Chinese New Year decorations

Chinese New Year this year starts on Monday, Feb. 8th.  It will be the year of the monkey.  Since the Christmas wreath came down but it's too early to put up the Spring one, our front door was looking a little bleak.  I decided to put together a quick little CNY wreath with a tutorial to boot.  Lucky you! We've got this up, along with our CNY bunting, so we're feeling festive.  Interested?  Read on!

Supplies:
wreath form (either one of those green foam ones or a straw one)
red ribbon (act fast, and maybe you can snag a Christmas one from JoAnn's on clearance-woot!)
small-headed pins
lai see/hong bao (red envelopes from the Chinese market)
thinner red ribbon
paper punch

The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, but basically you're going to wrap the ribbon all around the wreath form, pinning to secure every few wraps.

Once the entire wreath is wrapped, then punch holes in the red envelope and thread the thinner red ribbon through the holes.  Pin that to the wreath.

Finally, take the left over ribbon and make a loop and sew the top forward and back a few times to create a hanger.

Ta-Da!  Your cheery Chinese New Year wreath is ready to hang up!

To keep the festivities going, when the girls were off from school last week, we decided to get our craft on by making some kumquat thumbprint art (inspiration from here).

 A fun little activity!  Happy Year of the Monkey!

New Year's Day

2016 started off with puzzles and more puzzles.  These 3 got into a groove and kept it going!

When they weren't putting puzzles together, they were busy playing one of the many games that were received over Christmas.  Kerplunk, Jenga, Lazer maze or Fish-a-ree.

Grandma and Grandpa came over for New Year's dinner and we had traditional fare of pork tenderloin, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, salad and sauteed green beans with carrots.  No black eyed peas this year.

These two--ha!

The rest of the vacation was spent enjoying being together and chill-axing.  We ended on a high note with a visit to Starbucks.  The girls had found a gift card in the park and after trying to determine who in the neighborhood had lost one and coming up with nothing, we treated them to hot chocolate.

They were pretty excited since they never get Starbucks (J, not so much...!) however I think they need to learn the art of savoring a hot beverage.  They both finished their drinks in about 5 minutes flat--there was some serious chugging going on, rather than sipping.  Ha ha!!