Pig

This was our first Chinese New Year celebration and we threw a party for some of our friends and their daughters. The one thing we had in common was that our children were all adopted through the same agency (though at different times). My Taiwanese friend, Ching ( the MVP,) came over even though her daughter was sick and helped me launch the festivities. She made us fresh egg rolls, crab Rangoon and some kind of gooey red bean cake. She also helped me select food items from a Chinese restaurant menu. I made Chinese Chicken Salad (lame) and baked 50 (Year of the) Pig sugar cookies, thinking, at the time, that I would have an enormous amount left over. NOT. It's amazing how much sugar seven little girls can pack away. They spent about forty-five minutes icing and decorating the sugar cookies and then ATE THE ENTIRE BATCH. Jack made a quick exit to his room, clearly overwhelmed by the "girl power" that had invaded his home and missed out on the pig-out. We tried to help the little Tasmanian devils burn off the sugar but I'm not sure we entirely succeeded.

The following photographs depict the anatomy of a sugar rush:

Frosting and decorating...

More cookies...

More frosting and tasting...

Eating...

Time to start burning it off playing with balloons!

Ooh, look! Fire!

Let's teach Makena how to drive!

That's the ticket! But where are the air bags on this thing?

Let's drag the Fisher Price Jungle Gym into the living room! Hey, is that Jack?

Let's bring more toys and let's add Tiger to the mix!

Notice the men-folk carrying on a conversation while chaos reigns supreme.

Five hours later... Yes, Jack. Your sister is asleep, the girls are gone and so are the cookies.

Happy New Year of the Pig.

Is - loving this new tradition.