Our Chinese New Year

What a great time we had last night! We had feasting, fireworks, and red envelopes with chocolate coins for the kids. Can't wait until next year!


The grown-ups' table


Men making dumplings - they did a great job!


The kids' table

Monday menu plan

Monday - Chinese New Year Feast - Hot and sour soup, pork dumplings, bean sprout salad, cold sesame noodles, kung pao chicken, sweet and sour shrimp, steamed rice, almond cookies, coconut custard tarts

Tuesday - leftovers!

Wednesday - roast beef, potatoes, carrots

Thursday - Gourmet Chicken Pizza, homemade "works" pizza

Friday - Creamy Chicken, Bacon and Tomato Pasta

Saturday - eat out

Sunday - Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli

Xin nian yu kuai!

We are celebrating tonight with family and friends, and are busy today getting ready. Rachel and I have been having a great day so far, watching Mulan, Ni Hao Kai Lan's Chinese New Year show, cooking and cleaning. Rachel just said "Definitely I love you". Definitely I love her too! Have a great New Year, everyone!

Fun with Photobooth

A little late...

Can't believe I forgot about it, but the 18th of January marked the third anniversary of Rachel's referral day. What a great day that was!

Monday menu plan

Monday - Easy Mexican Casserole

Tuesday - leftovers

Wednesday - Chicken Divan

Thursday - homemade pizza

Friday - Garlic Prime Rib Roast, potatoes, carrots (there was a good sale on prime rib and Jamie bought a bunch)

Saturday - Thai chicken noodle soup, Green Onion Cakes

Sunday - eggrolls, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken

Julia's 6th birthday

We celebrated Julia's birthday on Saturday with a "snow princess" party. She invited 11 lovely friends and cousins and had a wonderful time.

"Just Like Me"

Julia and Rachel both received American Girl "Just Like Me" dolls for Christmas. They have been having a wonderful time dressing and playing with their dolls. At night they put them in their pyjamas, brush their teeth, and put them to bed. I recently bought some clothes from an ebay seller in China. I thought it would be fun for Chinese New Year for them to dress up their dolls as well. I also bought the cutest little pink coat and hat. I couldn't believe how quickly they arrived, and I was so pleased with the price and the quality! Here is the seller's link in case anyone else is interested: Wulang55

Monday menu plan

So last week's menu plan worked out pretty well, except for on the weekend, when I found I had some vegetables I needed to use up. Instead of the chicken stew and the meatballs, I made pizzas one night (Thai, buffalo and pepperoni), and chicken stir-fry the next. I'll make those two meals this week instead. This week Jamie is out of town for a few days, so I will be taking the easy route and just making convenient kid favourites. Since I don't want to waste anyone's time who is looking for decent menu ideas, I'm not going to link from the organizing junkie site this week.

Monday - tortellini and salad

Tuesday - tacos

Wednesday - spaghetti

Thursday - hot dogs in crescent rolls, raw baby carrots and dip

Friday - chicken stew with dumplings

Saturday - sweet and sour meatballs, rice, peas

Sunday - roast beef, potatoes, carrots

Christmas

Here are the girls on Christmas Eve, the kids decorating their birthday cake for Jesus, and Christmas morning chaos.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to make a weekly menu plan every week. I find that when I do this I save time and money, avoiding last-minute scrambling to get a meal on the table. Laura at "I'm an Organizing Junkie" hosts Menu Plan Monday. I'm going to give it a whirl and see if it helps me stay organized!

Monday - Maple BBQ salmon, Roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli

Tuesday - Jambalaya, cornbread

Wednesday - Pineapple Curry with Shrimp, jasmine rice, Pad Thai

Thursday - Seafood chowder, Buttery Rolls

Friday - Prime rib with horseradish cream, mashed potatoes, baby carrots

Saturday - Sweet and sour meatballs, rice, peas

Sunday - Chicken stew with dumplings

Halloween party skit

Here is a skit that we did at the party, "The Medieval Dating Game". Jamie's brother Scott was the "bachelor", and didn't know he was going to star in the skit until he heard his name called. The intro at the beginning was cut off, so I'll just post it here:

Host - Hello everyone, welcome to the Medieval Dating Game, where three lovely wenches will compete for the affection of one lucky peasant.

Let's get started right away. Bring out our three bachelorettes! First we have Ursula, a beautiful young maiden who just ran away from the nunnery. Her hobbies include weaving, brewing and tending poultry. Next we have Durilda, a robust wench who enjoys ploughing, chopping wood, hay-making and needlepoint. Finally we have Emeloth, who unfortunately has a touch of leprosy, but still has most of her limbs and five of her teeth! (Emeloth - Oops, make that four!)

Vids from our Halloween party

We finally got around to uploading these videos from our medieval-themed Halloween party.