I Love Buffalo!

so as i have been reading friends and families blogs regarding thankfulness, i have been inspired. thank you to everyone for that! i shall embark upon a year of expressing gratitude and love, blog-style. and first up would: buffalo!

1. i love the snow! who knew? a rain-loving girl with no aspirations of shoveling anything, except sand occasionally, could love this crazy stuff that seems to be in abundance here at times, but never as much as i think we should have. mexico, ny gets all the love!
2. friends here have been my actual saving grace. all of us in my little family have made such fabulous friends, and i don't know quite how to tell them all how much they have blessed our little family, so thanks to any of you who read this!
3. since dental school is here, it definitely fits into the buffalo thanking department! now, i don't love all the time glenn is away from our family, or the stress he occasionally feels, but i am grateful that he is here doing what he actually wants to do. getting here, was so hard and disastrous at times, which translates into a huge testimony building experience, at least for me. and that is why i love UB!
4. we left a truly amazing ward in portland, & i was very nervous to meet our ward here, but of course they overwhelmed me! the ward kind of fits into our "friends" category, but is so much than that, so i gave it a special spot for it's own. we fit in perfectly here, with students & "normal" families alike. sometimes i am blown away by the generosity of the people in our ward, & the acceptance that seems to radiate from most of the members. we wouldn't quite as happy a family without our extended family here. love you!
5. that we don't actually live in buffalo, is definitely on the list. i love how we are in the "country" and yet only 5 minutes from target and wegman's. it is beautiful here, & very peaceful & so safe that sometimes i wish we could stay here & never leave. but alas, in a couple of years we will be out of here, with only memories and friends to take with us.


now i know that this is not a big list, but i love it all and i'm so grateful for all the things on it!

Rakin' In the Kids

one day last week i noticed that the leaves had piled up so much that i could no longer see the flagstones for our walkway, and i decided to have special one-on-one time with the rake. after a few minutes the kids caught on to my sneakiness, and they tried to help me, but with only the 1 rake they got creative. caleb used a sand shovel and a lot of force, while toran found the tiny broom and swept away the leaves on the ground!

i ended up playing with haven for awhile once she woke up from her nap. and her new boots proved to be very cumbersome on the slide. i of course purchased them a bit big so as to get 2 seasons worth out my $, but they kept popping off her tiny feet when she would try to get her legs onto the actual slide from the ladder. eventually, she ran away after one episode in just her socks, and stayed that way until we went inside for some serious bath time!

ciela graciously took over my actual assigned duty of raking and did a marvelous job, all the while caleb is foiling her almost just as quickly with his lightning quick shovel moves!

the boys had been begging to play in the leaf pile that "the men" as we call them (actually the landlords hired help who thankfully take care of the yard a lot) had made from all our leaves several days previous to this, and so i gave in and they went hog wild, with my piles!


the boys can be happy in almost any situation of dirtiness and loudness can be involved. they buried each other and then both together so they would look like they were one of the leaves!

haven is growing so fast lately! she says a lot more words now and her curiosity for all things not baby approved is daunting. her vocab list includes: book, baby, ciela, toran, caleb, cup, more, outside, bye-bye, shoe, up, down, banana, pablo, dora, boots, backyardigans, elmo, mouse, mama, mama (actually meaning dada), no, stop, and bath. she gets very excited for most things still and kicks and giggles and has a silly lop-sided huge grin! she is currently teething 8 teeth at once, and just went to the dentist for the first time. she of course, cried.

Halloweeny

halloween at our house was long with several days of partying, and way too much loot! the second day of parties began with the kids having their school shin-digs, and then coming home and heading off to the tae kwon do party. this was great fun, with games and stunts performed by some of the instructors. there was a halloween costume contest and caleb won for the 3 and 4 year olds. although i feel like we cheated a bit because they thought he was the "bow-tied dinosaur" (what is that?) and it is plain to see that he is pablo! he won a tae kwon do gourd for his prize, i was just glad it wasn't a bag of candy!

here's all the kids after the tkd party and full day at school, as we are heading to go beg for treats from the neighbors. they are all frazzled, with bits of costumes left at various location and and some dinner and other food adding to the loveliness. we barely got this shot, everyone was so whiny and tired, i don't even know how we made it walking around the few blocks that we went to. ciela ended up staying out extra long with some neighbors from across the street who have kids her age. she had a great time, and no one complained about needing anymore candy. in fact, caleb asked many times to go home before we finally did, and even stopped trick-or-treating for about 1 block. haven on the hand got better at each house, and near the end would baby sign for "more" when she got up to the door, and stopped fussing and gave up the binky entirely! it was a lot more fun than i thought it would be this year. haven is ready for anything now!

the best close up of haven we ended up with . she was a blue octopus, and so cute. the first party we went to she wouldn't wear the hood, so i put her hair into 8 little bear-ears (buns), so so cute! by the 3rd time in the costume she loved the whole thing and kept the hood on all the time. we never got good shots of ciela or toran, but bayla was hannah montana with a wig she seriously regretted begging for. and toran was a fighter pilot, a pretty cool costume i found for $7 after glenn realized his homemade optimus prime wasn't rain weather friendly (though if you know the gman you know it would've been totally sweet! with big chunks of boxes painted with decals for the choppy body parts, way better than the 2-D version from the store) and so i had to make a costume run!

thankfully caleb was willing to be pablo again this year. this boy has the most creative costume ideas and i really wish i would act on them sooner. last year he wanted to be a red apple, and i contemplated how to make one and even searched the internet for costumes but i was not willing to pay the crazy prices, so i convinced him that pablo would be even better. this year he wanted to be a stool! i really had no idea what to do, and didn't even try looking for ready-made ones, i just frequently encouraged pablo again, and again. sometimes caleb does listen.

Various Knots and Nots!

things are moving along here in the ashfam house, and while i fiddle around with a different picture program i am trying to update the world on our happenings. here is toran tying a "cape" to haven, and while she is sad here, she did love it for several minutes! you can see toran's room here with red and white stripe walls and the navy and hammered-metal dresser, which we spray painted to change the previous color of tan.



here is ciela wearing her new blue belt, which she received earlier in this class, with toran in the low-belt family class. they are sparring eachother here. now ciela is considered a high belt, and so they won't be taking any classes together again for awhile. ciela had to test for blue belt at another location for the school (they have 6) and that was very difficult for her. but after a few minutes of tears she talked with one of the instructors who dates one of ciela's instructors, and relaxed enough to go onto the floor.

glenn grew out his facial hair for halloween with intentions to have a costume to go along with some "look". but we ended up running a bit late for our day-of-halloween party, and so no fun could be had then. nevertheless, the following day glenn began demonstrating his artistic abilities in the form of hair. here is the the cowboy stache

one of my least favorite offerings would be the slimy stache! and here is the green in the tv room portion of the front room. i love it!

New Adventures

ciela and toran on the first day of school.


caleb on the first day of school.


haven and her big toothie grin!


toran and haven following the geese in the park behind our house, which you can see! it's the green building with a roof on the left side of the picture.


haven and a friend playing our piano. it was so cute, they were "singing" and everything!

Summer Lovin' Pictures!

at the pool haven loved playing with a friends bike hat. she kept putting it on and off and playing with the clasp!
haven is a busy little girl who loves to play and is very smart. she can say stop it- "dop it!" a phrase constantly being heard in our home, and loves to point out anything hot-"haw, haw"

for tae kwon do ciela has to wear this helmet for sparring, but when she is done haven takes it and puts it on herself and velcro's it together. this in the playroom at the tkd place, and haven loves to ride on this car!

a few weeks ago caleb ran into the corner wall going up the stairs and busted open his head. blood was all over the place! all the kids were screaming and glenn had just left for his first day of school, all i could do was laugh, thinking how could this get any worse? i called glenn home
(since it was a bbq day, no classes) and then he and the boys spent a few hours at the er, toran wanted to go for support.

cabes could have used 4 stitches, but he got 3 and was proud to show them off at the birthday party for a friend that we went to right after the incident!

here's the cutie picture of glenny and haven hanging together at crystal. how sweet!

Here We GOOO!!!!

since it is officially fall now, i believe it is time to return to the land of the blog. for those of you who don't know we are still a 1 computer family, but since glenn has returned to school and all the glories of studying that means i only have access to the computer on sunday, which makes for difficult blogging since i also have emails to read and internet searches to do, and a window of opportunity that involves bedtimes. so, since i am behind and i do want to catch you all up i'm going to do a bit of the past along with the current stuff, so we should be caught up in a month or so. thanks for sticking by our crazy family! here we go....



the kids finished up their swim lessons and everyone moved up! cabes and toran are showing of the newly learned bravery skills! and i can't ever get a good shot of ciela swimming!



we headed out to crystal beach a couple more times and enjoyed the beautifulness that is canada up there! we have learned that a sled is the proper toting vehicle to get stuff to and from the car, after difficulties with strollers and wagons, and then of course the sled becomes part of the "toys" grouping. glenny ran the boys and haven for quite sometime in the water, and my shots turned out fuzzy but you can imagine it right?

haven LOVES the water, and daddy and here's a perfect shot of them both loving eachother!


the kids are back at school too, pictures next week, and here's our recent schedule:
monday-friday cabes has preschool in the mornings and so after i drop him off haven and i head off to bally's where she plays (after a bit of crying) and i FINALLY get to exercise! after returning home with the cabes we lunch and put haven to bed (i am so dreading the no-nap phase!) and it's house chores for me and some cartoon time for cabes. then some dinner prep and games with caleb til the other kids show up around 2:30. that brings us to snack time and homework and most days a daily chore for the kids: playroom pick-up, or bedroom thoroughly cleansed of all evil and other house needs. and 4 days a week ciela and toran have tae kwon do, all different times and that's the craziest for me. ciela still has achievement days twice a month and i have book club once a month and sometimes i participate in "girls night out", but not a lot of the time. glenny is hoe for dinner (which is usually at 5:30) and bedtimes (the 2 little cuties turn in @ 6) and then he is gone again by 7:30, which leaves me a few hours and a lot to do! dishes, laundry, vacuuming, ironing, craft projects, other projects, and of course TV TIME! psych is done for this year and i'm pumped for the new grey's anatomy spin-off private practice (but ready to admit it when it becomes to sexy) and i really liked LIFE on monday too! new shows and the old favorites, and there you go add in some scripture time and book reading and that's what we are doing right now! the kids also were strongly encouraged to participate in the stake musical "joseph and the technicolor coat" ( i think that's what it's called) so they are now in the children's chorus and that involves practice on saturday mornings. off i go now to do more stuff!

Beavis at 32

Glenn interrupts this Blog because he was up too late studying:

I HATE this new haircut! I said take off 2 inches and I got butchered (Third time was the charm at Fantastic Sam's Hair Salon). I look like Beavis (Obviously from Beavis and Butthead) just turned 32 - or maybe older, but definitely just as stupid. We may even have the same eyebrows. I'm not saying that my hair should be that important, but it does remind me of my middle school days when I would walk into a bathroom and realize for the first time since my shower that my hair had dried to look like...well, what it looked like. Back then I was embarrassed for myself but to spacey to care for longer that 5 minutes after seeing my goofy image in the mirror. Currently, my hair annoys me enough that I'm bothered even when people say that it looks good. No! It doesn't. Worse is that I even care. I should just go back to middle school and live out my days in ignorance - but since I can't you might as well get a good look.

Tag!-I HATE Being It!

so i don't get the tag thing, or the survey thing either. and quite honestly i usually ignore such things. why? well, who cares about what i like, or wear, or watch. now i don't want to step on the toes of those who have sent me these things for YEARS, but i just can't possibly fit the "cool" bill of wanting to be read. but, drumroll or tongue roll please: i'm going to respond here to as many as i can remember or locate still in my inbox. feel free to keep "tagging" (why that word? it's like you're being hunted by those who've purchased the "tag". yes, hunted.) me, and i'll keep ignoring them, again!
4 Things:
jobs i've had: managed a craft store, sold wedding dresses/waitressed the wedding reception, massage therapist (only REAL job), worked at byu concessions!
places i've lived: vancouver, wa phoenix, az portland, or provo, ut
vacationed: the bahamas, hawaii (maui, oahu), mazatlan, the disney's. i must also mention cannon beach the best "coast" ever!
fave foods: this is tough! my mother-in-laws chimichanga's, my sister angie's marsala chix, a loaded pastrami sandwich, my neighbor bina's lamb and rice. close tie-my hubby's choc. mousse and ice cream!
places i'd rather be: visiting lizzie, downtown portland, cannon beach, or and atlanta, ga
do before i die: visit all the temples, visit ireland, design and own my own home, serve a mission with my man.
6 YEARS AGO:
1. age? 24
2. school? all done
3. work? mama at home
4. lived? phoenix
5. hung out? with dana and shane
6. glasses? nope
7. best friend? lizzie
8. tattoo's? so glad i freaked and can now say "no"
9. piercing's? 4, ears only
10. car? crappy honda civic
11. been to a real party? oh, goodness yes. the stories you don't wanna hear-or let my kids hear!
12. heart broken yet? yeah, a long time ago,
13. single? no, married for 4 years, and so happy
14. kids? 2
3 YEARS AGO
1. 27 2./3. same 4.transitioning from vanc, wa to portland or 5. chuck & jill/angie & chris
6/7/8/9. same-o but only wearing 2 10. toyota camry-nice! 11/12/13 still same, but now 7 years 14. on #3
TODAY
1. 30 2/3. same 4. east amherst, ny 5. so many friends, and home when i can with my man 6/7 /8/9. same 10. camry and a red-hot mama-van 11/12/13 yes, yes and 10 years! 14. 4, aaghh! BEST THING ABOUT BEING A MOM:
amazed that these are my children. most of the time in a great way, sometimes a little embarased!
FAVORITE:
article of clothing: long-sleeve T's
time of day? right after the kids go to bed, i get 30 minutes of doing nothing time! and if i wake up early, and i'm not tired, and everyone else is sleeping, and i get to run
book? bodyguard of lies (true accounts of secretive things done during ww2), whatever i'm currently reading
person? emma smith. oh, the life she lived and suffered through.
scripture story? when christ visits the nephites and has the children come, and they are surrounded with a ring of fire and angels. i am awestruck by that.
singer? allison krause. her voice is simple, and yet amazing and "whiskey lullaby" and "when you say nothing at all" totally make me cry!
tv show? always psych! sometimes grey's anatomy, most times 30 rock, last comic standing and anything actually history related on the history channel, that's not about weapons or cars. i must insert mini-series here: planet earth! wow and wow again!
ANGIE'S
ok 7 things you don't know about me:

1. i hate going almost anywhere that involves talking to people ie. church, school functions, large family gatherings. i get nervous and almost always want to bail. but glenn challenged me to make it my working goal to attend functions, and have fun with friends, and you know the more i do it the less i feel like throwing up!
2. the first car i ever wanted was a navy blue, convertible bmw.
3. the first non-ballerina job i wanted was to be a lawyer, and wear anything but a power suit!
4. i often do not wear a bra, and i started doing that in high school, to bug my mom! sorry!
5. i have wanted to get breast implants since after finishing nursing my 1st baby, and i still do.
6. i used to regularly judge people inside my brain, but a few months ago i started blessing them, to hopefully counter attack my evil thoughts.
7. i have never purchased a lottery ticket. i am happy to announce that participating in filthy loucqeur (how do you spell that word?), is one of the few sins i have never dabbled with.


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Still Catchin' Up!

some of our friends at crystal beach. you can see haven and i too, but mostly check out all the OTHER people there! very busy, a usual deterrant for me, but it's so warm i must go, and go , and go...
haven loves the beach, as does cabes, and she does not seem to have any pain receptors on her feet! the day we were here was crazy hot, but haven would walk around and dig and explore without any problem! in the background you can see the long pier where glenny and the boys, along with kashan, jump off!
look at the hair, not my tub. although, now that i've mentioned it you have to, right? ok, it's gross! and that black moldish strip gets cleaned every week, and it will not go away. one of the many blessings of my single bathroom.
haven loves, loves bath time. "baaa" is one of the few words she can say, and if you carry her towards the bathroom, that WILL be the word she will say, repeatedly. if you take her in just to wash her hands, she will cry, and if someone else is in the tub, she will try, and almost make it, in there too.
glenn and haven loving some fourth ice cream. haven was oh, so tired! she actually fell asleep during the fireworks while i held her. so cute, and yet soooo much heavier that the last time i rocked her to sleep!
toran is the man--cooling off his mouth whilst almost burning others! check out those skills!
cabes is quite possibly ready to add pyro to his list of crazy! he tried to light the bushes on fire , because well, they could light on fire. later cabes and toran and glenn tried to watch the fireworks from a treehouse-in-progress (floor only, well and ladder too.)but during the show loud screams of "daaaaa-i-dyyyyy!" were heard far and wide, big clue that cabes was done. turns out that he'd climb up the ladder but not get onto the platform or climb down. fun times were had by all!
the kids returning from a bike ride, not all that long, but very hot and muggy--love the ny weather!

Off Vacation!

ok, so here's the photo of ciela and her last soccer game, check the explanation down below!
here's haven and i at the park, again read to find out why i'm a dummy-dumb and can't blog correctly!
haven found toran's jammy bottoms and put them on and was so proud of herself!

our yard is very large, mostly going back south ans west of our house, but there is more property that is "off limits" to the boys, we call this: the long grasses!
the boys love exploring here when they can!
so i took a mini vacation from the blogging to feel like i was really on vacation (no schedules, no bedtimes, plenty of junky food: check out the food blog for new recipes later on in the week!).
but now i'm back, and i fear i have forgotten some of the newly learned blog tricks, so i'll be heading back to the blog summer school program!
here's a few things we did after school was let out: we celebrated with a trip to dq
and a play time at a new park, we went back to crystal beach,



ciela had her last soccer game,



and many other small moments of crazy!i really don't know what's going on up there! i have been gone too long, and i keep trying to fix it and it's not working! sorry that we're messy bloggers here! our house is crazy-phones aren't working, cable in and out, shoes falling apart! we must be sinning somewhere here, i'll ferret out the evil and we'll be back to regular insanity shortly! oh, let's see the other pic's: at the soccer game haven was dribbling like mad-she's got super baby skills! the boys found an old tire in the reeds behind the game and of course brought it over to share!