Congratulations, Keith!

We are so proud of my brother, Keith!

Yesterday, he graduated firefighter recruit school at the Alabama Fire College. He spent 10 long and grueling weeks learning physically and mentally how to become a firefighter. This has been a dream of his for many, many years and we are so excited to watch him achieve his dream.

It is terribly difficult to find dresses with firetrucks on them, so I had a friend of ours make these adorable dresses for this special occasion.

The girls have been super-duper excited about watching Keith graduate. We have had to keep this quiet for 10 weeks. Since I work at the Alabama Fire College, we didn't want anyone to know that he was my brother to avoid any claims of favoritism. We just wanted to make sure he was treated as fairly as the other candidates. We weren't sure we would be able to keep the secret because I am there often, but we pulled it off and even pulled off a prank on one of his instructors with our identity. Everyone at work was very shocked to find out that we were related.

Keith asked for Audrey to pin his badge on him at graduation. So a few days prior to the ceremony I began explaining to her what would happen and what to expect. Addison made it very clear that she would be going up on stage to pin him too.

At the very start of the ceremony, the chair folded up with Addison and she fell out backwards and hit her head hard on the concrete floor. It scared me horribly. I just knew a trip to the ER would be inevitable, but she recovered quickly and we were able to carry on as planned.

When Keith received his certificate, we went on stage to pin him. Audrey helped me pin him (I insisted on helping because I was afraid that she would pierce him!) Addison threw her little arms around Keith and gave him a gigantic hug. It brought tears to my eyes.

Afterwards, the girls had to give "Uncle Keif" more love.

Mom and Dad are very proud of his hard work.

Doesn't he look so professional in his uniform??

I had to get a photo with him, too, because I am thrilled that he followed his dream. Plus, I was the big sister that stayed on him about studying for his tests, made trips to the school to secretly check up on him, fed and housed him when needed, bought goodies on those hard days and left them for him in his truck, and made sure his uniform was up to par for graduation. :)

I am happy to have this picture. It is rare to have all 5 of us in the same place at the same time for a photo.

Showing off his certificate he worked so hard to get.

Aunt Carolyn came to celebrate with us.

Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim joined us for Keith's graduation.

Here is most of Keith's cheering squad.

Congratulations, Keif!! We are all so proud of you!!