More To Celebrate!

We're getting ready for a combo holiday. We're going to celebrate the Chinese New Year along with Valentine's Day...because Satch loves celebrations so much, we plan to celebrate every chance we get!

Inspired by this book and this book, Satch painted some papier mache heart boxes for our Valentine's Day treats.

(These books are packed with kid-crafting...a perfect activity for rainy or cold wintry days!!!)

After he painted them, he stamped our initials on them and coated them with Mod Podge (which Satch calls "goo"). I added the border and the gold trim.




















I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge (a childhood fave of mine) and according to the website, it contains no gelatin so I'm making it. And of course we'll have some really good chocolate.

We also made some of these crayon hearts to hang in our window. The instructions a la Martha are here. I sacrificed one electric pencil sharpener and one of our old coffee grinders trying to shave our crayons. In the end I just used a knife because neither our crayon sharpener nor our pencil sharpeners did the trick.


And I picked up a handful of paper cranes and origami cherry blossoms, made by the talented artist Vanessa Ko, to replace the fall/winter acorn ornaments that are adorning our vase of branches to honor the upcoming Chinese New Year on February 7th. (In case you're wondering: I'm the rabbit, Satch is the rooster and Dada is...well...the pig). 
 


And together we made the Chinese lanterns that I discovered in the book above! The blossom lights are from Smith & Hawken.



I'll be making an Asian noodle dish that Satch calls, "Mama-Town-Noodles", after his favorite Elden Street haunt, "Thai Towne". A recipe for "Long Life Noodles" can be found here.

And here's a tutorial for making kid-friendly chopsticks...Satch loves eating with these and has become quite good at it.

And I REALLY would love to give a copy of this book away to the first person who wishes us a happy new year in Cantonese!