It’s been a while since we’ve had a free Saturday so we decided to visit The New York Botanical Garden.  It was a beautiful day and just perfect for our visit.  We sat on a bench while Grouchy Husband renewed our membership and got tickets for the day.

The girls tried to hide from me.  Can you see them?

The garden was showing signs of spring and many things had started to bloom.  In the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, there were these gorgeous caterpillars made with flowers.

The first activity was to make a nesting bag of small twigs and string for birds to come and use for their nests.  You are suppose to hang the nesting bag on a tree like the one hung in the tree in the picture.

The second activity was to make a planter and grow wheat grass.  The girls help my mom plant flowers every year so they are experts planting anything.

After the activities, we went into the terrarium and the girls watered the plants with spray bottles.  It’s amazing how long they were occupied with a spray bottle.

Grouchy Husband helped them find tadpoles in the pond.

Princess could jump almost as high as the frog.

The girls loved the high heels on this lady bug.

Grouchy Husband in good company and relaxed on the wood recliner.

The girls climbed to the top of the highest rock.

After the Children’s Garden, we decided to take the tram to see the rest of the garden.  The line was very, very long so we ate snacks and relaxed while we waited.

The girls got impatient waiting so they ran up and down the hill, touching the rock at the top.

Grouchy Husband bought Baby matching shoes and I don’t like them because they are hard to put on and tie so she can only wear them on days when Grouchy Husband is around to put them on and take them off.  She loves these sneakers.

Finally on the tram!

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and awesome.  You can’t but admire all of God’s creation at the garden.  This tree had a stand to keep one of it’s heavy branches up.

The girls spent some time throwing pennies in the fountain.

Before we left, we ate an early dinner.

The pizza cheese was very stretchy so Princess tried to see how long she could stretch it.

How blessed was I to spend the day with this little lady.

And this one!

Some last jumps before heading home after a long day of walking and activities.  The girls (and Grouchy Husband) (and I) were happy to head home and sit!

Happy Spring,
The Dumpling Mama xo

Chinatown NY, NY is a second home to me.  Even though I grew up in Upstate New York, I would visit my grandparents in Chinatown at least once a month, if not more, for holidays, celebrations, and vacations.  After college, I lived there for 7 years before I got married and moved to the suburbs.  Now with my own children, I bring them to visit their great grandparents and experience the Chinatown that I know and love.

Our home base is Confucius Plaza, an apartment complex in the middle of Chinatown my maternal grandparents and brother live.  My paternal grandparents have passed away and now my brother lives in their apartment.  If I’m driving, I always try to make it to Chinatown before 11am so I can get the early bird special in the parking garage under Confucius Plaza.  It’s the best $17 I’ll ever spend.

We purposely come to Chinatown hungry because eating is our favorite thing to do besides visiting family.  The first meal we eat is dim sum.  We’re usually a big group, some mix of my grandparents, parents, husband, daughters, brother, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.  We go around 11am to beat the crowds and always to Delight 28 because it is my grandmother’s favorite restaurant.  It doesn’t take long before our table is completely covered with steamed rice noodles, pork buns, turnip cake, sticky rice, and several stir fried noodle and rice dishes.  We always overeat and then have to walk around Chinatown to help our stomachs digest.

My husband, brother, and dad usually take the girls to the Columbus Park playground.  With monkey bars, slides, and swings, it’s one of their favorite playgrounds and they have a total blast every time.  My mom, grandmother, and I go shopping for groceries and pastries.  My grandfather was a chef and owner of a restaurant in Chinatown so I grew up knowing where to go to get the best food.  We go to Mei Li Wah for roast pork buns and Golden Manna Bakery for egg tarts and pineapple buns.  Chinatown has so many fresh groceries I stock up on leafy green vegetables, fruit, and live fish.  Everyone meets back at my brother’s apartment after playing and shopping to relax, watch tv, and nap.  We have to rest our stomachs to be ready to eat dinner.

Chinatown has some of the best food in Manhattan.  Depending on how we feel, we will either go out to dinner or eat in.  If we want to eat soup dumplings, we’ll go to Shanghai Cafe.  If we want to eat Vietnamese pho, we’ll go to Thai Son.  Or if we feel like eating more Chinese food, we’ll go to Noodletown or back to Delight 28.  Sometimes we’ll just want to relax at home so we’ll cook some of the groceries we bought that day or order in.

My brother’s apartment is the apartment I lived in for 7 years and after I moved out I use to keep some clothes and bathroom toiletries for those impromptu nights I would stay in the city.  Those type of nights are a distant memory and now my clothes and bathroom toiletries have been replaced with toys and clothes for my daughter’s so they can play and take baths before heading back to the suburbs with a car full of groceries and a belly full of food.

I hope your Chinatown experiences are as memorable as mine.

Chrissy xo

Before I knew it, it was a couple of days before the church Christmas performance and realized I didn’t have anything performance-appropriate for the girls to wear.  I nervously bought these golden elephant skirts last minute and luckily the girls fell in love with them.  Poofy and gold…how could I go wrong?  After the performance, the girls let me take pictures of the many faces they had with their golden elephant skirts.

Walking zombie.

Rage.

Serious.

Peace.

1.5 Peace.

Hop.

Jump.

Almost flying.

Happy New Year!

The Dumpling Mama xo

I can’t remember my mom or dad ever saying I love you to me.  I can remember homemade hot lunches being dropped off at school, always being served first and getting the best pieces of meat, being moved in and out of the four colleges I attended before graduating.  My parents are like most other Chinese parents and expressed their love through action instead of saying the words, “I love you”.  Growing up, I never wondered why they never said it.  I would hear my friend’s parents say “I love you”, give kisses and hugs, but my family was one of a handful of Chinese families in the area so we did a lot of things differently.

Articles, research, and videos point to reasons for the lack of verbal expression to be because Chinese culture is a high context society, where few words need to be spoken because tradition and history are so strong, or Chinese culture is conservative and stoic, or Chinese parents are not good at expressing positive emotions.  I would agree with them all.

As American as I am, it is the Chinese part of me that I express my affections and emotions.  As much as I love my daughters, it is hard for me to say “I love you”.  I don’t say it often, usually during special or necessary occasions like getting a good report card, or with a good night kiss after a hard day at school, or after being in time out.  As hard as it is for me to say, whenever I do, somehow everything is made right in their little worlds.

Love is an action, not a word.  My parents never said “I love you” to me but I’ve always known they loved me because of all of the things they did.  I want my daughters to know I love them because of my actions.  I’m going to work on saying “I love you” more because even though they are just words, they are meaningful.

I love you,
The Dumpling Mama xo

 

This Christmas season kicked off with our annual trip to Jones Family Farms to chop down our Christmas tree.   Last year I started a tradition of ordering photo ornaments from Paper Culture.  Every year I order 12 ornaments of photos that best represent the year for our family.  I absolutely love seeing our tree filled with so many memories.

Baby had a holiday sing-a-long at her school.  I don’t think she (our the rest of the school) knew most of the songs that were sung but she was the cutest one trying.

The girls both sang songs in the church Christmas performance.

Princess was in a special singing group that practiced 45 minutes before church for months.  The songs had different melodies and different groups sang in different tones.  It was very sophisticated and grown up.

I look forward to the Cousins Dinner my brother hosts every year.  This year we ordered pizza, my brother made pasta, we drank a lot of champagne.  I made guacamole and pate from my new favorite cookbook, Zenbelly Cookbook.  Did I mention we drank a lot of champagne?

I remember a lot of laughing that night.

I make everyone take a group photo at Cousins Dinner. My brother was sick, he fell asleep on the couch early so we just gathered around him.  The first photos are always silly.

But then we finally make our way to a respectable photo.

The girls got to open their gifts from my parents on Christmas Eve.  My Dad fills our stockings with the most practical gifts.  This year I got a memory card for my camera, batteries, and mints.

Our family has grown so now not all of the stockings match.

Baby was so excited to get a plasma car.  Now she doesn’t have to share her sister’s anymore.  This is a big deal for a little sister who gets mostly hand-me-downs and has to share most all of her toys with her big sister.

My brother-in-law’s birthday is right before Christmas so we celebrated with him.  He and my sister have a new baby but she was sleeping by the time we had cake.

We celebrated Christmas day with my family in Brooklyn.  We drank a lot of champagne and Yao Ming’s wine.  The wine was a huge hit with my family.

My cousins taught Princess how to jump rope.

My new niece is a cry baby and was able to make it through dinner but then had to leave because she had cried 2 hours straight.

My Cousin’s new wife is a concert pianist.  He also knows how to play the piano and they both entertained us with a duet.

After dinner she entertained us with her unbelievable playing.  Princess just started taking piano lessons and is so excited and inspired to maybe play like her one day.

The girls brought an activity for my cousins to do.  It was a sticker activity and the they were going to pick their favorite pictures.

It was a tough choice.  They loved all of the pictures.

They chose their favorites and the winners got to take a picture with them.

My cousins dressed alike on Christmas (I think unintentionally) so they wanted to take a picture with the girls because they were dressed the alike also (intentionally).

Now that Princess can read she was in charge of handing out the presents.  It is a tradition that the youngest in the family has to hand out the presents.  Baby was her helper.

It took a while to get all of the presents handed out, maybe an hour.  Good thing there was a lot of champagne.

I love our Chinese American holiday dinners.  Smoked prime rib, baked yams, steamed fish, spare ribs with black bean sauce, lobster Cantonese.  Delicious.

Our family has grown so much there were two seatings for dinner.  The “kids” (anyone under 50) ate first.  Then the “adults” (older then 50) ate.

The day after Christmas we went to the Berkshires to celebrate with my in-laws.  The girls were in heaven.  It was the third day in a row opening presents.

And more eating.  I am officially on two diets and will be going to the gym three times a day.

The holidays are a busy time.  It’s definitely a lot of effort to get all the gifts, figure out what food I’m bringing to all of the celebrations, buy fancy dresses for performances, pack to go out of town.  I love my families and wouldn’t want to celebrate the holidays any other way.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday.

The Dumpling Mama xo

I was not one of those people who went through high school and college knowing or even thinking about their career.  Socializing was my favorite subject in school but I was bright enough to get good grades with minimal effort.  In high school and college I always thought I would be a housewife like my mom.  I graduated as a Math major, thought I would go to graduate school until my dad asked me to find a job for a couple of years before going back to more school.  I started my working career during the Internet boom in 1999 so I found a job at a startup.  I worked at the startup until a few months after it was sold, then went to a hotel company, then to an agency.  In the last few years, I’ve shifted my career to consulting.  I’m a wife, mom, and friend.  I’ve started this blog post with these details so that you know I’m just a regular, average person.

My entrepreneurial spirit first came when I was at the startup but I was making good money and going on a lot of vacations so it was just a spirit.  I always had ideas of businesses to start.  I left full time salaried work to consult and started a business blog about the best things from local businesses in my area.  I was building up a good following for the blog but took it down after a few months because I didn’t have the interest diversity needed to cover all of the topics.  After the business blog, I started this personal blog, thedumplingmama.com, to document family memories, family recipes and Chinese customs for my daughters.   Last year I thought about designing luxury Chinese red envelopes because I was tired of gifting money in the not-so-luxiours envelopes sold today.  I learned how to use art programs, design, foil print, source envelopes, and build an online store.  Today, I’ve opened a luxury Chinese lucky envelope online business.

I don’t know the future of my blog or how successful my luxury lucky envelopes will be.   I do know I want my legacy to be a starter who might fail rather then someone who was not brave enough to try.

I’m an average person who just started.

Maybe it’s eating healthy, exercising, starting a business, getting a new job, going for that promotion.  Whatever it is, just start.

The Dumpling Mama xo

This year’s Thanksgiving was just as eventful as all past years visiting with family and a lot of eating.   My Aunt Martha hosts Thanksgiving at her home in Long Island.   This year I brought the fruit plate because Princess has developed a lot of fruit allergies and can only eat certain fruits.

 

I love that all of our holidays are a mix of Chinese and American foods.  For Thanksgiving, we eat turkey for dinner and dumplings for lunch.  Everything is homemade.  Here was the team wrapping dumplings.  All of us “Wong” woman are skilled dumpling wrappers.  The two ladies on the left, Alethia and Ayuko, married my cousins this year.  This year has been amazing for my growing family, two of my cousins got married, my sister and sister-in-law both had babies.

We use my mom’s dumpling recipe because they are the best dumplings you will ever eat.  Yes, I know it’s a bold statement but it’s the total truth.  I call the dumpling arrangement on the plate the dumpling flower.  I think my mom created this also.

The girls have been the only grandchildren in both my family and my Grouchy Husband’s until this year so they are use to hanging out with adults.  The great thing about our families is everyone loves to play with them.  My brother taught them to make mean faces.

Cousin David gave them a lesson on how to start a fire.

Cousin Mikey and his new wife, Ayuko, took them outside to play a game that was a cross between soccer and volleyball.

Then they came back inside and he gave them horse rides.

The girls looked at Ayuko’s wedding photos on the computer.  They love anything to do with weddings, dresses, and sparkly things.

Then they had a dance party in the kitchen.

My mom and aunts take a break from cooking to enjoy the food.

Aunt Martha always cooks the turkey.  It looks humungous every year.

Uncle Billy always carves the turkey.

Dinner was a long buffet of cornbread, salad, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, ham, turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and lots of gravies.

Aunt Martha gave a toast before we ate.  She was a little tipsy so it was a little long winded but funny.

Then everyone loaded their plates full of food.

Before I could even think about getting food for the girls my mom already made their plates and was feeding them.  She is the definition of being a mother.

Here we all are around the table.

This year we decided to combine the adult and kids tables so that we could all eat together.  The girls were excited to be at the big table with the grownups.

 

After dinner we all sat around trying to figure out how our already overfull stomachs could eat dessert.  The girls were being taught multiplication.  Everything is a game to them.

The Dumpling Mama xo

On the last day of school before Thanksgiving, Baby’s class had a Thanksgiving party and invited parents.   Before all parties, a list of party food and disposable eating products are posted outside the classroom for parents to sign up for.  The items listed for the Thanksgiving party were a little bit different because they were going to eat a Thanksgiving meal.  Cut up fruit and vegetables that are normally on the list, was replaced with mashed potatoes and cooked string beans.  There is a strategy with the party list.  It’s simple, the easy items, like paper plates, always go first, so I try to be one of the firsts to signup.   I work part-time, my mom and Grouchy Husband help me with drop off and pick up of the girls.  I am really lucky to have their support but because I’m not at the schools regularly, I’ve missed being one of the firsts to signup on the party list.  For the Thanksgiving party, I was the last and had to bring a turkey.  While sulking a little signing my name next to the turkey I would have to figure out how to cook, Baby’s teacher came up next to me and told me she thinks people aren’t signing up to bring a turkey because of a misunderstanding.  They need a raw turkey so the class can cook it together.  That moment made my day.  Raw turkey is right up there with paper plates.

The party started with the class singing a song.

They made their pilgrim costumes and gave themselves pilgrim names.  Baby was Pilgrim Elizabeth.

Here was the party spread.  The class made the tablecloth decorations.

The dining table was decorated with the tree of life and a river down the middle.

The class mom made these hummus and vegetable sailboat appetizers to float in the river.  I am always in awe with the creativity and effort from class moms and I hope one day before both my children graduate from high school I will have the courage to sign up and be one.

I looked over and was shocked when I saw Baby eating green beans.  She doesn’t ever eat green beans at home.  Baby’s teacher told me it’s peer pressure from watching her friends eat them around her.  I need to invite her friends over to eat more often.

Once she found the toothpicks from the hummus sailboat, she ate the rest of her meal with them.  Even the corn.

Here was the dessert spread.  I really like Baby’s teacher because she tries to serve healthy food at the parties.

Baby was the last one at the table eating.  She really liked the food but the toothpick really slowed her up.

The Dumpling Mama xo

This weekend my sister, her husband, Mike, and their new baby, Lily, made a surprise visit to check in on my dad’s recovery after knee replacement surgery.  Lily is my first niece and I love her spiky hair but she is a cry baby.  When she last visited, she cried the whole time so we couldn’t go near her.  Thankfully, she is older and doesn’t cry as much so we were excited to be able to hold and play with her.

We pulled out the Bumbo chair both Baby and Princess used when they were babies from the attic.  It was a whole new world for Lily now that she could sit by herself.

While we ate a pizza snack she sat in the middle of the table and shook hands with my dad.

Listened to my mom sing her favorite songs.  My mom lived with my sister for 5 weeks after she had Lily and she sang to her all day.  Lily is 4 months old and she still remembers my moms singing.

The girls gave her toys to play with.  They are still trying to figure out how to play with her.

The girls thought since she isn’t big enough to play with them, Lily might like to watch them play.  So they moved her to the floor.

Welcome to the Cool Cousins Club!

The Dumpling Mama xo

Today we made an unexpected visit to Rockefeller Center because my mom needed a ride to a wedding in Midtown NYC.  My dad would normally go with her but he is recovering from a knee replacement.  This was the first trip to Rockefeller Center for the girls.  Even though it was short,  it was a fun adventure.

We strolled by Radio City.  There was a very long line outside of people waiting to get into the Christmas Spectacular.  I saw this when I was child and when the girls get a little bit older, I hope to take them to this show.

The girls were hungry and grouchy so we bought them pretzels and that somehow cured everything.

We stopped at my favorite chocolate shop, La Maison du Chocolat, to buy chocolates and cookies.  This place always reminds me of when I took my mom to Paris.

Last, we stopped to see the tree.  It just arrived this week and was in the process of being decorated.  Even though the tree didn’t have any lights, I started to feel the holiday spirit.

The Dumpling Mama xo