Fire Station

We work out with quite a few firefighters at our gym and have become good friends with them. Bryce likes fire trucks, like most little boys, so he loves to talk to the firefighters, especially Erik. A week or two ago, Erik said that we could bring the boys to the fire station to check out the truck sometime. So yesterday afternoon, we took the boys there. They were so excited to go and they loved everything they got to see and do.





Erik showed the boys some of the big hoses and one of them responded that they have squirt bottles at home. So Erik got out his squirt bottle and let the boys spray it. It sprayed some sort of chemical foam.





Then Erik got out one of the ladders and let the boys climb it.





He went around the outside of the truck, showing them all of the tools and letting them get their hands on them. Here they are testing out a hydraulic spreader.







Neither of the boys wanted to try on his big fire coat or boots but they both did like trying on the helmets.









Next they sat in the front of the truck.











Then Erik pulled the truck out so they could spray some water from the hose.







And of course he had to turn on the lights and the boys ran around the truck, checking them all out.





Then we got to ride in the fire truck. Three firefighters accompanied us and we just did a quick spin around the neighborhood.



Firefighters use headsets to talk to each other in the truck.





Erik showed us around the rest of the fire station and we saw the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, workout room, lockers, etc. But that was boring in comparison so we quickly ended up back in the garage. We also checked out the two ambulances but the boys were more interested in the fire truck.

Halloween 2011

On Halloween night, we have a tradition of going over to Chris and Lacy's house to order pizza, let the boys play, and go trick or treating. It is a blast and we all look forward to it. Kelly and I didn't dress up for trick or treating but we wanted to get a family picture of our costumes. We wore these costumes to HalloWOD at CrossFit Aledo the week before. Kelly was a steak, I was a fried egg, and together, we were Paleo. Ha ha. I actually made my egg costume myself for $8 and was proud of how it turned out. The boys both wanted to be astronauts and I found great deals on ebay so I got them matching costumes.



Lacy took almost all of these pictures. Between the two of us, we have 5 boys between the ages of 4 and 3 months so we know that the best way to get a genuine smile for a picture is to yell potty talk words or pretend to vomit. Thank you, Lacy, for taking these pictures for me, I love them!









Josiah was a ninja, Luke was a fire fighter, and this picture is missing Baby Elijah, who was a jalepeno pepper.



Our little spider monkey. He's 2 and a half years old but his legs apparently don't work half the time and he demands to be carried everywhere.





Happy because he's eating Skittles.



The two oldest boys had a blast trick or treating and would run up to doors and knock and say "we're here! we're here!" Bryce and Luke had fun getting the candy but weren't as into the trick or treating itself, seeing as how they had to be carried around and were always last to get to the door.



The one picture that I took that turned out pretty cute.





Josiah proudly told us all that he didn't get scared because "ninjas don't get scared". The highlight of the night was when Josiah and Cason went up to a door and a huge 6 foot tall figure had motion detectors on it. When they got close, it lit up and the head started moving and making noises. Both boys jumped back but they didn't run away. They stared at it for a minute while all the adults had a good laugh. We finally told them to go knock on the door and they cautiously walked past the figure and knocked to get their candy.

Pumpkin Patch

October is a favorite month for Kelly and I. The weather is tolerable after a long, hot summer, football is on TV, our anniversary is in October, the holiday season of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas is upon us, and the pumpkin patches open up. In early October, we headed out to the same pumpkin patch we've been going to since Cason was 3 months old. I think Kelly and I were more excited than the kids. They really just wanted to grab a few pumpkins and leave and we could have done that at any grocery store. Instead, we drug them around the pumpkin patch, forced them to go on the hay ride, and tried to entice them into playing on all the cute stuff around the farm. We weren't very successful in getting them to play so we ended up just letting them pick out some pumpkins and calling it a day.



I tried to get a decent picture of the boys together and as you can see, I failed.



Sumo deadlift pumpkin pulls.



On the hay ride that the boys pretended to not enjoy.



Out of all the pumpkins at the patch, they wanted the tiny ones.





Cason acted like he was having no fun at all until he spied some Little Einsteins cutouts.