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Yesterday we took a short trip to a county “see the big trucks” event. The weather was chilly but nice.

The hit of the event for Mal was the fire truck.

She went inside twice (once front, once back).

They guy up in the tree truck was taking pictures, so we thought we’d go all meta.

Playing with connectors.

What does this silver guy do?

Bonus shot. Not the keeper, only because it can’t be properly cropped to standard photos sizes. Bummer.

To do my part of sharing the Christmas joy, I thought I’d share some outtakes from the traditional family picture. We’re, uh, frugal, so we do this ourselves and thus we get a lot of outtakes. So starting today and leading up to Christmas, I’ll share some each day!

After a 12-hour work day and than a 16-hour work day, I took a day off and we finally got out to get a Christmas tree. We decided to try a different place than the last few years, as I’ve never been fully happy with the experience and product at the place we’d been going. So we headed south, and on the way to Manalapan we stopped at the Bridgewater Diner for lunch. Mal loves “smiling” for the camera. And Hannah is always goofy and happy. A nice way to spend the day. Too bad it’s back to work tomorrow!

They say good fences make for good neighbors. I also think good hearing protectors make for good… quiet times!

This weekend we took the girls to the town kid’s spookfest at the town square. Costumes were last-minute pulled from what we’ve gotten from friends, which is to say the choices were either too big or too small. Oh well. Mal had her choice of dressing up as a doctor or a lamb. Hannah… didn’t have a choice. She ended up as a pea pod. We didn’t really get any good photos of Hannah, but Adrienne assures me she’ll be tortured on the real Halloween as well. Despite the serious photo, Mallory actually seemed to like her costume. We spent a little bit of time at the spookfest, but Mallory soon decided that rather than trick or treating, marching in the costume contest or watching the magic show, she’d rather go across the street to the library. So we did. I guess enjoyment of Halloween may be a genetic trait handed down from my parents!