Need your votes again :)

We had another pumpkin carving contest at the apartments. Sadly I had no child entries this year. Please vote for your favorite by Thursday, October 30th. The winner receives a $100 rent credit

#1 Frank

 #2 Seahawks

 #3 Headless Horseman

 #4 Beetlejuice

 #5 Frankinweenie

#6 Boo

You can leave a comment on my blog or email me with your votes. Thank you for your help!

Summer Happenings

I find that with 4 small crazy boys, it's hard to find time to do the things that I want to do...like blog. So here are some of the things we have done this summer:

My cousin Camdon went on a mission to Chicago. We were able to attend his farewell. I love this picture of boys because we have a returned missionary, current missionary, and all my future missionaries ;) We just started writing Cam each week, and it is so fun to see how much he has grown spiritually. He is an amazing missionary with a strong testimony.

 While we were in Idaho for the farewell we stayed with my grandparents. Here is Grandpa John and the boys. Hope they didn't mind the extra noise we brought to their home ;)

 It was really hot this summer. So we had a water party with Alyssa in our redneck swimming pools. The kids loved it, so I guess it was a hit.

 We also worked on growing grass instead of weeds in our backyard. It's still a work in progress. We have quite a few bare spots.

 Randy turned 32! We spent the day with family and Willy took us out to Old Country Buffet and then we played a new Redneck Life game for 3 hours.

 We blessed this little bundle of joy. The blessing circle was full of giggles because Randy almost dropped this little guy. Thank heavens cousin Jordan caught him. 

 The day we blessed Baine, we also celebrated Deko's birthday. Our house was full of family and was about 90 degrees inside, but I loved it. It was so fun to have them all over at our house.

 We went to Ocean Shores for the day.

 It was actually a nice break from the intense heat we had been experiencing.

 We went to a wedding reception at a castle! This is the Thornewood Castle in Lakewood. It was huge and beautiful. This is a view of the castle from the secret garden.

 The happy couple. Jordan's family is in our ward. We found out that Stephen King had made some changes to the castle when he filmed some movies there. We also learned that Randy's brother, Brian was in a movie that was filmed there called "Rose Red"

 Just a random pic of all my boys. So hard to take a pic of them. How do you take pics of your children together? Did you notice Baine's face is blurred? 

 We went to Titon's pirate birthday party. Here is Raidon walking the plank:

 After the birthday party we took Titon and Diesol home with us and they crashed on the way there.

 Tripp started first grade. He also started riding the bus this year, which is new to us. Only missed the bus once so far...

 And Deko started preschool at a gymnastics center. His face tells it all. He still cries every time I drop him off. Hopefully he will get used to it soon.

Phew... hopefully I am all caught up now. It's been a fun summer, I'm sad to see it go but am excited for the fall and all the fun holidays coming up.

Ahoy Matey!

Free Dozen Donuts if you dress like a pirate today at Krispy Kreme. Totally hit that up!

Have you ever....

been blessed by a Monk? We have! 

When my mom was visiting us, our neighbors invited us to their home to watch the Monks bless their house. It was very interesting to see and listen to their prayers in Cambodian. Our neighbors are from Thailand and make the most delicious Thai food ever. We learned that Monks only eat once a day and it has to be before noon. After that they can only drink liquids. Females cannot touch the male monks. He said it's to help keep their minds pure and clean. In addition, female monks cannot be touched by males. I didn't even know there were any female monks. After the prayers, the monks invited us to come forward to be blessed and they threw water on us. Deko came running to me in the next room (I was feeding Baine in the front room) his face and hair were drenched, and he told me he didn't like this water gun house. The blessed water was thrown all over the house and yard. When they were finished, we got to eat a ton of delicious Thai food. My new favorite dessert is sticky black rice -it was amazing! Our other neighbor is from Ukraine and she brought some delicious Russian bread. My mom commented that we should have brought a bag of McDonald's burgers to represent American food. Before the monks left, they gave all of us good luck bracelets. It was neat and interesting to be a part of this experience.

Big 6

Tripp is 6 years old now. Where has the time gone? He wanted a Batman birthday this year, so here he is with his Batman shirt and Joker pinata. I made his shirt this year the same way I made his Hulk shirt last year. Both Tripp and Deklan helped make the pinata and they helped me paint it.

 He also asked for lemon cupcakes. I'm pretty sure he hadn't tried a lemon cupcake until his birthday. Darcy helped me make the Batman chocolates on top. I just melted chocolate chips, put them in a piping bag, and followed a batman symbol under a piece of wax paper. Super easy -just time consuming.

 And Grandma Kathy bought him this enormous chocolate cake.

 We played pass the bomb (hot potato). 

 It came down to Tripp and Asher. I think Asher won. We also tried to play "pin the mustache on the villain" by taping mustaches on Randy's face while blindfolded. But Randy's face was too hairy and the tape didn't stick. Asher technically won that game too.

 Here is Deko with the pinata

 And Tripp

 Asher

 And the candy rush. Alexis broke the pinata wide open.

 Lots of sweet treats

 And awesome presents

We all had a lot of fun! Thank you to everyone who helped us with the party and a big thank you to Steve and Zayna for letting us use their house. Now Tripp says he wants an Iron Man birthday for next year...

Visit

Grandma Keri came to visit and spoiled us for a few days. Tripp has wanted her to paint a Hulk on his wall since we first started talking about looking for a house. So he was thrilled when she created this masterpiece for him. And then he asked her to paint a King Kong fighting him. Little stinker! Thank you Grandma Keri! You need to visit us again soon!

Now let's hope we can keep our house so we can enjoy this painting, because we all know that if it was up to Bryan Biddulph we would be living in a cardboard box on the street.

Mom was able to snap a few family pics for us. It is close to impossible to get these boys to cooperate for a picture. This is the best we could do. Tripp is hiding a cookie in his shorts, who knows what Raidon is looking at, Deko's grin gives me the willies, and Baine is passed out.

Raidon loves baby Baine. We are still working on being gentle. He loves to touch his head, poke him in the eye, and point out his nose.

He also loves to hold him 

 and give him loves.

And we always love those sweet sleep smiles.