Hats and Mooncakes

Last week was the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Chinese tradition, it is one of the two most important holidays next to the Chinese New Year. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date and traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the mid-autumn harvest moon at it's brightest and fullest, and eat moon cakes. The San Diego chapter of Families with Children from China had a celebration honoring this tradition. This was the first event that we have participated in. It was nice to get to talk to and meet some of the families that have also made the journey to China to complete their families and share stories. I am embarassed to say being part Chinese that I have NEVER had a mooncake! Well, Keira, Mom and I made the trip out to 99 Ranch Market to buy some for the celebration. There are SO many different kinds! The traditional mooncakes have lotus seed, ham, melon seeds etc along with a salted egg yolk in the middle. There are others that are popular as well that have mixed nuts and red bean paste. There were SO many to choose from, it was hard deciding, but we finally ended up getting some tradition ones along with non-traditional ones like pineapple etc. The red bean paste ones remind me of hopia and weren't bad! They also had a lantern parade where all of the children walked on the park path carrying all sorts of different kinds of lanterns. I ordered a beautiful red and yellow silk lantern online- and unfortunately didn't check the size. So here were all of the kids carrying these cute small lanterns and here was Keira carrying a lantern that was beautiful, but about as big as her whole body. She was a trooper and carried it to the end, although she did get tired a few times and had me carry her. I wasn't able to get pictures, just video. I'll see if I can somehow get them on here. All of the kids were SO cute and it really was wonderful to see them all walking with the lanterns.


Speaking of being a trooper, I've finally gotten her to wear a hat on her head for more than 30 seconds!!! She doesn't like it much of course, but she's being a trooper for Mommy. Thank you honey! Here are some pictures I managed to get of her wearing a few.

Here is Keira totally getting busted checking herself out.

Keira loves to bust into Lola's room so that she can wake her up to show her whatever outfit she's wearing that day. Way too much of a ham! Poor Lola!

Here she was dancing around the living room in her pink hat. She looks like a pink Paddington Bear.

She looks like she's doing the Charleston or something!