Moon Festival

Well - for another year it's over but man, do we have some great memories!!! This has to be one of our favorite nights ALL YEAR!!! Joe took off at noon and he began meal preparations that culminated in Crab Rangoon, Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Rice, Pearl Balls, American Mooncakes :), and more!! We had such a fun night with our friends and family.

Leon added so much meaning to our celebration and gave us a wonderful history of the Moon Festival and even did Chinese Calligraphy for the kids - the meanings of their names or their names in Chinese. Joe learning how to grind the inkstone.

Kids making Crab Rangoon.

We made Shuttlecocks and then had to practice how to use them!

We ended our evening with Mooncakes (yes, we vowed we'd never order them again - but we needed to let Leon experience them too!!) and a bonfire. Joe shared with us in scripture how the moon is a witness of Jesus - Psalm 89 and then we made S'mores - because what fire is complete without smores?!?! So there you have it - the annual Moon Festival at the Bilby home - yes, there were moments when we wondered why we didn't have it catered, wondered what we were thinking with 11 little ones running all over, but we wouldn't trade a minute of it!! (And we're already looking forward to next year!)

New Book Finds

You know - just when I think I've found all the good books - I run across some more good ones!! (That's good, actually, I would just hate to have them all!!!) I had a flyer run across my desk about a week ago that introduced me to Kevin and Robin Books - a publishing company out of Canada which I posted about on my book blog. I just can not tell you how much I LOVE these books - the illustrations are wonderful, the stories are endearing, and I just can't get enough of them!! My first read was Little Joy - the story of an adopted baby girl and the struggle they have to get her to smile!! I am telling you - I was hooked!! Then I read, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking, which is a fun dialogue between a mother and daughter - again, another wonderful storyline with FABULOUS pictures!! And if that wasn't enough - I read To Share One Moon, a new book about the Moon Festival. (And you know how we are about the Moon Festival over here!!!) That one isn't out until October - it won't make it in time for THIS Moon Festival - but maybe next year I will use it!!! I just had to share this wonderful company with you - I think they are fabulous and I love the Asian flair!!

Autumn Moon Festival

We had our festival last night - it was fun. We learned a lot, enjoyed our time together AND decided we would NOT be ordering Mooncakes again!!!! We ordered from two different companies and we didn't really enjoy either - but then we weren't too surprised - there weren't many desserts in China and the ones we tried weren't that great either!

Now for some pictures:
Making our Moon Papers to hang by the door - we didn't follow "China" tradition, but we did talk about it with the kids and then decided to paint things we were thankful for. Micah chose to paint a cross.





















The famous Mooncakes - they were very interesting....it reminded us of being in China - in the books we were reading, it said the yolks inside were duck yolks - we were hoping they were chicken yolks!!!!




Burning our "Moon Papers" ~ Reminded us of what we are thankful for......

Autumn Moon Festival

It is the day of the Autumn Moon Festival and we are celebrating ~ Chinese-style!! I thought it would be fun to plan our own celebration but once I got looking for info. on this festival I was surprised how much was out there. So - now the problem of scaling it down! We want to make Moon Papers to hang by the front door - with what we are thankful for painted on them. We plan to read The Moon Festival and eat our mooncakes - but cakes filled with red bean paste, winter melon paste, and white lotus paste - hmmmm.... all I have to say is we better like them - I had to order them from California!!! Maybe our Dutch Bakery should take up the calling to make mooncakes. Here's a fun article on mooncakes - wonder if ours will have any watches in them!!!
A little background on the Autumn Moon Festival. We don't plan to go out and worship the moon - but we are going to read some verses in the Bible that tell us how when we look at the moon - there are some things we can remember. Then, we'll burn our moon papers around our fire pit and thank God for what's He's done for us. We've got the Chinese lanterns hanging, candles will be burning, the sticky rice balls ready to go, green tea will be brewing and yes - the crab rangoons as well!! Have to make a run for the chopsticks yet and we'll be ready to go ~ that's more for a good laugh than anything else at our house! Oh yes, and according to Chinese tradition, I have to clean the house from top to bottom - hmmmmm - do we have to follow all the rules?!?!?!?!?!
Where I got most of my ideas.