Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to Sacramento we go


The lion dancers were a lot of fun- we happened to be sitting in the middle next to an aisle so when the dancers came into the audience KJ, RJ and Anton got to touch them. Anton kept saying scary, me scared, but I think he liked it at the same time. They also had live amazing instrumental accompaniment while they were dancing.












The dragon dance



Did somebody say oragami?



cute, cute, little hands folding origami



Look mommy a boat



RJ decided to make the traditional swan



Hello Kitty face painting






Martial Arts dancing