On Sunday, we celebrated the Autumn Moon Festival with our third annual big party for all our friends who have children who were born in Vietnam and China. We never get any pictures during this, as I'm always so busy organizing the food and just catching up with all the fabulous people that we don't see nearly enough. Luckily my friend Bev always takes great pictures, so most of these are hers. This year our not-so-huge house was filled with a happy and loud group of 13 grown-ups and 9 little (and not-so-little) ones.
Back in 2008, when we decided to grow our family through adoption, we met three other local families who were also in the waiting phase. We would meet for dinner and talk about "the wait" and our hopes for our children and our families, and now here they are - our four lovely daughters! Through all the twists and turns of international adoption not one of us brought home the child we were dreaming of over those dinners - some of us switched countries, some of us changed programs, and one family adopted a different child than the one they were first referred - but we all agree that our girls are the perfect children for our families!
The weather was gorgeous and I rented a bouncy castle for the backyard. Adeline bounced from 3:45 when the bouncer arrived until 9 pm when they came to take it away. She stopped to have some parachute fun, but then she was right back in.
All the families really out did themselves this year and everyone contributed to a FEAST of Vietnamese and Chinese food. Adeline stopped for about 10 minutes to eat some pho ga, a spring roll and a dumpling, but then she was back to bouncing. Adeline loved playing with the two big brothers who were there - they made her laugh and laugh and she loved the rough (but safe - they're super nice boys) play. The other girls got very into all our dress-ups and playing pretend, but for Adeline it was all bouncing all the time.
Adeline and I had made lanterns for the celebration (big plastic containers, lots of glue, tissue paper, ribbons and fake candles) and she was excited to have a lantern parade in the moonlight. I tried to get Adeline to pose with her lanterns once they were finally dry, but was told NO WAY in no uncertain terms.
Once the moon rose, we ate our mooncakes and then most of us got our lanterns and paraded to a nearby park before saying goodbye.
Once Adeline finished her in-the-dark bouncing (the best part, according to her) we had some quiet family time and made our wishes on the moon and talked about how the same moon that shines on us, shines on all the people in Vietnam, including Adeline's birth family and all the people who took care of her when she was a baby. I told Adeline the Vietnamese tale of the lady in the moon and then it was finally time for bed. It was a very late night, but full of fun and good memories for Adeline.
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