Happy Chinese New Year!!
This past weekend we hosted our first annual CNY party for Nova and her adorable friends who are also adopted from China. Aren’t they beautiful!
While Jeremy and I felt 100% self-aware of how white we are and clueless about Chinese New Year, we had a wonderful time jumping in, researching, learning and celebrating! We feel inspired that this new-to-us holiday tradition is something we can build on for the rest of our lives.
For our first celebration we started by decorating our home. We hung banners and lanterns and decorated our front door.
When we were in China in December I found this little red dress for Nova. It was fun to have something saved for the occasion. It even came with the little purse, which is was obsessed with!
Haha- this photo was clearly more for me. She was checking to see if there was any candy in her purse.
I found these red banners, lanterns and money envelopes on Amazon. The money envelopes were filled with gold chocolate coins for the kiddos.
I made a bracelet making station for the older kiddos, but even the tiny ones ended up joining in!
Willa’s ankle bracelet choice is a foreshadowing of her future style- I just know it.
We cooked a LOT of food. Jeremy made five different kinds of noodles, veggie and spicy dumplings and spring rolls. He tried to recreate my favorite noodle dish from China, but then I got so busy talking I didn’t even get a chance to try it- haha.
He tried to roast a duck to serve a traditional peking duck dinner (it’s really fun- we got it twice in China) but there as a learning curve- so we’ll try again next year. A++ for effort.
In this photo above Nova was stealing food from everyones plates, which I was told on Instagram is good luck… haha!
Oh- and if you’re curious about that champagne glass, let’s just say Katelyn and I added a little bit of our own menu to as well. 🙂
I love that when children come into our home Jeremy always encourages them to play the piano. They asked if they could come back for lessons- love it!
Here’s our little cutie with a post-nap yawn. She loved her dress!
We had such a fun time and I am happy that we now have a tradition we can continue as Nova grows up. Spending time with other adoptees her own age (ish) is a really important priority for our family. We feel so lucky to have made so many new friends in our area- we have Instagram to thank for most of these connections.
Thank you to Katelyn Fuson for the amazing photos (mixed with a few of my phone pics- you can tell haha) And thank you to our new friends for joining in the celebration- @helloettajoy, @marthabonneau and @whitneyc3.
If you’re curious about Chinese New Year, here are a few books we recommend! Ruby’s Chinese New Year, Bringing In The New Year and Dragon Dance. xx- Elsie, Jeremy + Nova
