Merry Christmas to ALL!

The first pic is Katie and Taylor writing a note to Santa and leaving him cookies and rudolph magic oats and carrots. The second pic is Katie's new ballerina wear for her dance class. The last pic is our visit from Spiderman!! He is still with us. He was spiderman ALL night long and still is wearing his dinosaur rainboots!

New Light

Thanks to Mommo and Dad Starkey's gift of a Lowe's giftcard we finally got our new chandalier! It's so beautiful! We also got a box of 6 hallway lights in the oil-rubbed bronze and installed them in the hallways upstairs and down! After replacing the lights we got new knobs for the cabinets! what a difference!

The Griswolds are Brazilian!

Our neighbors across the street have this going every night! As many lights and blow-up Christmas things as possible in their little yard! Stuff on the porch and even on the roof! It's awesome! He's a painter and they are so fun and like the title says, they're Brazilian!

Mmmmmbbssss!!!

Leisy and Kent got me addicted to their sprite and cranberry concoction and I ran into this at a holiday party. It also comes in diet and it's AWESOME! Sadly, it's just a holiday thing so it'll be gone after the holiday. super yummy!

Candlelight Tour of Biltmore

On Friday night Craig and I got to go to the Candlelight tour of the Biltmore Estate! Wow! It was gorgeous! The house is huge and so beautiful and they have it all decorated for Christmas and a choir is singing carols! We also had a fantastic dinner in the stable(it's a restaurant that is built onto the house). It was so fun and we hope that GE does that for it's Christmas Party every year!!

More Christmas Fun!

Saturday night we went downtown to let the kids ride the carousel. They have it set up for the Christmas holiday and it's free! You can see how excited Katie was to ride the horses! She was a great cowgirl! The last picture is supposed to be showing you the "snow" they had floating around (it was actually soap suds). It was fun though and we got to try out a local rib place that was good too.

Thanks Hailey!

Hailey sent us a coupon to Lowe's that got us $10 off our new porch lamp! Thanks Hailey!

THIS IS SO GROSS!!! DON'T READ IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!

Okay, I tried to warn you all. Last Monday Katie was sick she had "urps". She "urped" all over her comforter and I had to take it outside and hose it off. This nasty dog came along and ate it up!! EWEY!!! I have to say it was nice to not have to go out and clean it up though!

"Take a picture by the Christmas tree!"

We got our Christmas tree last Thursday, but we just finished putting the ornaments on last night! It was fun and I think some of them are still on. Taylor invented a game last year where he'd take off an ornament to throw at another ornament higher up so he could knock it off. He hasn't done that again yet, but he has taken most of them off a couple times.

Let the good times roll!

Here are more pix of the parade. Katie and Craig, the michelin man(michelin has a big plant here), the Ambominable Snowman from Rudolph. All the big players were there, it was a great night!

Taylor at the Parade

We went to the Greenville Christmas Parade on Saturday. It was really fun! We were warned that it would be cold so we bundled up but it was nowhere near freezing and you mostly just needed a long sleeve T or a sweatshirt(welcome to the South). We took two camping chairs and met up with two families(one from the neighborhood, one from the ward). Taylor was the only one who used the camping chairs! He sat almost the entire time (well over an hour). Now why can't he do that during church?

Mmmmm....Delisioso!!

Here's little man after some "black cookies", also known as Oreos on Saturday. You can see we still haven't given up our alter-ego Superman!

A little piece of Amish Soul for Leisy and Kent

Here are the pix of the Amish people that I snuck. The first is the guy in Home Hardware when we went to see Santa Clause(that was the sight of Craig's first job). The second picture is difficult to see, but it's an Amish lady and a little Amish girl at the truck stop in Ashland. Their family was selling baskets on the road side and they were inside staying warm.

Thanksgiving cousins!

Here's some pix of the cousins at our Thanksgiving get together!

Roadtrip!!

We took some pix on our 10hr trek up to the OHIO! The first pic of the peach wasn't too far from home(we were still in SC). The next pic was taken in Charlotte, NC and the last was in Virginia, I think. It was fun to see the leaves disappear off the trees and by the time we got to Ohio it was November as we remember it.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Last night for FHE we made Turkey cookies and decorated them and took them to friends in the neighborhood and ward. It was really fun. We are off to Yaya and Papa's house now! It's a mixed blessing to leave the mid 70's here in Greenville for 40's and snow, but it'll probably be the only snow we see this year!

CRAIG GOT ARRESTED!!!

Craig was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was arrested today at the Fall Festival. Somebody planted some stuff on him and he's in the clank for the next couple days! I think they'll let him out by Thanksgiving but it'll be on his record. The bail is set at $25,000 so he'll just have to serve his jail time. We were hoping that Derek could give us some legal advice and maybe serve as his lawyer.

(if you believed me, breathe a sigh of relief, this is just a joke, I repeat, this is only a joke!)

Cr-EGG saves the day!

Here's Craig being gallant and saving the day with the Firemen at the Fall Festival! MY HERO!!

Superman really can fly!

Our neighborhood had a little Fall Festival today and we walked down to it. Check out little (super)man "flying"!

6 Little Known Facts about the Craigster

Amy tagged me so here it goes:

1. I was born with the gift of spinning.....I can spin balls, plates, pillows, boxes, VCR's, kids (just kidding) on my finger. I can even spin stuff and put it on other people's fingers....only if they're willing to try spinning.

2. I had to take speech classes when I was a kid. As soon as I could say "Refrigerator" correctly, I could graduate.

3. I can blow bubbles from my mouth. I generate the bubbles with my tongue and the bottom of my mouth.....kind of freakish, but cool.

4. My senior year of high school I was the MVP of my basketball team. We were a pretty decent team, but we never made it to the state finals or anything.

5. I drove a new Chevy Trailblazer for a year that had "Rubbermaid" stamped on the side of it. The insurance, gas and maintenance were free.....I wonder if I can get that car back?

6. I got flashed by a crazy old lady on my mission. My companion and I were on bikes sitting at a red light and she ran up to us. She then lifted her shirt and started rubbing herself. Probably one of the nastiest things I've ever seen.......unless you count the time I saw my old babysitter giving herself a sponge bath in the hospital. Or the time that I went to a wedding on my mission and there were half-naked girls up on stage dancing for everyone.....that wasn't too nasty, just very weird and awkward.

Betcha didn't know that about me!!!!

Thanks Family Fun!

Katie and I made these little pilgrim hat treats to take into her school buddies at lunch time on Friday. I think I won over her teacher! She loved them! hurray!

Okay, so I got tagged!

Sorry I keep forgetting, that I got tagged. Six little known facts about me okay, here goes:

1- I didn't pass my driving test the first time around. Yeah, it's true. Only my mom and Craig know about this(Hailey and Rachael might know too). Anyhow, my mom was awesome and we fibbed and said I didn't get to take it and I rescheduled. Now THAT is love! Thanks mom, you're the best secret keeper EVER!

2- We just sold our house. We didn't make much of anything, we hardly broke even which is really disappointing, but it's nice to feel like we're really here in Greenville now.

3- I still love to play dress-up. I guess that's why I love Halloween so much and why I want to add to our Halloween Costume box every year.

4- I only liked school because my friends were there. It's true. I hated missing even when I was sick because I wanted to know what was going on with everybody at school. Okay, I didn't want to have to make-up all the work either.

5- I don't wash my new clothes before wearing them, in fact, I wear them with the tags still on most of the time. I have yet to return something after wearing it out though. I think it all comes down to a fear of commitment! :>

6- I still have dreams that I'm a good runner(or completely fluent in Spanish, or great at skiing) and then I wake up and realize that I still struggle to make it through a 5k. I guess I'll just have to keep working on it and figure it's just one of those things I'm not so gifted at.

Those are my six things. I hope you all don't think less of me because of them.
Here are my six people. They may or may not have blogs.

1- Jordi Fletcher
2- Kathy Starkey
3- Craig Starkey(I'll have him post it on our blog, of course)
4- Derek Howell (if he has time)
5- Mom Howell (she can post on my blog too if she wants to)
6- Dad Howell (ditto for dad)

If you're having a bad day...watch this!

Taylor's Wild ride and more fun!

Here's some more pix of our Family adventure on Saturday. Just consider it advertising for the Carolinas and the Great Starkey Inn.

Great Woodland Adventure Trail

These pix are from one of the hikes we took on Saturday. It was so fun. They had all these fun little stations to stop and look at.

Chimney Rock NC

Saturday we went to Chimney Rock NC. It was so fun! The Fall colors are just at peak and it was breathtaking the whole way there(only 1 hour) and the hike was awesome! We had such a wonderful time! We didn't even leave the house until after noon and we got back at 7pm. We hiked Chimney Rock and Pulpit Rock and Vista Rock(there are lots of rocks on that mountain). This was where they filmed "Last of the Mohicans". Now we've been up to Lake George where "Last of the Mohicans" actually took place and down here to where they filmed the movie!

Also known as "The Meadows"

This is the sign for the entrance to our section of the neighborhood. It always make me think of Mike Meyers talking to Mike Meyers in "So I Married an Axe Murderer"!

Lichen or moss?

Okay, here's a question for Steve, is this lichen or moss?????

Crazy Girl on the loose!!!

WATCH OUT THERE IS A CRAZY GIRL ON THE LOOSE! HAS A PINK GUMMY TONGUE THAT STICKS OUT AND SMELLS LIKE PEACH!!! Pretty cool halloween candy, huh? severed tongue, yum yum!

Cowboy Taylor

Taylor fell in love with these cowboy boots at the consignment shop. I thought they were still asking too much for them so we didn't get them, but after hearing about the cowboy boots for a week I gave in! They are his only choice for footwear now!

The Loot!

Here's the aftermath of our Trick-or-treating outing. What a haul!