Autumn Moon Festival

     This is the weekend of the Autumn Moon Festival, a harvest festival celebrated in China.  

It is also called 中秋節, but "Autumn Moon Festival" is easier to pronounce!

     Mommy and Daddy feel it is very important to keep Madison in touch with her Asian roots - for example, we took her to the Chinese New Year celebration in January.  We also went to the Dragon Boat Festival last month, of course.

     This morning, Daddy read her "Round is a Mooncake," a book of shapes that also features the Chinese Autumn Moon Festival and other cultural events too.  It's a nice book to read, one we've had for a few years - we got this book long before we met Madison.   We've been collecting these books for years, and it is such a delight to be able to pull them out and finally read them to her.  She's anxious to hear them too - she'll drag Mommy or Daddy over to the reading chair and hand a book to us letting us know it is time to hear a story.

     One big part of the Autumn Moon Festival are moon cakes, a special treat to celebrate the occasion.  In place of the traditional moon cakes, Mommy has prepared Moonpies that we found at Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago!

     Another part of the celebration involves paper lanterns, which Mommy and Daddy made with Madison for her to hand to Nana and Ye-Ye.  We went over to their house before bed and spent  some time together, talking and eating Moonpies. 

     Madison says the word "moon" when she sees it in the evening sky.  It was full and bright this evening - and yes, quite round.

Round is a mooncake
Round is the moon
Round are the laterns outside my room

Good night, Moon!