Are these chinese words actually what they say they mean?

it's "star, laugh, love"...
love is written with the Traditional font, Simpified is better (爱)
modern Chinese reads from the left to the right...
if you need your phrase, here it is:
住，笑，爱
don't write " 活，笑，爱" because it's "life, laughter, love"

the first character i don't think so, since it actually mean star, . but the 2nd and 3rd characters are accurate. yes, now people read chinese from left to right, but some rather old books in chinese you do read from up-down and right to left, but that's sorta rare now.

Not really,

星 = star
笑 = laugh (which is correct)
愛 = love (which is correct)

If you need a word that means live, you'll probably use:
æ´» = live, alive
生 = alive, life
存 = exist
命 = life, fate

Traditional Chinese is read up to down, right to left. So, it'll be like this (following 1 to 9):
7 4 1
8 5 2
9 6 3

But nowadays most Chinese is read like English, left to right, like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9...

yep its a literal translation, and people read chinese left to right