The Birthday Boy

I can hardly believe it, but my first baby boy--Spencer Hinckley Hoskins--turned five this year! It seems like only yesterday I was holding him in St. John's Hospital back in St. Louis. Believe it or not though, he's growing up! And into quite the little man.

For his birthday this year, Spencer got the bum deal of being stuck in the car all day. We tried to make it work that our twenty hour drive to Utah would fall on a different day; however, with Dad's July schedule being completely inflexible, we just couldn't pull it off. So, in order to lessen the blow, we decided to celebrate Spencer's special day all week long. We kicked off the celebration by letting Spencer open the Hoskins' birthday present--his very first bike!! Spencer was ecstatic, and he rode the bike all day.



The next day, Spencer got his traditional breakfast in bed, rode his bike again all day, and then spent the evening on his annual birthday outing. This year he decided he wanted to follow in his big sister's shoes and pick a movie night for his outing. Lucky for us, Cars 2 came out right on cue! Here is a picture of Spencer and his best friend Josh Anderson out at the show.



After the movie, they came back to the house and the Ercanbrack children joined us for some delicious carrot cake--Spencer's request. (He said he wanted an orange cake and this was the best I could do!)





It was a great night, and closed out day 2 of celebrating.

Day 3 was Spencer's actual birthday, and the endless car ride to the Hoskins' Lakehouse. To try and make the day more enjoyable, Spencer got to pick all of the movies we watched on the drive, he got to pick all of the places we stopped to eat, and at each gas station he got to come in and pick a treat. This actually went over amazingly well. It kind of stunk that he had to go to sleep in the car on his birthday (we arrived at 3:00am.), but he seemed to have a good day nonetheless.

Day 4 of celebrating took place at the lakehouse with all of Spencer's Hoskins cousins. We rode on the boat, hung out with cousins, and had cake and ice cream after dinner.





Then Spence go to open the rest of his presents including lots of legos, a real bow and arrow, and his very own play shotgun, complete with blow-up deer! (You can all guess who that came from. And can you believe I let him have it? Only because he has been dreaming about it day and night for at least a year! And still....I'm going soft in my old age!)