Chinese New Year

We celebrated Chinese New Year a little late this year because it fell on the same weekend as our Gotcha Day and Grommy's Birthday celebrations, so we planned our party for the next weekend.  Miles and Sam were working on their Cars puzzles before the party got started while I was getting everything ready.  Kevin took a picture of Miles hard at work!

While I was getting ready for the party, I saw this cake on a fellow adoptive mommy's fb status.  I decided that we had to make it because it was, after all, the year of the dragon this year!  It was only hours before the party though, so I had to improvise! I was already headed to the store for a few things, and I picked up some already made angel food cakes to use as the dragon's body.  So, it was pretty simple.  One cake that I saw was covered in yellow m&m's that looked like scales.  It was awesome!

We love CNY because it means we get a chance to get together with our families and we always love that
!!

We LOVE that the Paredeses were able to join us and celebrate CNY with us!  Max and Jason both came in their super authentic garb that they got while in China getting Max!!!

Grant found our treasure hidden in one of the dumplings.  Traditions says that he gets an extra red envelope for finding it, which he did!!!

Sam and Miles were demonstrating some of their crazy dance party skills!

Todd joined the dance craze!

GPK took on the role of the dragon and the boys attacked him!!

We made dragon puppets for our parade and these kiddos were hard at work!

 Claire made hers in Baylor colors, so it was beloved by lots of our party-goers!  The Goods and the Paredeses both have serious allegiance to those Bears!

 Next up, we wrote our wishes on strips to tack onto our oranges.  We throw them into the trees.  The word "orange" in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for "good luck!"

 Maddy's orange in mid-flight!

 Time for the dragon parade.  Laney didn't want to be the leader of the parade, so we asked Max to take the lion puppet and lead our parade!

 Once again, Todd joined in as a rather creepy dragon at the back of the parade!

 Time for red envelopes stuffed with brand new one dollar bills!

 And finally, we shot confetti poppers, our version of CNY fireworks!

 Todd is re-enacting one of our favorite pictures of Jack making a silly face last year at our party.  Jack is such a good sport!!

 Miles brought GPK into his room to show off his big boy bed and bedding that Bobbis and GPK got for them.  Todd has been working on their room since our foundation was repaired, patching all the cracks and repainting.  He has painted their beds too and added some wooden paneling.  It is so cute.  The brothers room is finally nearing completion, they have certainly waited long enough!