CNY festival

Saturday we met up with some of our "China family" and attended our greater metro area's Lunar New Year festival (last year we drove up to attend with Darby and her family). We got out of our house a bit later than we had hoped (the disposal got stuck and just as we were getting ready to walk out the door our dishwasher started overflowing ~ we turned it off, threw a towel on the floor and figured it would still be there when we got home...) and ended up missing the opening Lion Dance and "ushering in of the Year of the Ox." Oh well, maybe next year there will be less chaos in the house ~ Hahaha!

Anyway, without even using the modern miracle of cell phones, we managed to find both Shannon & Lottie and Stephen, C.C., Darby & Henry within minutes of walking in the door. And of course I couldn't resist trying to get a picture of the five of the cutest Chinese kids in NC together...
DISCLAIMER ~ Note that I said TRIED!!!

No one but Darby seemed very interested in looking at the camera...

But to be fair, Lottie and Kylie were both captivated by the ribbon dances going on,

Caleb was watching his Uncle Alexander be goofy, and Henry just can't take his eyes of his momma. I just had to include this next picture because as far as we know, Kylie continues to be the tallest from our Guangdong gals (11 families) and Lottie the shortest. The size difference is astounding, and Lottie is actually two weeks older...

Kylie had been wearing this dress just before we left the house and then suddenly decided that she wanted to wear something else. Luckily I impulsively threw it in the diaper bag because once she saw Lottie in her silk she wanted to "put on my wed dess!" and so she stripped right there in the middle of the festival ~ when does modesty begin to kick in?

After watching a few more dances, we walked around to see what all was there. Kylie took cutting out a red envelope very seriously!

She was really taking her time and when I asked her if she wanted me to finish it for her (so that we could move on) she looked at me as if I were crazy.

Before long Caleb let us know that he was thirsty and ready to eat (of course that is pretty much all the time...)

I know you are probably digging the brown shoes with his silk just as much as I was...

and so we stopped to sample several different dishes including noodles, BBQ pork buns, shrimp cakes, and Sesame chicken. After we finished eating we checked out what vendors had to offer

Can you believe that we didn't actually purchase this doll?

and discovered that Caleb REALLY likes mango juice!

And just as the kids were getting ready to melt down, there was a dragon dance to distract them from their tiredness for a few minutes.
There was much more entertainment to come, but we decided that a hasty exit at that point was probably wise to avoid an "ungraceful one" later and so we headed home.

Overall I enjoyed myself, but I will have to say that being in such a crowded place, trying to navigate the double stroller, and attempting to keep two "getting ready for nap" (if you know what I mean) toddlers happy made for a slightly more stressful situation than I had anticipated and I was somewhat relieved when we were headed home.