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Monday was the start of the Chinese New Year - The Year of the Dragon.
There are 14 children in Lily's class and, including Lily, 3 of the children are Chinese.
On Monday, Lily's class had a Chinese New Year party. One of the dads came in and gave a short talk to the kids about how he celebrated Chinese New Year in China when he was growing up and how his family celebrates it now that they live in the United States. He also gave each of the children a traditional Red Envelope(Hongbao) with a Chinese gold coin.
For the treat I made a dragon cake. Well, that's what I'm calling it anyway since it's the Year of the Dragon and not the Year of the Dinosaur or the Year of the Sea Serpent!
I can't begin to tell you how much Lily loved this cake. Truly. I made it after she went to bed Sunday night and when she saw it Monday morning you would've thought it was Christmas morning!!! She was SO excited. It was absolutely precious!
And the best part of all for Lily???? Apparently since I made the cake the teacher let Lily choose the first piece. Lily picked the piece with the fruit roll-up tongue. Based on Lily's reaction I'm guessing it doesn't get much better than that!! Ah...life's simple pleasures!
Shhh....don't tell Daddy...but somehow it seems we're raising a little Ravens fan.
Since I have not a competitive or sports loving bone in my body...the only logical explanation is the influence of Aunt Patti and the introduction of Purple Fridays at school!
Thanks to Aunt Patti, the pictures above are what Lily wore to school last week for Purple Friday.
Lily has informed me that this week she wants to wear either an Ed Reed or Ray Rice jersey. Um...I'll get right on that. Better yet, that sounds like a job for Aunt Patti!
Oh, and that sound you hear in the background is Tony quietly weeping while he chants, "Ew...Ah...Glad I am a Seahawk! Ew...Ah...Glad I am a Seahawk!"
I have several friends that choose a word each New Year in hopes that it will help to guide their year. It's kind of like a New Year's Resolution...only a little different. The idea is to choose one word that will motivate, remind, and inspire you throughout the year.
Some of the words my friends have chosen are: Kindness, Wellness, and Happiness.
I thought about trying to pick a word to help motivate, remind, and inspire me for 2012. The word I kept coming up with was "Dad". That might sound kind of hokey, but it's true.
I think there is a tendency when someone dies to try and make them better than they actually were. I know Dad was not perfect. Trust me. He was flawed...just like the rest of us. It's just that Dad was a whole lot less flawed than most :-).
So, anyway, I think I am going to use Dad as my word for 2012. If I can live my life like Dad lived his life I believe 2012 will be a good year indeed!
This year for Tony's birthday Lily and I gave him the cold shoulder.
Aren't we sweet????
Oh, don't worry....the cold shoulder isn't all we gave Tony. We gave him cold feet...cold cheeks...cold fingers...well, despite the lovely blue parkas, just about cold EVERYTHING really!
For Tony's birthday we went to ICE! at Gaylord National Harbor.
We had never seen the movie that most of the ice sculptures were based on. It didn't matter. It was still incredible...and in case I haven't mentioned...incredibly COLD!!!
Once we left the beautiful ice displays and the super slippery ice slides we went to the beautiful Gaylord National Harbor hotel.
Oh! My! Word! Stunning. Truly. If you've never been to the Gaylord National Harbor...you've gotta GO!!!! That place is positively AH. MAY. ZING. Describing it won't do it justice. It's close to home (it only took us 35 minutes to get there) and so worth the trip. Just take my word for it...save up your pennies...and GO!!
We had so much fun just exploring the enormous hotel, playing in the gazebo, and riding in the glass elevators!
While we were there Lily made a gingerbread family, had her picture taken with a life-sized Gingerbread man, and positively fell in love with her gingerbread hand puppet! Lily never, ever wanted to leave!
For Tony's birthday dinner he decided he would like to have steak. I thought we would end up at one of the numerous restaurants surrounding the hotel, but then I did a little research and found that the steak house in the hotel received really great reviews.
We were able to get reservations at the restaurant immediately following the nightly tree lighting, fountain display, and indoor snowfall that takes place in the hotel atrium.
As we were walking through the restaurant to get to our table - that overlooked the Potomac River - Lily said in a voice filled with awe, "This is the nicest restaurant I've ever been in...in my WHOLE entire life!" So sweet. Oh, and it was one of the nicer restaurants I've been in in my whole life, too!
It was apparent that this is *NOT* a restaurant that children frequent. Not to worry. Despite the raised eyebrows of a few of the restaurant patrons and staff, Lily was her normal, polite, sweet self and had completely charmed our rather serious Eastern European waiter before we had even ordered our drinks!!
In fact, the waiter told Lily that the restaurant didn't have a Kid's Menu, but to just tell him what she wanted and he would have it brought up from one of the other restaurants in the hotel...and that is exactly what he did!!!
Tony enjoyed his birthday weekend so much he has requested that we make a trip to the Gaylord an annual birthday tradition. Well, if the birthday boy insists what am I going to do??? Honestly, the things I do for that man!
We had a nice, quiet start to 2012.
As has become our tradition we spent the evening at home, had a yummy dinner, fondue for dessert, and were all sound asleep to ring in the New Year. Do we know how to party or what???
For Lily the best part of the night was the chocolate fondue! Hands down. But, do you want to know what that little turkey said to me when we were finished with the fondue??? "Mommy, what are we having for dessert?" Seriously!?!
I quickly assured Lily that the ton of pretzels, pound cake, bananas, and strawberries she had just dipped in copious amounts of chocolate had been, in fact, her dessert!!! To which she responded, "Oh, I didn't realize that that was dessert." Huh???
Obviously, my New Year's resolution needs to be to stop serving Hershey Bars for dinner! ;^)
Since I'm so far behind on my posts I was thinking about just not posting about the holidays, but I decided I'd do a quick Happy Thanksgiving - Merry Christmas post all rolled into one.
The holidays were hard without Dad. I guess that much is pretty obvious. What may not be as obvious is that I believe the holidays would've been hard with Dad. Dad's Mesothelioma was progressing and even though Dad never wanted to talk about "his prognosis" the reality is this would have been Dad's last Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm thinking he would have been pretty sick for both.
I know we all would have tried our best - especially Dad - to make the most of the holidays. But, if I'm honest, I'm glad that Dad's actual last Thanksgiving and last Christmas were truly happy ones spent without a hint of illness.
I don't want to speak for my siblings, but I think it's safe to say we all enjoyed the holidays and spending time together. While we all missed Dad terribly, there was definitely more laughter than tears. I believe that's exactly what Dad would have wanted.
In addition to all of our wonderful annual holiday traditions (Thanksgiving at Mary Beth and Ed's, Christmas parties for Mom's side and Dad's side of the family, Christmas Eve at Mary Beth and Ed's, Christmas morning at our house with Suzy and Sheila, and Christmas night at Patti and Dave's), Tony and I did our best to continue our own little family's holiday traditions (the lights in Hampden, cutting down the Christmas tree, making a gingerbread house, etc.).
I would be lying if I didn't say on more than one ocassion I had to fake my holiday enthusiam. But you know what? It wouldn't take long before the real holiday spirit would kick in!
