Chinese/Lunar New Year 2011-Family Celebration

Last Friday night we celebrated as a family of 4, Chinese/Lunar New Year. Why am I using both words (Chinese & Lunar)? Because China calls it Chinese New Year & Korea calls it Lunar New Year. Both countries celebrate the same holiday, just calling it by a different name. And it is celebrated for 2 weeks, so we were not really "late" in our celebration. We had a great time. Kylee, Keller & Mommy had done several crafts over the past several weeks in prep for our party. Mommy cooked, but I did not go to as much trouble as last year. My mother-in-law was here last year & we spent a whole day preparing different foods. It is kind of like preparing a Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings all by your self...too much work. But can be fun when done with others. Anyway, we almost always do stir-fry type dishes with rice when we have Chinese or Korean food. I wanted to do something a little different. And noodles are a traditional new year dish. So I made Chicken LoMein. We also had edamame, dumplings (not made from scratch) & sweet rice balls for dessert. Everyone gobbled it down & we still had some leftovers for the next day. After dinner the kids opened their red envelopes. It is tradition to give red envelopes to the children filled with coins. I filled ours with gold coin chocolates & quarters. Then we headed outside to light & release our Chinese Lantern.