Halloween Time!

So, here they are....the $7.00 costume clad Starnes Family! I'm all about the super cheap costume and this year I'm pretty sure I broke all previous records held by myself! 3 t-shirts from the dollar store, some felt, and some spray paint. Thats it!!!

I ♥ Halloween! We went to Snake River Landing and did some trick or treating yesterday and then last night we had our ward trunk or treat. So much fun.

An embarassing confession.

I have many quirks. My husband's patriarchal blessing even forewarned him of this truth. Today I would like to come clean with one of those quirks:

Hi my name is Staci, I am 30 years old  & still sleep with my blankey. Love this topic, feels like a confessional or an AA meeting :). My blanket has earned its spot in my bed. Much to my parents dismay the blanket survived elementary, junior high, and high school. It joined me during the undergraduate years, accompanied my husband and I on our honeymoon (gasp! I know I know.....), and it survived the law school years. It moved to Boise with us for 4 years and is now currently residing here in Idaho falls tucked under my pillow.
This blanket is actually number 2. Blankie #1 was cut up, by mom, into a couple of big squares and casually tossed away 1 piece at time over a year span when I was 4 years old. Her efforts to wean me from this dependency fueled the desire to have what was forbidden. I eventually hijacked the blanket that was on my big girl bed back when I was probably 5 and haven't looked back.

My mom made blankey with her best friend (Ann) in approximately 1986. They decided that their daughters needed new bedspreads. Ann made a yellow one for Ashley (my best friend) and my mom made a pink one for me. Blankey used to be really cute. It had cute little tiny roses all over the print and it was  SO amazingly comfortable. It was MAGICAL. It would stay very cool in the summer and keep me warm and toasty on cold winter nights.

These days, most of the ties are missing, there are huge holes throughout, all of the batting is gone, it is pretty much SEE THROUGH and looks like a heap of old rags when thrown on the ground. It doesn't even resemble the shape of a  blanket but I love how it smells and how it feels against my face. I know I know, it sounds a little sick. Obviously I have some sort of issue I need to work through here. My husband teases me, my children tease me, but it is incredible how many times I find any one of them snuggled up with it .

The blanket regularly is the focus of family jokes. Yet it has withstood the test of time, and somehow has not repelled the man who loves me. I don't see it leaving any time soon.

There. I feel better now.

Tease on blankey haters.

Behold the rag in all of its glory:

Fall Haps

We've been busy this week enjoying the FALL!

We've done the pumpkin patch thing:

Had a fun Halloween party with my Activity Day girls! (And was SO grateful for the extra hands to help....Kels and Logan!)

And I've been busy working on the good ol' Starnes Family Halloween costumes again this year. I'm so evil making my husband continue to dress up year after year. ☺

Grand total for all 5 costumes this year:
$7.00
Wanna know what we're going to be for that LOW of a price? You'll have to wait until Friday to find out! ☺

This and that

Well, nothing too monumental to post about. Feels like such a let down after such an great trip. We're just now getting back into the routine. We're all caught up with school work, scouts, piano, and laundry. Except now we have basketball and soccer to try to squeeze in somewhere. ☺What were we thinking??? I'm not sure. We're just down right crazy I guess.

Last night we had a really great night with a couple of neighbor families. I made a big pot of minestrone soup. We had salad, rolls, and cookies. Then we had a little FHE lesson. I've been hearing a lot of rude, aggressive type words being used between the boys and their friends in my house and I was getting so sick of it. We had on of those family nights where my kids actually got it. I thought I would write about it for any one out there who are having this same issue in their homes.

First off we discussed what kinds of words Christ would use if he was on the earth. We read he scripture "As I have loved you love one another." Then I showed them these 2 items:

A trash can and a treasure box. I then told everyone that for the last couple of days I have been listening to some of the words that have been said. Some of those words are "treasure words" and some of them have been "trash words." I put the words on strips of paper and we went around the room and had each person pick a paper and put the word in the appropriate container.
We had trash words like: hate, dumb, stupid, freakin, idiot, butt, get out of my way.
Then we had treasure words like: Thank you, I love you, Please move out of my way, Can I help you, and excuse me.
The kids LOVED this. Then we talked a little bit about swear words and using the Lord's name in vain.
Then each kid got to take a little chocolate treasure with them to remember what we talked about.

I'm grateful for treasure words. When we got home from out trip I heard quite a few of them from friends in our ward. I had a few people come up and say, "We sure missed you while you were gone." I even had one friend say, "I know you probably aren't happy to be back in Idaho Falls but I sure am glad you are back." It made me stop and think, do I really complain that much? Idaho Falls isn't so bad to me anymore. It is home to me now and I was genuinely happy to be back. (Even though I know WINTER is fast approaching. Bleh.) It is nice to be missed. I need to be better at saying treasure words to others.

Fall is here in full swing! We've decked the house out and are enjoying the leaves changing color in the yard:

I love fall except for one MAJOR thing. Family pictures. I don't necessarily care so much about the actual pictures, its the coordinating outfits that stresses me out like crazy. I don't want things to be too matchy matchy and I don't want to do another family picture with browns and oranges. Wouldn't it be great if there was a store geared toward family pictures? Everything coordinates perfectly without running around to 50 different stores. That would be bliss.

Speaking of pictures.........if you are Deseret Book anytime soon you should consider buying this new Illustrated Book of Mormon for your family! (Unless you are a family member...you just MIGHT be getting this book for Christmas) The artist is in our ward and my MAN....yes Mr. Nathan  is in the book!!! It's actually pretty hilarious because most of the models in this book are all people from our ward.

This is the cover:

And here is one of the two pictures of Nate. This one is only the back of his head but there is another one in there where you can see the side of his face. Pretty cool huh? He is a bad guy but it's pretty cool to know that Nate is in the scriptures.

Ok. I'm done now. ☺

DC: Monday...last day!

Sick of my DC wrap up yet? Well too bad! One more to go!
 
Monday we got up early and went straight to the Holocaust Museum. It was very emotionally draining to see the actual shoes and personal belongings of some of those men, women and children sent to death and work camps. Pictures aren't allowed in the museum so I have no visual documentation of the day but it definitely makes a lasting impression on everyone who enters that museum. It is hard to believe that human beings were capable of such brutality and evilness. Some of the images we saw are pretty much burned into my mind forever. Horrible. 

After the museum we headed up to Baltimore for the rest of the day. Baltimore was SO SO SO much fun! We went over to the National Aquarium, watched a dolphin show, wandered through many different fish and animal exhibits and enjoyed an evening on the docks overlooking the harbor.

Here is the aquarium:

Em and I decided to pose all crazy with this silly cutout when suddenly, the ACTUAL man came walking up. We all took a picture with him! Totally random and SO hilarious!

 

As we were snapping these last few pics on the pier, I couldn't help but think about how BLESSED Em and I both are. We both married such GOOD and honorable men who love us (kiss us in public ☺) and take good care of us. They adore their families, work SO hard, and don't take life too seriously. They are FUN to be around and they make us LAUGH so hard we cry! They put up with us and our crazy antics.

We put up with them too.  

On the way home we stopped at the White House. 

And THAT was our AMAZING trip to DC!!! Great friends, great food, great sites, and LOTS of caffeine to keep us going. WE LOVE YOU PERRY FAM! Thank you for everything. This was the absolute highlight of my year! Move to Idaho Falls....will you please?☺

DC: Sunday

 Sunday we headed over to Mt. Vernon. It was the perfect activity for a beautiful Sunday. I had an appreciation for Washington before this trip but that appreciation has grown in leaps and bounds after really getting to know the man and all he did for this country.  He was a family man, a religious man, an amazing general and President.

Later that night the Perry's introduced us to the glorious store.......WEGMAN'S. This isn't just your everyday grocery store. They have a 5 star chef working in there who will whip you up a gormet meal at your convenience. The pastries and treats were to DIE FOR! We spent over 60 bucks on nothing but TREATS that night! I had died and gone to SWEET heaven.

Em and I were bugging the Wegman's boy at the treat counter. He hooked us up with some sweet hats.

Yeah, we're embarassing like that. We even had a couple of people ask us for assistance while we were rocking the hats. They thought we worked there!

We had muffins, apple tart, fruit tart, a chocolate flourless cake dome, pumpkin cheesecake and donuts.

YUM!

DC: Saturday

Saturday morning we headed back over to the mall. We stopped by at the Washington Monument even though it is still closed from the earthquake. It is hard to really get an appreciation for how large it is unless you are right up by it! By the way, can you see how PERFECT the weather was for us? It was SNOWING back at home!

 Then we headed over to the Air and Space Museum for a couple of hours:

Followed by the Museum of Natural History:

Then we spent some time at the Museum of American History and we were able to meet up with our friends from the college days....the Taye family. It was great to spend some time with them! I think my favorite thing there were all of the inaugural gowns that the first ladies wore. I also loved seeing Lincoln's hat, and the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz!

And that evening we went to a couple of monuments...the Lincoln and the Vietnam War Memorial:

Over 56,000 names are on this wall. It is pretty powerful to walk by and see all of those names.  On that somber note, another wonderful and exhausting day came to a close!