Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Today is the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, an important holiday to people in China and numerous other Asian countries. The following is from wikipedia:

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together.

Some of our homemade lanterns blowing in the breeze

We chose to celebrate the evening by making paper lanterns and homemade mooncakes filled with our own special bean paste... raspberry jam! After enjoying a few cookies mooncakes, we said some prayers for the Ladybug's and Butterfly's birth parents, as well as the Ladybug's foster mother and brother.

I took some photos to remember our first Mid-Autumn Moon Festival as a family of four. Enjoy!

Our mooncakes... made with lots of heart!

The Butterfly enjoying the mooncakes

The Butterfly playing with her new lantern (notice all of the crumbs!)

Our two beautiful Guizhou girls

The Ladybug excited for the festival

Daddy stealing a kiss from the Butterfly

Mommy enjoying some special time with two silly girls

The Butterfly playing with her lantern

~~Aloha!