Playing "fireman" at the park

Okay, so having to pick my favorite to submit for Sunday Snapshot is just plain hard.  I mean, my kids exude cuteness in every shot I take, which makes it tough to pick a favorite, right?  *wink*  But if I have to choose, it's this one...because I'm in LOVE with sun flare lately.

So while down at the park, Caleb and Madeline love to play "fireman".  

They each have their own firetrucks.  Here's Madeline on one of them.

One side of the playground is the firehouse...

..complete with a slide instead of a pole.

They also have bunkbeds.  Below this tunnel is another one that actually runs perpendicular to it.  

They love to rest in their bunkbeds, which means each kid in their own tunnel.

Well, we happened to be at the park a little later than usual.  So I had this crazy idea to attempt some sun flare shots.  Sometimes I got flare and other times just haze.  It was a bit too early, though, for flare so I found myself getting really low to the ground to take the shots. Black mulch and me on the ground don't go well together.  Yuck.  Next time, I'll try a bit later in the day.

She loves to pose with her hand on her hip, all the time.

Opposite the firehouse and in close proximity to the firetrucks is the Fire Chief's house.  Apparently, he has a sense of humor.

On this particular day, there wasn't to much time for play.  They had a fire to put out and had to hurry.

Thankfully, they arrived at the scene of the fire just in time and put that fire out.  Phew!

Just before heading home for the night, I thought I would beg ask the dumplings for a few more flare shots.  I love this shot even though Madeline blinked because Caleb is pointing to the bocce ball court where they were planning on some timed races...in the Olympic spirit, you know.

They were pretty pooped after fighting fires all afternoon and running sprints.

Oh, these kids just crack me up.  I love their imagination.  I love the fun they have together.  I love that they love being together.  It makes my heart sing.  We have most definitely enjoyed our late summer afternoons at the park by the river.  Madeline's "happy" shirt just about sums it up.  Oh, and I love how exhausted they are at the end of the day.

I shot all these images with my Nikon D700 using my 50mm 1.4 lens.  Settings for the top photo were f/2.8 SS 1/1600 ISO 250.  I edited them in Lightroom 4 using One Willow presets from the Palette Collection.

For more great photos, stop by Stefanie and Rebecca's blogs.