5,000 sky lanterns...a glimpse into heaven...

I had a wonderful time visiting Josie's classroom to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.   Everyone seem to enjoy their chocolate covered fortune cookies and coloring their moon cake pages.  

Later Friday evening we went downtown to participate in the "Lights in the Night" for ArtPrize 2012. Picture over 5,000 sky lanterns being launched simultaneously.  We got to the park early to pick a spot and enjoy the scenery along the grand river.


It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever participated in.

Josie kept saying this might be what heaven looks like.  

I couldn't agree more. 

Mid-Autumn Festival - Moon Festival

For the last few years, I've gone into Josie's preschool or elementary school to share a lesson plan on the Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival.  

This year's festival begins September 30th and I will be stopping by her 1st grade classroom for a a brief lesson Friday afternoon. To better understand the holiday, think of it as a mix of a harvest celebration as well as a culinary celebration all mixed together as a family reunion. There are also several myths which you can explore further here.   Many of my adoptive friends describe it as a "Chinese Thanksgiving" which is how I'm going to explain it during our anticipatory set to kick off the lesson.  

 One of the most important traditions during this celebration is the giving and eating of moon cakes.


This delicacy is definitely an acquired taste, so I'll be bringing chocolate covered fortune cookies for our classroom snack.

As you can imagine, Josie is very excited to share her cultural traditions with her new classmates.

Wishing you a Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival!
 

Mid-Autumn Festival & Sky Lanterns

It was non-stop fun this past weekend. In fact, I have a slew of pictures to edit over this week. On Saturday night, we enjoyed our belated mid-autumn festival with another adoptive family. We had a lovely dinner and then came back to our house to light sky lanterns in our backyard.

The anticipation was very very exciting!!

Although my camera really struggles in low light conditions, the night was truly magical. Believe me, our short video really does it better justice than the pictures I ended up taking with the flash.

The smiles on their faces says it all.

We will definitely be purchasing sky lanterns for Chinese New Year in January.

XOXO

♥

Crafting , Celebrating & Remembering...

Over the weekend, we glued and stenciled things.

We sometimes used stickers.

The glitter was definitely out in full force.

Even Penny got involved in our crafting.

Overall,we made a HUGE mess.

And we had loads of fun.

While the girls were working on their own creations, I put together all kinds of Halloween ideas to share over the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

For my adoptive friends, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

We are planning on Josie bringing in her mooncake mold and special book to kindergarten this week.

We have purchased environmentally friendly sky lanterns to celebrate with later this week.

For the families and friends who lost loved ones in 9/11,
we will be thinking of you as we light our sky lanterns.
We have not forgotten.
XOXO

♥

Celebrating Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

For my adoptive blogging friends, I'm wondering how you will be celebrating Mid-Autumn Moon Festival? I tried to get a group of adoptive families together, but our schedules are just too crazy to coordinate right now. Love ya, friends!! I hope we can connect at our upcoming Halloween party.

I'm definitely going to borrow some ideas from this blog for Josie's preschool class. I am also planning on sending this book to school with Josie.

Because moon cakes are an acquired taste (and that's being polite) I'm sending sugar cookies with Josie to preschool.

You can find a moon cake and tea coloring page here. I picked up red paper lanterns at our local dollar store and had Josie decorate them with gold star stickers and tissue paper streamers. Any chance to use scissors, stickers and tape makes her very happy.

I added Chinese take-out containers to our garland.

We're going back to our favorite local Chinese restaurant Wednesday night to celebrate.

Here's a short video that talks about moon cakes and lanterns.



Wishing your family a Happy Moon Festival!

Moon Festival Pictures & Halloween Hat Winners!

We are so blessed to have so many wonderful adoptive families living in our area.  I hope our girls enjoy these friendships as much as the adults enjoy these gatherings.We had a wonderful Moon Festival celebration.

Drum roll please…..Red Mary Janes and Lili-bug are the fabulous winners of my Halloween hats! Congratulations, ladies! I'll be getting those hats in the mail early this week.

I had so much fun, that I’ m thinking I’ll do another Halloween give-away in the near future. Check back in a few days for a chance to win another Kim K. creations.  Have a wonderful week!

Mid-Atumn Moon Festival Preparations

Josie's daycare was closed Friday for a staff retreat and I was more than happy to use up some of my comp time and stay home.  We had a productive day. 

We made up our moon-shaped sugar cookies for tonight's party.  I've got all kinds of icings and sprinkles for the kids to decorate their cookies. 

Josie and I also practiced making paper lanterns.  We'll have different colors of construction paper and star stickers for the kids to use to make their own lanterns.

In case anyone wants to make their own paper lanterns, here are the instructions:

1. Fold a piece of paper in half.

2. Cut several slits on the fold

3. Staple or tape the ends together to form a cylinder.

4. Cut a strip of paper for a handle and tape on the inside of the cylinder.

We can't wait to have our adoptive friends and their kiddos over this evening.

Wishing you a happy Moon Festival!