Merry Christmas at the Fletcher Five!!!!

I know that I promised these pictures like a week ago but I did not get them in on time but tonight is the night!

We had a GREAT Christmas at the Fletcher house, in fact it was my favorite Christmas ever since Chris and I got together as a family. The reason was that this time I got to share MY triditions with her family . On Christmas Eve we had family over for a dinner of snacks and Yes we did open one present (SCORE). Then on Christmas day we We did presents and I made dinner with Ham, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, rolls, and pie. Quite the Christmas dinner I must admit since usually we just do presents and enjoy time. I was so excited to have Christmas here this year and I am really glad that I got to do that.

After Christine's family I got to share Christmas with Ken and Lynette (and Sophia as well, I guess they are the Fletcher 3 aka Fletcher KC).This is what made this Christmas the greatest that I got to share Christmas with my family and hers as well. Usually we struggle with doing hers on this day and traveling to do Christmas there on that day but this year I just got to cook dinner and have my loving family come over as well.





For those others out there that I did not get to spend Christmas with, I love you and I am sorry that we again missed it; The DiCocco's and The Creig's. I am sorry that we have to do mail order Christmas. As Micha would say "We totally love you , I am serious." Something happened this Christmas which made me realise how much I love my family I wish I could share that as much as I feel it but all I have is this text. Tears come to my eyes when I realise how far apart we are, however joy comes to my heart when I also realise that we can still share Christmas miles away.

I LOVE YOU ALL

Merry Christmas!!

So here it is the middle of the night and I am up, on Christmas none the less. There is such a lot to do tomarrow but that is okay. Just wanted to share what a Fletcher Five Christmas was looking like on Christmas morning. BTW the tree looks even worse with all the presents under it. Merry Christmas and we will try to post pics of Christmas later today.

Just a few pics

Monday Carrson took advantage of having a snow day and came over to play!

Caden is sitting up now, well barely.

He had just eaten dinner, notice the orange face?

Christmas Traditions

Tonight Micha and I went to the Joplin Christmas Parade, which is a must for me which brought Chris and I to the thoughts of.......

I think that I am the most traditional person when it comes to holidays but I thought that I would get the family's take on this if they care to share their own thoughts. As Christine has now spent 6 Christmas Day's with me she starts to wonder "Why is this guy ALL ABOUT CHRISTMAS" and we talk about this also. Here are the things that I HAVE to do every Christmas.....

To start the season I have to have a tree up by the weekend of Thanksgiving, that is an absolute must. Right before I get the tree up I get all excited about the Christmas Music (hence the MyPod player that is playing different my favorite Christmas songs. It is set on random so keep coming back or stay a while and you will hear them all) Then I draw my children (or child as the age may be) into watching the best Christmas movies ever with me....

Those are The Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (original version), Home Alone, and Charlie Brown Christmas

These are all a MUST of EVERY Holiday season although there is a lot more that I like. After this I start planning trips for things like driving around town to see the lights at other houses and finishing off with a trip to Carthage to see the Big display there.

I can remember taking a few rides in that blue Zepher to Carthage and looking at the lights at a few houses in Joplin on our way there. I know some of these traditions might seem silly to some of you but I loved Christmas then and I still love it a lot so I want to make Micha, Logan, and Caden's Christmas just like those that I loved. What I am looking for is who remembers other Christmas traditions, and what are they? Do any of you do things because it is tradition?

We got some here too!!!!

Micha loves the snow. We didn't have much last year so its the first snow she's ever gotten to enjoy. Logan likes it too its just he can't stand the cold for very long.
Its beginning to look alot like Christmas! After I took these pictures (this was all ice actually like 14 hours of sleet) we got 10" of snow on top of that. It was awesome that we FINALLY got winter. I know that most people hate ice and snow but I love it. I do not mind driving on it and I love playing in it. Micha loves it as well and I promised her a Snowman tomarrow! So tomarrow we will build one.

Our baby is home

Caden came home today and he is doing much better now. He still sounds a lot clogged up in his lungs, but his oxygen level is a lot better than it was when we went into the hospital. Just wanted to let you all know that he is doing better now and is back to getting "beat up" by his brother and sister.

Caden is doing really good, last night mike Called and said they had been dropping his oxygen way down. He will get to go home after he is off of the oxygen for 12 hours. He never had to have an IV. Anyway I am off to the hospital just wanted to leave an update.

I pulled a Charile Brown

So many times the name Charile Brown is refered to as someone that is to perform a task and does so in such a wrong way that it is somewhat sad. I always believed that this derived from the fact that Charlie Brown was sent out to get the best Christmas tree ever and he came back with that little 4 branch tree. One of my favorite lines of the cartoons ever was when I think that it was Lucy said "Charlie Brown, of all the Charlie Browns you are the Charlie Browniest" This leads me to believe that there was a reason prior to the cartoon series for the name but that I am unsure of. What I am sure of is that I got the Charlie Browniest Christmas tree ever. I went out and and got a tree on Black Friday during the 7-11 sales. I thought that I got a great deal but it turns out that I just threw away the 20 bucks that it cost for the tree. Christine tells me tree is fine but I am ALL about Christmas and to me the tree is just pathetic. It is skinny and nothing. I told her not to be surprised when she comes home one day and there is a diffrent tree in the house. I am so upset about the tree thing. I am usually not all that materilistic but ther is just something in me that cannot have this tree. I keep telling myself that the tree is fine and all I have to do is make it through this Christmas and we will get a new one next year, but this is REALLY hard for me. I love a huge Christmas tree like nothing else. Maybe I should just go get a real tree this weekend. What do you all think?

Blogger!!!!

I have tried several times today to post pics of caden and a video of him almost crawling but blogger won't let me.

We will try again after church.

So much time... so little to share...(strike that reverse it)

Last Sunday we were going to Gage's (our nephews) birthday party and Micha could not figure out that it was not my birthday party and kept inviting friends to my party at Pizza Inn. As much as I told her that it was not my party it just did not make sence to her. I mean it is a birthday party and it is my birthday. I was reminded of a memory on my own 4th birthday (or soon around that time) the day that Kenny came home from the hospital, I am thinking that it was at least a day that we were having a party for my birthday. My memories are that I was thinking that Kenny was a present for me, It was (as I was saying about the thoughts of Micha) my birthday and here is a new thing in the house. So it must have been a present for me! Just good memories of a great childhood. As I change the 'trian of thought' for just a second...I was talking to Christine tonight about how much I love her and the normal life that we have and I now sit here and I am thankful for how great my own childhood was 'normal'. I did not have to split time between Mom and Dad and spend this holiday with Dad and the next one with Mom because that is what the judge ordered. To me sometimes it is somewhat sad that I am thankful for what I consider normality but I think that society has made it abnormilaty to be husband and wife with 2.5 kids. ANYWAY.............

About 5 months ago we officially changed our name to The Fletcher Five (formally known as the Joplin Fletchers.....some of you have not got that yet LOL) and there was a reason for that change. For those of you that have kept up on the blog but not seen anything about the 5th element in the Fletcher Five it is not that you are not an avid reader but I have not been great about informing you about the one that made The Fletcher Five just that.

Caden is just starting to want to crawl really bad. Just this week we have seen him change from rocking back and forth on all fours to moving a limb here and there to realise that it is moving him to where he wants to be. When I was talking to Christine tongiht I realised that we again have to babyproof the house for a new crawler. It just seems like we did this last year...LOL.

YEAH CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Is it really November?

Today is my day home with the kids while Mike is at work. I decided we would go eat lunch with Mike and then go to the park. We played at the park for about 30 minutes and it got too hot for Caden, so we had to leave. It is very unusual to me that it is
82 degrees here.

It is very hard for me to get into the holiday spirit with this weather.We haven't had snow, I mean a lot of snow in forever. It would be so fun to bundle up the kids and go play in the snow. I hope we'll get that this year.

I would love to live in Michigan right now!

An old vid that I never posted

Mom wanted some footage of Caden and you cannot so much see him in this one but you can see how much Micha loves him, plus I put it on "you tube" a while a go so it took no effort. Just sharing it with Mom.

There is so much So where do I start?

So I said that I was so not sure where to start. I have not been on the blog for a long time and a lot has happened since I was last on here. As you can see the kids are growing up and I had a situation with a pumpkin that I hope is resolved.

Ken was saying on his blog...when did Halloween end and Christmas start but here at the Fletcher house we start Christmas in our hearts right after Halloween is over (actually it starts before Halloween but I do my best to wait it out until after the holiday) . I am not totally sure why but I love the Christmas season, I think that I have shared this before but I love the weather and the sharing and the thought of presents that I can get for others. I love to get them the best thing ever. I know that I am not great at getting the best thing ever but I really try very hard! I love Santa the most..... I love that Santa still came long after I was 5 years old that there are triditions with our famiy. I am huge on triditions (and even when I do thing that I think are triditions even if they are not do not tell me and ruin my fun LOL) when my kids are just a little bit bigger I plan on helping them find an evergreen tree and having a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree for there own and exchange presents. I still remember when Tracy gave me the alagator pencil sharpner. Of all my presents I ever got in my entire life that was the best one EVER! The main reason for that being the best one was that she loved it so much (in my mind) and she gave it to me....If you hated it Trace do not ruin my memory and if you do not remember it then that is even better because I can just keep remembering it like I do.




Anyway I was here to talk about other thing just that Christams always triggers such happy memories.

Halloween was great. Micha was SOOOO excited all day to go out Trick or Treating and we were going to Chris' Moms neighborhood to do that so there was a drive involved (we have always gone out there so again being the triditionalsit that I am we had to go this year). Micha was at daycare and when there was a Tirck or Treater that come to the door right befoer I picked her up she thought that she missed it. Like she missed the 15 min window that was Trick or Treating. As we finally got to Duenweg and started to go to the houses with Carson it put such a smile on my face to watch we RUN and I say that in caps because she ran like I had never seen her before. She ran from house to house that had the light on to get all the candy that she could.

The thing that I loved about all of this was two fold. The first was that she had such anticipation of the event. She was looking foward to it for a couple of weeks each day she wanted it worse than the day before. Along with that it was not about getting candy it was just the event. The sencond is (segwaying back into Christmas) she was a happy as I have seen her in months. There is something about seeing your children really truly happy that just makes one sit back and love the moment. I mean truly soak up every smile and love that moment. I think that this Halloween was diffrent than the others for me at least. This is just another reason to be totally excited for Christmas!!!!I have always loved Christmas but this year Micha and I are already having Santa conversations (I.E. When can I go to tell Santa what I want? (Michas says))
And I can watch Christmas Story over and over along with Elf without my wife making too much fun of me LOL!!!!

A Fletcher Halloween

Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the children in costume but I can tell you they did have a good time.
Micha was a Beautiful Fairy, Logan was an Adorable Giraffe and Caden was Tigger.

Logan got to paint his own face, Micha got to wear play princess shoes outside of our house and Cadens costume kept him very warm.

On Monday we carved pumpkins and mike roasted pumpkin seeds. We do have a few pics of that. It was a good thing we waited till the last minute to do pumpkins because they were all shriveled up by Wednesday morning, it was pretty cold.

Although we were a little rushed and had a rough start it ended up being a very fun time. Micha had so much fun Trick or Treating. She ran at full speed to each house.
Logan was happy after house number one when he had his first sucker.



On another note Mike started volunteering at The Ronald McDonald house with me a few weeks ago. Now we can volunteer as a family. I hope it turns out to be something we can do with our children as they grow up.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Who's kid is this?

Chris cut Micha's hair yesterday and I said, "Hey I used to have that same haircut" So we went and got a picture. Can you tell she is my daughter?

Trying out You Tube

A Fun day...but we do miss Mommy

Wild Times as Wal Mart

As you as tell by the picture we had a CRAZY time at Wal Mart with Mom gone. I know that the picture is not all that great and that that Logan is not looking at the camera, but this is all that I could get with my phone. Mom is gone this weekend and I had a few seconds to sit down and give you a pic so I thought that I would do just that.

Tomarrow we have a big day planned so I will try to get more pictures then and upload them to the blog. I have not been all that great about putting new things on the blog even though things are happening all around us. There are like 76 pictures in my mind that I want to take and put onto the blog and like 146 stories that go with those pictures. It is just that I do not ever have time to sit down and do it. I know that I have time but I choose to let my kids use me as a 'cat scratching post' and climb all over me.

After tomarrow I hope to have more pics to share!

Free Hugs

Fall Family Gathering (Part Duex)

Josiah is MUDEVIL SHANQUILLIST!!

Well I tried to change the font on that last post I do not think that it worked though . I was supposed to have come online here for a week now to publish the camera phone pics of FFG but tonight I am finally online so I will publish the mud pics to the blog. Yes that is my Miss Micha covered in mud from the mud wars and as you look at the pics you will see that she is not all that dirty compared to others in the mud war! As you can see Josiah above. The Mud Wars (aka the Mud Olympics are a chance for the kids to get out and be a kid. They are games that are wet and filthy that end up with a lot fo the kids just playing in the mud but that is what kids love to do and when do we EVER LET our kids do that?

The Fall Family Gathering was a great time for our family and I think what I like more than the actual experience was the fact that we will be doing this year in and year out for years to come and it can become something to look foward to each year by the kids. The total experience was amaizing to me, just being out the the 'sticks' with my family was awesome but I come from a family that the vacations were camping so I strive to "keep the tridition" anyway. Next Year if any of you would like to come to FFG with us we will be camping out there and I am hoping that I can be tenting it with a campfire. Just my own goals to get to.

Anyway enjoy the muddy pics.

Fall Family Gathering

Just a little about our weekend. Every fall our church has a weekend called Fall Family Gathering. Basically the whole church goes to this campground and we just spend the weekend in fellowship with awesome people and we just Worship. We decided it would be easiest for us to drive back and forth each day and night. There are cabins and dorms on the campground, or you could use a tent.
We had a really tough time with the kids but I am glad we went. I think definately next year we will just get a cabin or a dorm room. The kids were so tired. Logan is teething so he is miserable, he walked around all weekend with a swollen mouth. He was so hungry but he couldn't eat (they are his eye teeth) Anyway, all except for Logan we enjoyed the poeple and the food was great. The band did awesome, they sounded really good and did a great job pumping everyone up.

Micha participated in the Mud Olympics. The picture says it all, I hope blogger is nice today.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

OUR BIRTHDAY BASH

After all of the anticipation Micha finally had her party. She had a blast. Only a few of her friends came which was a good thing if you can imagine what 4 4year old girls are like when they are excited, lets just say there was a lot of screaming. (excited scream not bad scream) They all lined up for the pinata. It took about 4 times through all 6 kids before we finally tore it open. We let some of the bigger kids play thinking it would help but we had a very strong pinata.
Then we ang and had cake. I was taking the cpucake-cake outside and it slid off of the tray, but luckily I caught it with my hand. Only one side was distorted, Micha never knew.
Then we did presents and the girls took everything to Micha's room and shut the door.

The best part was how excited Micha was the whole entire time. You'll be able to see that in the pics though.

Happy Birthday Micha!

Wow, Micha is four today. It hardly seems possible. We began the day with Micha being a little upset because we had to go to work today. But.....she had a great day at Ms. Stephanies house.
They had My Little Pony cupcakes and played outside a lot of the day. We didn't get home until 6 which is the trend now because no matter when I plan on leaving work I never get out of there until after 5. Anyway we had Pizza, Michas fave, black olive stuffed crust.
Then we made her cake together. We just took it out of the oven and we are letting it cool. It has been so neat because now she actually gets that today is her birthday and she has been anticipating today for awhile now. She told Stephanie a few times today " I can't believe today is my birthday, I am so excited"

She loves the leap pad. She got to open it today and has been anxiously calling aunt Trace all night. Saturday is her big birthday with her friends. It will be fun. I can't decide though if I should do a themed party or what. What kind of games? The kids are all ages. Whatever we come up with I am sure she will love all of it. She always thanks us for everything, like dinner, if we buy a new snack she likes. She is so polite. Sometimes when I make dinner which isn't very often, she'll be like "Mom you did such a good job making this" even though I probably burnt it or something.
Micha and daddy are ending the night with Toy Story, which they both love.


Happy Birthday Micha. We love you.

Blogger says no pics tonight.

No Bake Cookies

Okay, Mike is addicted to no bake cookies! He makes like 2 batches a week. I know its not really a big deal. But.....................we have been trying to go the no sugar route with the kids. If anyone has a variance to the original recipe I would be happy to mix up the cookie thing a little bit. I was going to take a picture of the batch he made last night but they are already all gone. All like 30 of them.

Purpose Driven Life

We have been doing this course within our cell group called 40 days of purpose. I have enjoyed it. The last two weeks I have gotten so much out of the messages. Rick Warren does an awesome job speaking. Just FYI anyone who hasn't looked into that, its well worth it.

Caden

10 wks old
13lbs


He is an absolute delight.



Thanks for the pics Trace, they are wonderful.

Finally slip n slide pictures!

They had so much fun with the slip n slide!

Shaft

I could not get the pics to download but hose fo you that are xxxxxxx.blogspot.com members understand this frustration. I will try again later.

Finally The Fletch has come back to the blog

First off I have to give 'props' to Trace becasue she is the reason that I go the pic for the new header on the blog as well as she created it in Photoshop for me. She kind of showed me how to use Photoshop a little bit however this was a mission of mine for some while, to create this new header. With my HTML knowledge and her Photoshop knowledge we made the perfect blog. So, if you cannot tell. I was very excited about the new header, and the knowledge of Photoshop (the little "flatten the layer" knowledge that I gained).

As you can see above (and from earlier blogs) Christine, Trace, and I headed off to Silver Dollar City last weekend and there were a few times on the trip that I was rethinking the 7:3 children to adult raito that we took there. I was really scared most of all that we were going to loose a kid. The trip was great as was the visit here with the DiCoccos. I always love to goto Silver Dollar City and my family usually has season passes so I am not sure why we do not go more. I was telling Chris on the way home, " It would only cost at most $100 to goto Silver Dollar
City for a weekend I am not sure why we do not go more" I know that $100 is not like just going to dinner but it is nothing for a vacation escape and a lifetime of memories.

The entire time that The DiCoccos were here we had a great time. The first night that they were here it was so hot that I wanted the kids to be able to do something wet. Since I decided earliler in the summer to not get the pool (since I was too lazy to clean it all the time) we broke out the slip and slide which is ALWAYS a hit with Logan. Every time that I get it out I cannot get him off of the slide so that others can play on it was well . He likes to be outside (which he has not gotten a lot of lately with the 100+ degree summer almost every day) and he also likes to be the center of comidic attention. Anytime that he can get a laugh he will go for one and when it is really funny he will do it again. He has Christine's strapping good looks and my sence of humor. For some reason I cannot post the pics of the Slip and Slide with this addition so I will add another with just pics right after this.

Sunday we took a trip to Branson with the Dicocco's and Carrson. This picture that Tracy took is so funny. If you see it bigger you can see that Micha is cringing and Harrison and Carrson are having a blast on the end. It is so neat how Trace captured everyones reaction. I bet you can't tell though that Mike does not like any kind of ride like this. I actually rode this kiddie coaster with Maddy and I did not like it so I am sure Mike loved it.





Dicocco's thank you for coming to visit, we hope you are having fun with Micha. (I think Mike is going to post a pic of silver dollar city so I'll let him share more about the trip)

My world has been turned upside down.

Last week was a very dramatic week for me. I started at a new store. Most of you will not be interested in this. It was a very big deal for me though. I have only been a store manager for like a year and a half, so I guess you could say I am not very experienced. I had this store that I was very comfortable in, the people were great I mean I worked at this very store when I was fifteen. Anyway, I now call Webb City my work home. The crew there have been so nice to me, which was one of the first things I was worried about. But everything else is so different, the customers, the business patterns, the store is so big. My first day there, was so overwhelming. I honestly was in tears on my way home. I was like what did I get myself into? I can't do this. It was like this heavy weight on my chest, I did not want to go back. It wasn't the people, or the store, ok maybe it was the store but it was mostly me. I just kept thinking they are trusting me to do this? So................I of coarse did go back and each day was better. I guess I just needed to breath. Its still scary everyday, it was kind of like a "here ya go" kind of thing. It probably is anytime you take over a new store. But,I will make it my home and eventually my world will be normal again. (I just need to make sure I don't drive Mike crazy with this!!!)

On a lighter note................. The Dicoccos are here with us. It is wonderful for them to be here. We haven't seen them in a year! They are only here for a few days but just to have them at all is a blessing.

We still haven't met Sophie. But we are planning a trip next weekend. Yeah we cannot wait. Micha is very anxious to meet the baby.

Happy Birthday Christine

Today is August 3rd so that means that it is Christine's birthday (Happy birthday to Tracy yesterday BTW). Anyway I wanted to use this forum to wish her the best of birthdays being that I will not get to see her all day. Today is also Thursday and on Thursday we have to work opposite shifts. One of us works from 8-4 and the other works from 5-close so since tomarrow is Thursday we will not see each other. I will be working in the night so I will not get to share her birthday with her at all...........however I have prepared for this.........

Tonight Micha and I made her a cake that she and the kids can enjoy tomarrow evening. We also made a card the she can enjoy in the morning. After she went to bed I pressed two of her shirts so she will not have to iron uniforms for the rest of the work week, and tomarrow I am going to try and fold and put away all the clean laundry in the den (I doubt it happens but I will try to)

Micha and I agree that Christine is an Awesome Mom and Wife and as sorry as I am that I will not get to spend any time with her that we want this birthday to be a great as it can be.

I Love You!!!!!!!!!!!!