in pictures | holiday lights

nothing reminds me more of the holidays than christmas lights. we had a few extra strands of lights since our new tree came pre-lit & madison asked if we could hang some in her room. i thought, why not! but before hand i wanted to snap a few photos of her tangled up in the lights because let's admit it, we have all seen those adorable photos on pinterest of kids and christmas lights. i wanted one to frame & bring out with my christmas decor...and lamb had to be in the photos also. choose your battles. happy holidays. 

our family photos | 2012

i am feeling so beyond blessed right now. i am usually the person behind the camera but because of my talented brother in law, we were able to get some shots of my family. thank you so much chris! we appreciate your time more than anything. happy holidays from the starkey family. 

kate + chris = avery & anderson

meet the adcock family. this mini session was very special to me as i got to photograph my big sister and her beautiful family. aren't avery & anderson just the cutest?! here are just a few of my favorites from our little time together. love them so much! 

 

in pictures | thanksgiving feast at school

diy | hand stamped salt dough ornaments

the other day my good friend sophie from the forge posted on her IG a photo of salt dough ornaments. you can follow her @theforgeblog. anyways, it got me thinking how fun & cheap this would be with madison. so i instantly turned to pinterest for addition inspiration. you can check out my christmas board here, if you're interested :) anyways, i cut the recipe in half to make it easier to knead. madison & i started with the original recipe which i found here, but it was too much dough to knead & they dried uneven. so we tried again with a small ball of dough. 

anyways, here's how we did it (plus a few tips along the way)


1/2 cup salt 
1 cups all purpose flour 
1/2 cup luke warm water 
mix flour & salt first, gradually add water. it is important to knead the dough as long as possible for the minimum of 5 minutes. 
**tip- the first attempt we did not knead long enough, causing the ornaments to dry unevenly.

next: you can dry in the oven @ 200 degrees for 3 hours, but the next tip- ours had brown spots after drying and i really wanted mine to just be natural so it popped on our green tree :) so i let mine air dry for 3 days. (you can see in the gift tag photo, what it will look like during the drying process) 

anyways, it was easy. madison loved it. we chose to do simple circles because during our first attempt with the different christmas shapes, they failed to look anything like the shape. so we went simple. you can hang them on your tree, use them as gift tags, or gift them to family for the holidays. 
first photo: taken with iphone 

fall fun

now i remember exactly why i agreed to move to north carolina from pennsylvania. it's november and today we wore skirts and t-shirts. what a beautiful day & we still have fall leaves to play in. here are just a bunch of fall photos from our walk in the leaves today as a family. enjoy some photos of madison & i think husband will make an appearance in one :)  happy fall days to you all...i hope you also enjoyed some fresh air during this weekend. 

happy halloween

happy halloween! sooo i'm a day late! just wanted to share our annual family photo from halloween. every year we dress up together in family themed halloween costumes. this year, we were a family of flowers...madison's request. now that she is older and wanting to pick out the costumes, we gotta roll with it. thankful i have a husband that would do just about anything for his daughter :) halloween 2010, we went as a shrek family. not sure if this year's flower family beat out shrek or not. what do you think??