Chinese New Year Stuff

So this is the Year of the Rabbit. And we juuuust so happen to have the adorable rabbit sweatshirt hoodie for Hanna. It used to be her cousin's...6 years ago! Of course when we went to visit my father-in-law for Chinese New Year, I just *had* to put it on her. Isn't she cute?

I really like this picture because I think it captures the essence of a four-year-old. I can see all you moms out there nodding your heads!

Doesn't Thomas look just like his Dad?

And nothing like his brother?

Hanna really took to my brother-in-law. I think she could sense that he's gonna be a daddy again, soon :) Or it could be that she just prefers slightly chubby men ;) Seriously, though, she really does; Maya was the same way when she was little.

Thomas may look like his Dad, but he'd never be caught dead doing this:


My father-in-law is an awesome cook. I have much to learn from him.


And here is my niece and sister-in-law. That baby boy bump is due very soon. I'm so excited; I can't wait to be an aunt again!!!


Maya doing what she loves best.

Earlier we made chun lian. They are red strips of paper with auspicious phrases written on them; you post them around the entrances to your house to ward off the "Year Beast". The story says he wakes up only once a year to eat (people), but he'll stay away from your house if you post chun lian around your door because he is afraid of the color red.

First I painted the characters on my paper, and Maya copied me. Then we added some glitter glue and shiny bows. The results are really cute.

Showing off her chun lian. For those of you who read Chinese, can you tell what they say?

The one on the left is mine; the right is hers. Not bad for four-years old. Chinese is a hard language to write.

Hanna wanted to display some of them, too.

By the way, I just wanted to explain the one of the left because it's pretty funny. This one is supposed to say "Da Jia Gong Xi". But "Xi" is a really hard character to write. So I substituted a smiley face because it has the same sound, "Xi". You can see Maya's smiley face at the bottom, with a huge open mouth with spots inside. When I asked her what the spots were, she said, "He's eating cookies!" Hahahaha!

And this is kind of random, but I just wanted to post this before I forgot. I was totally shocked to see this on Maya's school paper:

Those blue pen marks are Maya trying to write her Chinese name, which is really challenging. The first character is scratchy, but she pretty much nailed the second character. She did this just from looking at a sticker with her name on it. Way to go, Maya!!!