What is Holiday Fair?

My mom and dad are deep in the throes of finishing their ornaments for Holiday Fair. The Fair is at the old Palmetto Expo center, and is always the first weekend in December. This year it's the 4th through the 6th. This is their 31st year with a booth. My mom's friend Joy found a way to make the ornaments, so they started making them and selling them together at the booth. Joy moved to Murfreesboro, TN years ago, and still would try and come to the fair for several years after that, but with kids growing up and her daughter Abby's birthday always during the Fair, it became harder and harder for her to come, so now mom does it solo.

Mom and Dad used to make all sorts of things with the ornaments, too, specifically the Sucker Trees! Dad would cut the trees in the garage and Mom would make the ornaments and bake them into lollipop sticks. You could then have a "topper", like a turkey for Thanksgiving, and have pumpkins and pilgrims to spread around between all the suckers on the tree. They also did tables, plaques and frames, and tons of other stuff. Now Mom just sticks to the ornaments, which are all personalized upon order. Some years, on the first day of the Fair, there are people around the table 3 or 4 deep holding their orders for personalization and payment. And there have even been years mom has sold out by Friday and doesn't even bother returning for the 3rd day of the Fair!

In college I started making dog bone ornaments to make some extra holiday money, and this year I have taken on making the 2008s. Mom starts sometime in July making and baking the ornaments, and makes anywhere from 300-500! It is amazing what she thinks to do, and yes, our tree growing up was covered in them. We still help decorate the tree and hang the ones mom made in 1978! I am so proud of how industrious my mom is, and am thankful that she seemed to pass it down to me. I grew up with her getting good ideas from all kinds of places and showing me and saying "we can do that! we can make that!"

With it being such a family tradition for us, I wanted to share what our house looked like from July to December growing up, and how hard mom works and how talented she is. 

The dining room. Mom has an extra room this year to spread out the ornaments, so this is just a fraction of them. And the week before the Fair, Dad is counting and tagging everything, so this table is covered!

Shelves in the "studio", a room which was a huge selling point on the house when mom and dad bought it 20 years ago.

New this year, hunting Santas, complete with blaze orange!

Kate is in there somewhere. These are mom's miniatures that she glues into and onto most of the ornaments. She has hundreds of thousands, and they know her at least by face if not by name at the 3 main craft stores in town!

The Polar Express

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Ryan's parents took Kate and us to ride the Polar Express! We ate a yummy dinner in the bustling metropolis of Bryson City, visited the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad gift shop, and at 8pm hopped on the train. Despite the fact that narry a "Ho-Ho-Ho" came out of Santa's mouth, it was a magical ride. And, we just chalked it up to Santa being overwhelmed with all the bells and hugs he had to give out. We drank hot cocoa, traveled all the way to the North Pole to pick Santa up, and sang Christmas carols on the way back down the "mountain". It was so fun!

Kate and her ticket

Grandad, Kate and Mimi

Kate sees Santa outside the train window!

She is so besotted with Santa!

She fell asleep in the car less than 10 minutes down the road! We were all tired, but made such a good memory!

"Weeves!"

Again, like trick or treating, no one had to show Nancy how to dive in the leaves and throw them around. She just did it. She gets very excited to go outside. When we say it's time, she runs to the sliding glass door and plasters herself against the glass screaming "OUTSIIIIIIIIDE! OUTSIIIIIIIDE!" I think I used to do something similar, according to my parents. 

I love fall pictures. These are just a few "toot" (cute) ones.

Now Gimme Some Candy!

This Halloween we had 2 Candy Extravaganzas. The first was Trunk or Treat with our small group at church. We did Trunk-or-Treatopoly, and each person dressed up like the game pieces of Monopoly, and the parking spaces was the game board. Kids rolled a giant dice to get candy. I think it was really fun and creative. Ryan was the top hat, I was the ship. 

We bought Kate's costume in July. We found the unicorn suit at a consignment store, and she said she would LOVE to be a fairy riding on a unicorn for Halloween, and that's just what she was. Oh, of course you're curious about what she named the unicorn! Hokahornis, thank you very much. A quirky and kinky cross between Pocahontas and unicorn and horn, don't you think? Nancy was the proverbial ladybug. (No, not watermelon, thank you very much Matt Kelly)

We also went trick or treating in our neighborhood and made the rounds to Aunt Gerrie's house, Mo and Poppa's, and Mimi and Grandad's. Nancy wanted to eat every piece of candy in her tiny little bag (tiny on purpose, my friends) and totally caught on. Kate was a full 3 1/2 before she figured out the process. I think Nancy had about a half dozen chocolate bars while we made our rounds, and wanted more! It was a fun night. And really, the kids are still young enough that they haven't caught on  to the "He with the most candy wins" concept. Yet.

Hokahornis and "Weedlabug".

Dividing the plunder. See Nancy's tiny pumpkin bag?

Digging in at Trunk or Treat. Nancy would go out to a spot, get the candy, and want to sit down at the car and eat her piece before going out to get more.

So "toot". (Nan's word for cute)

4th Annual Sky Top Trip

This year we went to Sky Top with our friends Sean and Stacey Weiland. Our trip was over a month ago, but I have to go in sequence of events! They are in our community group and we love spending time with them! Stacey is in Physical Therapy Assistant classes and will graduate in a week!! And Sean works at Guardian, where he does stuff I still don't quite understand. The girls also adore them, so it was fun to share a family tradition with them. It was a windy day, but there were lots of apples to be picked. It was really busy, and even though we had to picnic on our coats because I forgot a blanket, we had a good time and got some yummy apples, cider and apple butter. 

Kate took this one! Not too bad!

Sean and Kate trying to reach some good apples.

Nancy enjoying her first apple not peeled or diced. She cried when we took it away.

Kate, making a Ryan face.

Beach Trip

While our house dried from "The Flood", we decided to keep our plans and go on the vacation we had scheduled for a few months. We joined the Keever Family down in Edisto at Kelly's dad's place for a few nights in October. It was so fun and relaxing! We biked and even got to go to the beach on a warm day, and again on a cold day. The kids did not care, so I tried my best not to complain about the cold. There was "putt putt putt", as Kate called it, and Ryan, Jeremy and Calahan went shrimping one night and caught just enough for us to eat for shrimp boil. 

Most of all we really loved hanging out with the Keevers and their kids and made some fun memories and had great conversations. The kids got along great, and Kate got to have a sleepover every night in Harper and Calahan's room. Kate learned the word "beehonkus" and by the end of the weekend I was getting Harper to say "fwamwich" as much as possible ("sandwich", in English). 

After our time in Edisto, we headed up to Litchfield to join Ryan's parents at their condo for a few nights. We were able to have another warm beach day with the girls, and even visited the Atalaya Castle at Huntington Beach. But Ryan was spending  a lot of time on the phone with my brother, who was going to our house to empty the dehumidifier under the house and check how the floor was drying.  We stopped at the Columbia zoo on the way home and had a quick but enjoyable trip. It was a fun way to take a pit stop and sure beat the Columbiana mall (which in my Sonshine Festival days considered it to be a huge mall!)

On Huntington Beach State Park. I thought Ryan's face was funny.

At Litchfield. A sweet daddy moment.

Kelly reading to Kate, Harper and Nancy.

Yes! Bathing suits! It was great!

So cute in her suit.

We returned home to stay with my folks for 2 more nights. The first night we were home, my brother and sister-in-law stopped by to give some exciting news - they are having a baby in June! The next night Ryan and my bro, Ray, were at our house until 1am fixing the carpet. Ryan crawled into bed that night around 2am, and woke at 5:15 to go to Bible study! We were away from our house for 10 nights, and I was never so thankful for our 1300sq. feet. And I still am! It has been a month since I tried to wash my loofah in the sink, but sometimes when I am rinsing something out in the sink in the bathroom I get a pit in my stomach, as if somehow the water will just start rising and overflow again and I won't be able to control it. I am just so thankful for Ryan and his patience with me, and for Ray and his hard work. We would have never been able to fix it without him! For my parents who let us eat their food and use their laundry detergent, it was nice to be someplace familiar. And for Kim DeLoach and her dehumidifier and Lee Anne for playing with the girls while we cleaned up the mess, and the lifetime supply of loofahs! Thanks! 

The Gym

Kelly invited me to join her at her gym for a 7 day trial. We actually received a 14 day free trial offer in the mail, so I decided to meet her for the 

class she goes to on MWF, Tread and Shed. Let's just say I honest to goodness had to get off the treadmill and go to the bathroom because I thought

I was going to be sick. It was a great workout. I am totally hooked after just one day, Raquel (yes, that was her name) charmed me with their showers, 

makeup counters, free childcare, and spinning room. When I find myself convincing myself that we can totally join the gym, this is the scene that 

flashes through my head.