Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is big in our house and this year was awesome!!! From our trip to Chinatown to our little celebration at home...

On the 'real deal' (as Abigail calls it) we had the yummiest (not your average yucky take out) Chinese food ever.  And grandparents over sure made it a party.  The girls wore their China silks and we decorated the house.











Grandpa tells the best "make up stories" to get Abigail to eat... we're always trying to get Abigail to eat. 


Anna's Aunite Jackie made such an amazing gift for her this year.



She created this box



Year of the horse.




And it was filled with fabric, handmade fortune cookies.



Each had their own special message to Anna... lovingly written by her Aunt.  Ammmmmazing!  Even Abigail got a gold box with one fortune inside made by her cousin.







Written to Abigail by her cousin


Sweetest gift ever!

We gave the girls bracelets with their Chinese middle names on them.  Anna's Chinese middle name is Jiang Qian.  It was her name given to her upon arrival at her orphanage.  All of the girls that arrived around the same time had Jiang as part of their name.  Jiang mean river.  The orphanage is in a huge city but the city is near a very important river.  And Qian means beautiful.  When we were in China "Qian, Qain" as they called her was often taken from my arms by strangers wherever we went.  She was extremely unusual looking for the part of China that we were in.  For a Chinese girl she has very pale skin, light light brown highlights in her hair instead of the dark dark black hair and she had chubby cheeks and a huge face... really unheard of for a Chinese baby.  "Oh she's so beautiful...." people would tell me in China.  (we had a translator of course)  And I got used to others wanting to hold her at museums, zoos, airports... where ever we were in China.  Before we even traveled to China we knew we wanted to keep her 'given' name.  It was all she had left of her life in her birth country.  We really felt that we just had no right to take it away from her and pick a 'cute' American middle name.



When I found out we were expecting Abigail we knew that we wanted to her him or her a Chinese middle name.  So when a little girl arrived we knew that Anna had a little 'mei, mie'  Mei Mei in Chinese means 'little sister'.  And her Chinese middle name couldn't fit our little Irish looking girl better!  We just love it!



Cards and gifts from grandparents..



Oh it was a special day!

We adore you Anna Jian Qian.  My how you've changed over the years.  We love looking back at Chinese New Years past.



For our little family just the word China pulls at our heartstrings.  We will forever love that country.  It is part of our lives.  With great respect will honor it as best we can.