Chinese New Year - from two weeks ago

Well, these pictures never did get posted, because the same day my teeny was rushed into hospital. But it was a special and lovely day, so it deserves a mention. :)

I decorated the living room the night before with our lucky goldfish, lanterns, red cloths, dragons, and small gifts. The girls had a "red envelope" each (really red silk purses that we reuse each year) with a Chinese coin, some pretty stones, and a bracelet.Activities for the day included: making lion-dance masks, writing our names in Chinese (the lovely lady in our local takeaway wrote our names down for us a few weeks before because Jenna asked!), playing with the Mah Jhong tiles, dancing and crashing of cymbals, making a huge home made feast including rice dumplings, burning our prayers to send the smoke up to heaven, reading lots of stories, and general theme-craziness.