Neighbors remembered watching the two small boys with their toy mowers trailing their father, Spencer Morrison, as he cut the grass at the family's Cranberry home.
"Spencer and Nicole devoted their whole lives for the kids," Paul Carter, 54, said Friday of the Morrisons and their three children. "Raising triplets is tough, but they're the best parents. All five of them were outside all the time, together."
Spencer Morrison, 37, and children Garret and Alaina, both 4, were killed Thursday in a freak crash, when an industrial wood chipper broke free from a dump truck on Route 8 in Richland and slammed into the family's minivan, police said.
Ethan Morrison, also 4, was clinging to life in critical condition at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in Oakland.
Nicole Morrison was not in the vehicle.
Spencer Morrison was traveling south, taking one of the children for a doctor's visit, when the chipper veered across the center line and smashed into the driver's side of the Morrisons' Honda Odyssey, said Northern Regional police Chief Bob Amann.
The crash happened in front of Tom Clark Chevrolet, just north of where the Pennsylvania Turnpike crosses Route 8.
The force of the impact tore off both the front and rear driver's side doors, hurling them several dozen feet away, Amann said.
Ethan was seated in the rear of the van on the passenger side, police said. All three children were buckled in car seats.
Dump-truck driver Bradley Demitras, 34, of Pine, who was traveling north, was a few hundred feet down the road by the time he realized the chipper had broken loose. The truck is owned by O'Connor Tree Service, based in Middlesex, Butler County.
"I don't really know what happened other than what police told me and what I've seen on the news," owner Jim O'Connor said quietly. "I went to the scene yesterday, but they wouldn't let me get close."
Amann said police will meet with the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office to determine whether charges are warranted.
No one answered the door at Demitras' home yesterday.
Funeral arrangements are being handled by Boylan Funeral Home in Zelienople.
Friends and neighbors were visibly shaken. All described Spencer Morrison as an All-American dad who loved his children.
Spencer Morrison worked as a technology teacher for PA Learners Online Cyber Charter School in Homestead. His wife is a second-grade teacher at Marshall Middle School in the North Allegheny School District.
A Riverside High School alumus, Spencer Morrison starred as a baseball pitcher and in the classroom at Clarion University, where he was an honor student. He graduated from college in 1992.
After the triplets were born, each parent -- first Nicole, then Spencer -- took a one-year sabbatical from their teaching jobs to care for the children. The family had a swingset installed in the back yard, complete with a slide and playhouse.
"Our daughter goes over to play with their kids all the time," said friend and neighbor Kim Byrne, 41. "The kids always play in the sandbox in the backyard. Spencer wanted to give his kids the best."
The Rev. Charles Bober, pastor of St. Kilian Parish in Mars, said he baptized the children. Ethan and Garret frequently dressed alike, wearing Steelers knit caps during the team's playoff drive earlier this year, while Alaina always was dressed to the nines, said friends.
"The children at the end of every Mass always made a point to walk up to me and say goodbye and to make sure I saw them," Bober said. "Spending time with his kids -- that really was Spencer."
