This year the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival falls on September 8, 2014. I wanted to do a craft with the girls to celebrate the festival. Last year we made paper lanterns, and now that the girls are a year older, they were ready to make glass lanterns. The girls had a lot of fun painting the glue on the glass jar and sticking the paper to it, but that was nothing compared to the excitement when they saw their lanterns light up.
The moon is celebrated during this festival because of legends like Chang E Flying to the Moon or Jade Rabbit or Wu Gang Chopping the Laurel Tree. Lanterns are carried and lit throughout the festival to celebrate the brightness of the moon.
Happy Lighting,
The Dumpling Mama xo
Baby turned 3 this week. She had a 
It all started the night day before when the girls finally go their birthday present from Grouchy Husband and I. We made an agreement that they would have a birthday party on Princess’ birthday and they would get their gift on Baby’s birthday so something fun would be happening on both days. They could pick individual gifts or one big gift and after many tireless conversations trying to convince them to get desks, a bike, etc, they only wanted a 
I asked Grouchy Husband if he ever thought he would be buying a Barbie Dream House. He said he always thought he would have sons and be teaching them how to ride motorcycles…haha. It took him 2 hours to put it together and could not have done it without YouTube videos. The girls love the the Barbie Dream House and have played with it for hours. I never thought I would say I’m glad we bought it.
Baby celebrated with strawberry popsicles at 
Keeping with family tradition, she had a Carvel ice cream birthday cake.
And for the first time blew out all of the candles by herself.
Grouchy Husband brought home sparklers for the girls to celebrate the special day.
I grew up eating pork buns from 
My family started buying from Mei Li Wah because it was the only place that sold steamed beef rice noodle dim sum with sliced beef, not minced meat. This was the best steamed beef rice noodle in town. As long as I could remember, there were two grumpy old men you would always see behind the counter every day. Even though these two old men never smiled and spoke abrasively to all customers, there was always a line, mostly buying dozens of pork buns. A few years ago, the owners changed, the grumpy men were replaced with young ladies, the menu changed, and recipes changed like the beef rice noodle now have minced meat. Thankfully, the pork bun recipe has stayed the same.
My daughters are spending 4 weeks in Chinese camp this summer. This camp is run by the Chinese school they go to during the school year. My family speaks Cantonese (my husband and I speak very very little at home) but I want the girls to learn Mandarin because it is the official language of China and will be more useful to them in the future. I know it’s been hard for them to learn because they are only exposed to Mandarin for 45 minutes a week at school. So I enrolled them into camp because it is 6 hours a day and completely taught in Mandarin.
She always seemed to be doing something different then all of the other children performing…
…she loves an audience so it didn’t matter to her.
All of the performances were so great.
The camp was small and intimate. They came home singing the songs learned at camp and practicing their speaking parts in the performance.
After the performance we all headed to the beach park for a day of fun. The first activity was a scavenger hunt. Everyone got a green card with things they had to find and say in Chinese.
During the instructions, the teacher said something funny and all of the children laughed. This reminded me of a day when the girls will make fun of me in Mandarin knowing I won’t understand them. I want them to learn the language so badly I’m ok with this.
The girls got a sticker for every item they found and said in Chinese.
The teachers walked around to help everyone.
I really like the camp because they play the same games kids in China would play. One of the games the kids played at the park was similar to duck-duck-goose but with a bean bag. One child with the bean bag (Child 1) would walk around a circle of children. Child 1 would drop the bean bag behind someone in the circle (Child 2).
Child 2 gets up to chase Child 1 around the circle and try to tag Child 1 before they sat in Child 2’s spot.
If Child 2 gets tagged, they have to sit in the middle of the circle.
The other game the kids loved to play was Da Yeah Ya, 打野鸭, or “hit the duck”. It’s a simple, silly game.
One half of the group forms a circle and are the hunters, the other half stands inside the circle and are the ducks.
The hunters throw balls and try to hit the ducks in the middle of the circle. If they hit a duck, they switch spots. Baby is a little too young to play the game so she walked around collecting the balls.
After the games, we ate lunch together.
Then we played at the beach.
The girls found a horse shoe crab at the beach. Baby felt like one of the big girls except she wasn’t tall enough to see the crab in the bucket.
After the beach the kids played in the spray park. The water was freezing but the kids didn’t care.
Baby wasn’t as excited about the spray park. She found a rock to play with. Over and over, she would pick up the rock.
Take a few steps into the spray park.
Feel a little spray and run out.
At the end of the day, candy was handed out to everyone who found everything on their green cards.
Chinatown has always been a second home to me. My mom grew up there and my grandparents lived there so we visited all of the time. Because my mom and grandparents were part of the community we had our favorite restaurants and bakeries. Throughout the years I lived in Chinatown at my grandparent’s apartment after college and even the last 8 years I’ve lived in the suburbs, I’ve continued to go to these family favorites. Having these favorite places can make Chinatown seem small sometimes so I’ve decided to expand my Chinatown universe and try new places. I’ve been looking forward to trying dim sum at 
Nom Wah feels like you have walked back in time inside. The lighting, red vinyl booth seats, tables, super cool! My mom and grandmother had not been inside for decades. They said it looked different the last time they were there, more like a restaurant.
You don’t see dim sum carts being pushed because the food is made to order. These are the menus to place your order.
This is my grandmother and daughters waiting for the food to come. I don’t know who adores who more, my grandmother or daughters!
One of my favorite dim sum dishes is cilantro and scallion rice roll. Nom Wah does an excellent job, the rice roll was perfect silky and soft.
My Grouchy Husband really liked the shrimp sui mai.
Steamed spare ribs were delicious.
My mom’s favorite dim sum is the bean curd skin roll. The shrimp and pork filling had great flavor.
My dad’s favorite dim sum is the rice roll with fried dough. Nom Wah does a great job with their rice roll.
Sticky rice in lotus leaf was awesome.
We ordered the pan fried noodles to compliment the dim sum at the table. The noodles had a great texture.
Princess started the summer off at the town recreation camp. She got to see her favorite friends from school, hang out with the high school student counselors all day, and eat ice cream pops every day. This was her first year at the town camp and saying she “loved” it would be a total understatement.
Once they got into the water, it was time to blow bubbles and kick.
Princess was having some technical difficulties with her goggles that day. They were way too tight and twisted. Baby likes to go into her book bag at night and play with her stuff so I’m guessing she decided to adjust her sister’s goggle straps.
The girls take turns practicing their strokes to the swim instructors.
They practice freestyle, breast stroke…
…and back floats. This one is a star back float.
It was too cold to stay in the water the whole time so instruction ended early.
During our annual summer trip to my parent’s house in Upstate New York, we made sure to visit 
They were allowed to choose 2 rides on their last visit and they chose the ferris wheel and hot air balloon. I’m not quite sure why they chose the ferris wheel, no one was on the ride and there was no line. The attendant gave them strict instructions to sit back, hold onto the bar, and no rocking. They took him very seriously.
They sat like this the whole time.
It was a little 8-seat ferris wheel but the girls thought it went so high. Princess said she could see my parents house from the top and they live 20 minutes away.
Now onto the hot air balloons. This is a more popular ride so there was a little line. The girls show off their last Hoffman’s Playland tickets.
They choose their balloon.
And swung around…
and around…
In my 37 years (yikes!), I’ve eaten a lot of chicken. Stir-fried chicken with any vegetable, homemade chicken broth when sick, whole chicken at every wedding or special occasion, even Drunken Chicken every day for a month after having my babies. To say the least, the chicken is a highly regarded animal in Chinese culture.
every day.
We had a free Saturday and it was going to be a beautiful day so we drove 1.5 hours north to 
Princess started feeding right a way.
Baby needed a little help but eventually got over her fear and then one of the goats nipped her a little and then she was back to being scared.
The farm has a Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. I love shopping at Farmer’s Markets.
We ate lunch at the farm and these gigantic fresh pear and peach popsicles.
The girls couldn’t finish all of the frozen parts so my Grouchy Husband and I ate them. They wanted the juice at the bottom. Baby needed help getting the juice up the bag.
And a little bit spilled out and down her dress. The juice was very cold!
After lunch we headed to the fields to pick raspberries and blueberries. It is the end of raspberry season so we wandered through many empty patches. The girls were starting to get a little disheartened.
Then we found a few bushes that had some tiny raspberries.
We didn’t end up getting that many raspberries but the girls were thrilled.
Then we headed to the blueberry patches and since it’s the beginning of the season the bushes were filled. The bushes are short and perfect height for little people to pick.
Baby wasn’t that interested in picking, she was more interested in eating. All I kept hearing her say to her older sister, “You want me to try this one?” She was quality control.
Even my Grouchy Husband was picking.
I think he even enjoyed it!
We filled half the bucket, the other half is in Baby’s stomach (haha!).
I am very busy recovering from a back-to-back friend then family birthday party for the girls. Princess turned six this weekend and even though Baby turns three in August, my 
Since this was a party for little people, I rented chairs and tables especially for them.
My brother was the executive chef for both parties and Oz, our friend and family caterer was by his side keeping him in check. The menu for the kids was chicken fingers, mini hamburgers, tater tots, and corn. My brother’s first job was at 
And of course we had the 
The party started off with carnival games. One of the games was 
and big kids…
There was also ring toss, corn hole, and 
After the carnival games there was a magic show with Richie from 
My Grouchy Husband was even part of one of the tricks.
The kids loved the show.
The kids loved being able to order anything they wanted. Look at the huge strawberry milk shake Baby is drinking.
Then we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake from 
The prizes were light up wands, swords, microphones, and bubble blowers…just like you would win at a real carnival.
The kids had a lot of fun playing with their prizes.
My cousin led the after-party. I’m not sure if this could be considered organized play because at one point I saw all of the kids hitting him with their carnival prizes.