Fire Department Open House

 This morning I found my three year old with a stack of library books :)  He was reading the book we had read together the night before.  It has his name in the title.  The stack was there because the eight year old and I were going through the books we had currently checked out, figuring out what we were ready to return.  We have about half of our checked out books in this pile, ready to return... and it's almost taller than the three year old when he's sitting down.  Have I mentioned that we love books around here :)

 My kids are all readers, and so are my husband and I, though we don't get as much time as we would like to spend reading.  I wonder how I could get one of those jobs where you just sit around reading all day ... oh wait.  I kind of have one :)  Between the daycare, homeschool, and the ministries we're involved in (Sunday School prep work, stories for SPARKS and AWANA and children's church), plus the books I read for training credits in daycare, and the ones I read for fun, I guess I really do spend a good portion of every day reading.

But this post is supposed to be about the fire department open house, so I better get on with it.  How cute is this little fireman?

Or this one?  The fire department provided lunch - grilled burgers and dogs, and potato chips.

 They had their fancy new ladder truck out.  The kids got to take rides in this one or one of the older ones.  And they gave demonstrations on how the ladder works.

 The three year old thought the ladder was pretty cool.

 It can reach higher than any building we have in town.  Pretty impressive.  I would hate to guess how much they must have paid for this one.

 The baby kept trying to crawl away.  He just wanted to get down and go-go-go.

 I love how the hat was down so far on his face.  He never tried to take it off.  He did keep knocking it off though - trying to go places the hat wouldn't fit.  And it was windy too so that didn't help...cold and windy.  Felt like snow all day, but we didn't get any.

 I took the three year old and baby on the older fire truck, and the eight year old rode the fancy ladder truck.  We didn't really have a choice.  We just waited in one big line and were put into whichever truck had room.  The eight year old really wanted to ride without the rest of us, so we piled into the one that didn't have room for him.  He was excited.  He really wanted to ride in the newer truck.

 I love the baby's eyes in this one.  It was a fun ride. 

 I was really proud of the three year old.  He's afraid of so many things, especially things that are unfamiliar to him.  He told me he wasn't going to ride the fire truck, but I made him get on it anyway.  I was surprised he would sit in his own seat and not cry or be upset at all.  The siren didn't even bother him.  He really seemed to enjoy the ride.  The baby did too.  But we had waited so long to get to ride, and then right as we were pulling into the fire station, the baby laid down on my lap and fell asleep - literally less than a minute before we were done.

A nice bonus was that our driver was my husband's cousin, so we had a nice visit.  My husband was hunting, so he wasn't with us today.  Unfortunately he didn't see any elk.  Better luck next time ... I hope.