The Family Tree: Happy 5th Birthday Boston!

Can't believe this cute boy is 5. He is my buddy! I love this boy. He is a fantastic older brother. Sometimes a little TOO fantastic (or bossy) and we have to remind him to let us be the parents. He and Ellie still fight, but whenever Ellie gets in trouble he is the first to defend her to us. A few weeks ago, we took a car ride out to look at neighbor lights, and Ellie was being just AWFUL. We usually let them take cocoa in the car, and decided Ellie couldn't have her cocoa as a consequence for some choices she made. Ellie was SO upset. She was sobbing, asking if she could earn her cocoa back, but we stuck to it and didn't let her have any. Boston was literally in tears (as were the rest of us) for her, begging us to let her have some. He is so tender hearted... even though they fight and drive each other crazy, he totally has her back.

Lately Boston is curious about EVERYTHING. He asks a million questions every day. There was one day Boston was asking if I knew something, and Jeff said: Boston, Mom knows everything....So later that night Boston started asking me how Santa gets his reindeer to fly. Simply not having any patience to explain yet another thing to him, I said I didn't know. He jumped on the chance to prove to dad that I really didn't know everything. Ha! Some recent questions have been about Jeff's hernia surgery. (Jeff had hernia surgery at the end of August. It was weird for the kids especially since he participated in a pain med study and had to be in the clinic for 3 days with no visitors. (He did it through Jean Brown Research. 20 % chance of getting a placebo vs. actual pain meds. No visitors allowed to assure I wasn't slipping him any drugs haha))

"Did a doctor cut dad's belly open with a knife?" Um...yes. (Trying to not get too graphic for my then 4 year old)
"Did his belly bleed?" Um...yes - but Daddy wasn't awake. They gave him special medicine to make him go to sleep.
"What kind of medicine?" Uh, special medicine.
"I know, but what kind?" Good grief, I don't know.
"Oh, so its like magic?"( Like Santa's Magic) - Um, no. Its...just medicine.

"If a fat man can get down our chimney, then can skinny robbers come down our chimney and hurt us?"
"If we put the tree downstairs this year, how will he know that's where we put it?"
"If we all have a sleepover in Rylee's room on Christmas Eve, how will he know that we're up there?"
"He can't go down our downstairs fireplace, how will he know our tree is downtairs?"

He got a few lego sets for his birthday, and surprised me when he read the instructions and started building things all by himself! He is a smarty pants!

Boston is still loving preschool and primary. He loves to read books with his teacher and at home (and is working on starting to read words) and sing songs. His teacher tells me he is quite the ladies man, and the girls all fight over who gets to sit by him at the rug. Oh boy. I mean, I think he's pretty cute! He loves family home evening nights, and always reminds us when its time to read scriptures. We are working on memorizing his articles of faith - he's got the first and almost the second one down. He is such a good boy! I could go on and on....but i'll spare the gushiness. We love our boy!