Happy Chinese New Year!

Ok, so I am a little behind on this post. I have been busy with two invite orders (not including my own Valentine 'order' and haven't had as much time to write as usual.

Anyway...

Monday, January 29th was the first day of the Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Ox. I decided to try to incorporate some elements of the Chinese culture into our day. Even if Noah doesn't fully understand, or even if he doesn't remember specifics, at least we did something fun to break up the monotony of winter.

Here are the things we did that day to celebrate (in our own way, of course)

For lunch we had chicken potstickers and Mandarin oranges (ok, so the oranges are probably a stretch, but Noah loves them and I was grasping at straws to find something else to add to the plate!) I laced two chopsticks together with a rubberband so Noah could try his hand at using them. He actually didn't do to bad, he did actually make it to his mouth with the food a couple times!

After naptime I planned a craft. The dragon dance is used each year at the Chinese New Year celebration because it symbolizes the coming of good luck and success in the new year...Noah likes anything that resembles a dinosaur, so I thought he would enjoy making one.

I had great visions of the potential of this craft...that is usually when Noah has the least interest. This was also the case this day. We had a decent start, but Noah quickly puttered out and I had to finish the dragon myself. He did play with it quite a bit once I finished it, so it wasn't a total waste.

The following Sunday was the actual Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. We decided it might be fun to go check it out. We have been to Chinatown many times before (mainly to one particular shop where we buy inexpensive, live seafood (lobsters, crab, etc), wide rice noodles and spices, etc) but have never been to celebrate their new year.

Well, I underestimated the popularity of this event. Parking spots were not easy to come by, but we managed to find one not too far away. We found a decent spot along Wentworth Ave right where the parade would pass. It was a fairly quick, but good trip. A little cold, but fun.

Entrance to Chinatown - Wentworth and Cermak

Dragon Dance