My five loves...well six, if you include the beach.  We have had a wonderful start to school. Kids have great teachers. Swinging by the beach every few days for a dip in the ocean.  As I was watching the kids learning to surf with their dad and watched Livi Rue chasing the seagulls and dipping her head in the water, I realize that I need to hit the beach more. :-) Real life can sometimes be hard. It can be tiring. It can be exhausting...but then we go and play...and gratitude overwhelms me. I am so blessed. And I know it. It's just easier to remember at the beach. :-) We returned home from Boise. Long drive. So worth it. We spent a couple days celebrating my dad's retirement. Then off to Boise for a life changing moment. Sitting in the temple as Sam's dad was the sealer for his parent's sealing was a beautiful moment. It reminded me of my blessings again. I guess I just need to go to the temple and the beach more. :-)

It has been a really long time...

I got on our old laptop for the first time in a while and saw the home page...this blog came up and I saw a picture of Garrett's birthday...and I realized, wow...it's been too long.  I cannot recap a year...especially with what a year it has been.  But I really should document the miracle of moving.  Usually I use the words horror of moving...but this move has a LOT of small and big miracles that happened.  We had been praying to know what the best thing was for our family...and started to move in the direction we felt was right...and THEN the miracles poured out.  We were able to sell our house quickly and miraculously for an actual profit. And then able to find a wonderful spot here in CA for our family.  This was due to the hand of God...and the hand of a very capable sister who did EVERYTHING to make it possible.  There are people who are good at their job...and then there's my sister.  Our new neighborhood is incredible, with kids out in the cul de sac non stop.  Our ward has been welcoming and is huge.  We of course miss the people that we became close to in our last neighborhood and ward...but we don't miss the winter and the inversion. :-) It was terribly hard to say goodbye to family, but the more steps we took forward on this path the more we knew it was where we were supposed to be.  We feel extremely blessed.  I am living the dream.  My husband has a great job and sacrifices his own hobbies to be a dad(or figures out how a 4 year old can golf and fish). It is better than we even predicted. My children are all healthy.  Crazy and difficult and impossible sometimes, but healthy.  Pictures from top to bottom: Molly and I on a trip to Utah for General Conference and giving a shout out to Chanell...Hansen eating ice cream after we returned the moving truck(fun for him to sit in the big truck...but I was so stressed I barely remember it), Livi Rue and I at the beach for our family vacation, Garrett on a date with his mama.  Four kids has been hard on me.  In the past few years there have been times, when frankly, things were dark.  I am not a good writer and can't make some deep analysis as to why and how things got better...I just know they are better.  And there were times when I said "How did I get into this?" and I wanted to cry.  Now there are times when I say the same thing. "How did I get into this? I am the luckiest girl ever." Some days...most days :-)

Garrett is the big 6!

I noticed my last post was for Hansen's birthday...so I may be down to 4 times a year for the blog, maybe 5 with Christmas.  Oh how I LOVE and ENJOY this boy! When Garrett has a big day...or something great is happening to him...he naturally just gets generous and tries to make everyone feel as good as he does.  He woke up early and ran down to see his requested Angry Birds cake.  Because of the amount of time it takes to dip each cake bite this cake was way to intensive...but to have him RUN up to wake me up to tell me that it was the awesomest cake EVER! It turns out it was worth the two and half hours.  He then went on to say sweet things all day.  "Mom, the best things about my birthday so far are my cake and YOU!" or "Mom, I think you deserve to have the king pig, cause he's the biggest and you're the best. (he was out of school for the week, so we went to the Bean museum and he ran around with Hansen and did the "animal hunt" and I tried to keep up with Oivia. Then off to the creamery for lunch-which Hansen kept calling the Whip Cream.)

 He had a great time with cousins and family at his party and made up some games...including a treasure hunt and a game where he set up pig targets(100 points if you hit the middle one and 28 and 62 points for the respective side pigs).  :-)

 This last picture is classic Garrett.  Everyone was singing Happy Birthday to Garrett J again and he just stood there a tiny bit embarrassed but enjoying every single minute.  At the end of the day, I was doing the dishes downstairs and Sam was putting the boys to bed...Garrett ran down and says, "Thanks for EVERYTHING mom." and ran back up.  This little guy was just born with it.  The gift of gratitude. Love him.

Hansen is "fweeeee" (three)

Hansen got an ear infection on his birthday...so we postponed a day. In that day he went from wanting a "bowling cake"(really easy to make) to a "dragon cake"(bit more intensive). Big mistake...should've just made him suffer on the actual day and done an easier cake. Just kidding. I promise. This boy has had some two year old moments that make me want to pull my hair out, but has learned quickly to say, "Oops, it was an axkident"(even if it was VERY much on purpose)- it makes me smile and he's off the hook, usually. He has started to turn into quite the older brother to Olivia. He gets stuff for her whenever she is crying and when I tell him thank you. He walks off and quietly and proudly says back, "Thank you mama, thank you."(your welcome, in his mind). He follows Garrett around and does whatever he does. He says the same jokes and thinks I will laugh again just because I laughed at Garrett. He has a shy sly way about him...but he is as rambunctious as they come. He is STILL jumping constantly. He'll either have a great vertical when he is older, or major cartilage damage. This pic is a bit blurry...all my pics of him are blurry, cause he is ALWAYS moving. He states the obvious all the time, and blurts out his feelings so sincerely. example: he gets hurt, he looks up at me with his obvious statement of "i hurt myself, i went "wap" right on my head!" I comfort him and kiss it which usually does the trick, but then he walks off saying, "i don't want to be happy, I want to be sad."(in a super pouty voice). He sees Molly as his mother, Garrett as his buddy or antagonizer and he's still not sure about Olivia. I hope I can always remember him at this age. I'm starting to realize how hard that is. All I remember about Garrett at this age is that I was grateful for each day that I was able to keep him alive. Little different with Hansen...hasn't taken nearly as many years off my life. I'll thank him later for that...after he gets through the teen years probably.

Livi LaRue is 1

Olivia is one and I am not going to say this year went too fast...cause for the months on end that we were sick it moved at a VERY slow pace...but since health has been our friend it really has flown by. Olivia seems to be cut out of the same cloth as her older brother Garrett and it is apparent when you see her pure joy. Pure true joy. Just to feel a glimpse of it is nice as a mom. Livi had a rough start to life...but has tackled the rest head on. She seems like she will be a jump in head first type of a girl(but then she will check first to see if the water is warm...then jump in...you never know...she's not reckless...but loves fun) She has brought a lot of love to our family. Even Hansen when he's not trying to experiment with her and see what will make her cry...he can be so sweet and loving with her. I usually get to snuggle a bit with her at night, and in those quiet moments I say many a prayer of thanks for this sweet girl. The following is a pic of her cupcakes...cuz she is our little night owl...still wakes to eat after about 7 hours...and her daddy is nice enough to feed her. :-)

Christmas and Skiing

Christmas was fantastic this year. The anticipation was thick. The stress was low(we had bought and wrapped everything earlier in the week) and we had zero travel to worry about...we could just focus all our energy on enjoying. It was really fun. The kids are at perfect ages right now for this. Seriously, the excitement was palpable. They were even pumped about their new chruch socks and snow boots and clothes. So fun. A week before we had a Baxter family gift exchange and celebration. We acted out the nativity. Highlight was the next day when Hansen was remembering and said, "I was Joseph, Garrett was a shepherd, Molly was a star and Abby was a butterfly(angel wings looked an awful lot like butterfly wings). A couple days before Rich and Gwen came down so we had a big get together as a family and ate up at Grandma and Grandpa O's house. Played with cousins. Talent show! It was great. So tons of family. Tons of good food. Tons of fun. We caroled the widows in our ward, and delivered caramels. Then went to Sam's work and caroled some of the long term patients. I don't know that it was the highlight for the kids, but it was one of my highlights. Nothing like getting a smile when three little kids are singing Mele Kalikimaka with the Uke. It was pretty cute. Kids slept great on Christmas eve but the excitement was too much for Olivia and she was up for hours with teeth problems. But it worked out bc our crawler slept through the present opening...and the kids didn't have to worry about protecting their new stuff from our curious little one. Perfect. Crepes on New Year's Day finished off the holiday season and skiing filled our Christmas break. Great memories...and we made it through pretty much unscathed from viruses. So it was a healthy fun time which is kind of a miracle at our stage right now. :-)

I had taken the two older kids to ski a couple of times and Hansen was getting pretty devastated he didn't get to go. So...we took him up. He was super happy to ski. I use the term "ski" very loosely with him. It was more of a mom catch me every ten feet kind of a thing but he loved it. And kept telling me to go backwards so he could go down the steep hill. He didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation, and the pain that would be involved. Molly and Garrett are bored with the bunny hill. Garrett built a jump. :-) So we will have to start paying money for it now. :-) It is great to get up in the mountains and breath the fresh air and watch the kids master a skill. They are proud of themselves and it is fun to see them get more and more confident. Gavin and Logan came along and Gavin learned too! So fun to see him go from terrified and gripping on to his mom, to skiing independent. Greatest comment ever was when I overheard Garrett a couple days later trying to convince one of my friends from Arizona to come and learn to ski. He said, "You can learn no problem, my mom is an awesome teacher." Livi Rue was pretty cute just chillin in the backpack and watching what was happening. She is so cool. Love her. I think a trip to Alta is soon to come!

Molly's Baptism Weekend

What a great weekend. Family all came into town and we were all together...for a brief moment. Molly was very focused during the meeting. Listening intently to her grandmas speak about baptism(joining a team, and you gotta show up) and the Holy Ghost(that it can comfort you when you don't feel happy). People were sick with gastroenteritis, Kids were screaming in the back, when we got there it was double booked and the high councilman suggested we just come in during the other family's baptism and just "borrow" the font, cause it is "just" the baptism. I got very motherly and explained with all the restraint I could that he needed to think of a better plan.(not just for our sake...for the other family). We left and went into our meeting. His wife helped him and she came in and told us to move rooms and they would move them as well. It all worked out great...and Molly didn't even notice all the chaos. She just enjoyed it. She sang a solo(bc that is what she wanted to do) and sang the first verse of "I'm trying to be like Jesus" in french and then the second verse in english. We didn't have a mic cause we were in some random room(bc of the double booked font) and she didn't even notice. My mom played the piano SUPER quiet and she sang beautifully. Just beautifully. It was precious and I will never forget it. Her confirmation and baptism reminded me very simply that if we just fulfill saving ordinances and try our very best. We will live with Him again. Simple really. Quite simple. She really is trying hard to grow and learn and be her best. She tests me...oh how she tests me...but I love her great desire to be good and do good. We ate afterward and were able to spend time with family and friends. We are so blessed, and I know it.

ps...this pic cracks me up. Garrett is hilarious...Hansen is just crazy...and you can tell I had to wake up Livi Rue Who to get her there...she was poopy and mad by the end. But made it through. As always....so grateful for Sam...so grateful.