Standing Four foot four from Brigham Young University...

And the final spotlight is on our oldest, Jeffrey. For a look back one year ago, click here. Jeffrey loves basketball. He started taking basketball classes after school at the beginning of the school year. Then, he saw Pistol Pete, Birth of a Legend and he was hooked. We also got a basketball hoop and put it on the side of our house and he spends hours on hours shooting hoops. He can easily beat either Sheralie or me at HORSE or and can usually beat us playing one-on-one (unless I just decide to dunk it every time).

Jeffrey showing off his new New York Knicks jersey.  While we generally don't regard Stefon Marbury as a role model, my parents did get a good deal on the jersey.  He wears it a lot.  For Laird's birthday, we got him a little Celtics jersey with the number 5.  So when we see these teams on TV, they cheer for them.

We now have adjusted the bed time routines so I usually put Lucy to bed, then I read to Jeffrey while Sheralie puts Laird to bed. Jeffrey and I have read all kinds of great books, including the entire Chronicles of Narnia, Hatchet, Old Yeller and more.  Jeffrey is a very good listener.

For this birthday, Jeffrey took in a circuit kit that he received at Christmas and showed it off to his classmates. Although his school has a minimal homework policy, he often can be found reading. He also has a keen mind for numbers and the bigger the better. He can remember numbers for days - even months, which is especially helpful in retelling exciting sports games.

 Jeffrey at our local Children's Museum

Jeffrey still doesn't eat fruit, but he is eating it more. We now require that at every meal, he has to take a bite of every offered course. For the first couple weeks he made some great faces while eating fruit, but he is now eating fruit with ease.

Jeffrey loves watching sports on TV with his dad. Especially basketball, but college football works too. We watched the entire NCAA basketball final and a recent Celtics-Heat game that Paul Pierce won at the buzzer.

Jeffrey plays the piano rather well. He has come a long way in the last year and will soon finish Piano Adventures level 2B by Faber. His repertoire from this last year includes "Menuet in G" by JS Bach, "A Soldier's March" by Robert Schumann and "A Little Joke" by Dmitri Kabelevsky. He is now starting to work on his first hymn.

At Pagsanjan Falls

In our family scripture study, we have been taking turns presenting a topic each evening. Jeffrey does it every Saturday, and this last Saturday he took the initiative to prepare all by himself his own topic. It was very interesting to see what he highlighted, adventures of Captain Moroni.  It was very cute.

Jeffrey is a very considerate big brother and really enjoys feeding James a bottle.

Jeffrey and Laird play very together very well, though, perhaps because they are Broadbents, they do tend to get competitive. We have been working on making playtime less competitive and thus, more enjoyable.

I really appreciate that Jeffrey rarely complains about hard work. For example, on our recent hike up Mt. Taal, it was very dusty, hot and it was a pretty arduous climb and Jeffrey did not complain one bit. In stark contract to his two talking siblings who were being carried.

Jeffrey has a fantastic sense of humor. Obviously he takes after his father. There are few things as delightful as being nearby when something tickles Jeffrey's funny bone. He has a great laugh and loves telling jokes. He enjoys knock-knock jokes, puns, star wars jokes, comics and most anything silly. And just in case you miss the punch line, he will be sure to explain it too.

Jeffrey has three very similar BYU shirts - two are BYU football and one is BYU basketball.  He wears a BYU shirt every Saturday since he wears a uniform to school Monday through Friday and church clothes on Sunday. He does has a closet full of other clothing, but it has been hard to document!

It must be Saturday.  Also, check out the awesome mini-golf here.  One the one hand, it is cheap (about $1 per person per game.  On the other hand, it is pretty low tech.

Reviewing this post, it kind of looks like we are just bragging about Jeffrey the whole time, and I guess we are in a way. We are very lucky to have such a great kid as an example for his siblings.