The Year of the Snake

Happy Chinese New Year!  Here we are again for another new year, and as you can see above, it's the Year of the Snake.  Madison looks just lovely in her new Chinese dress, and there behind her is one of her new friends, Viper, from "Kung Fu Panda."  This is our official card for the year, a tradition that goes back to 2009, when we celebrated the Year of the Ox.  We had Madison dressed in a cow outfit, which was pretty cute!

Because it was Chinese New Year, we had some gifts for Madison - another small tradition.  You can see the small presentation below:

Mushu is a new acquisition from the Disney Store - we recently picked him up as we were shopping last week.  The Mulan Deluxe Warrior Training Set, however, has been hidden away for several years. We had this long before we met Madison, holding on to it for some day when we'd actually be able to give it to our Chinese daughter.  It isn't much, but it does say "China" all over it, of course.  Yeah, it was probably made in China too!  She was playing with these toys on the kitchen table for a good part of the morning, which was fun.  Finally, towards the right you can another great tradition:  the red envelope!

Madison is happy about this one because it has Minnie Mouse on it.  We ordered that one a few weeks ago, and it looks great!  But she's also happy about what's inside, of course.  There we found chocolate coins, and this year:  some real coins, for ice cream money!

Madison stuffed a few envelopes this morning, so we'll be handing those out tomorrow.  We'll be getting more chocolate coins this week, so we can give them out to our family members later on.

She spent the morning watching some Chinese specials, such as Kai-Lan and Mulan, but this morning, it was also time to say goodbye to Nana and Ba-Ba once more.  It was a short week for them, but they'll be back within a couple weeks for just a few more appointments.  We'll have more time with them at that time, which will be better!

Today, Daddy spent a lot of time at work, which is sort of the norm for Saturdays.  We'll have another great service tomorrow, but we'll certainly get some rest after that.  Also, we'll get some time together as a family.  Hopefully, we can go out to eat some place Chinese.  Daddy's got a hankering for some more dumplings!