We are finally home

Well last week was an adventure for the whole Fletcher flock, for the second time in a year we had to move out of the house for a week and put life on hold for an ice storm. I was telling Christine as we were at the house packing up that we should not have to do this twice in a lifetime yet alone twice in the same year. By that I meant we should not have to move out of the house because of the weather ,with two really little ones, and try to entertain 3 children without any electricity. There was some good that came of all of it and I will get to that in a little bit. However for those of you that have not heard it the story goes like this. On Sunday morning we got up for church and there had been a little ice fallen overnight. It was enough to cover all the trees and make for some really pretty landscape but the roads were fine and everything looked okay at the time. As we headed off to church then for the weekly trip to WalMart to fill all of our needs for the week we went home to find out there was no power at the house. We did not even take our stuff in the house we just ventured off to Chris' parents house to sit out the power outage there for a little while. A little while turned into staying the night there so we set up camp and went to sleep. As we woke up the next morning they too did not have any electricity, so our escape house had become just as our own house was. It did stay a little warmer in there than it was in our house so we decided to stick it out there during the storm until our house got back up. Going outside Monday morning was an eire feeling. There was no noise outside at all. Not the hustle and bustle of people going to work as most everything was closed because of loss of electricity. It was just quiet, calm and about every 45 seconds or so you could hear a large limb breaking off.

For a couple of days we had to continue to try to keep our routines as we still had jobs to go to, but we also still had children to take care of and a daycare that did not have electricity either. Stephanie watched the kids though, she has a fireplace in her house and I felt so bad for her having all those kids stuck in one room for the whole day as the fireplace only heats the one room comfortably, but I was also really grateful that she still took care of them because we still had to be at work so I am not sure what we would have done.

On Thursday Chris' parents got their power restored but we were not as lucky. We had to wait until Sunday to move back into our house, but we finally got to and it was great to get back to the routines for us and the kids. I did say that there was one good thing that came out of it and that is we realised that we could live without TV and since we have been home the TV has been off more than it was before. It is still on sometimes but not all the time. On Tuesday night this week I am not sure that it was on at all until late in the evening right before Chris and I went to bed I watched a little. It was really nice to take the time to talk to one another and entertain each other. Playing cards and memory with Micha, just having time to talk to Christine, playing with Logan and Caden. We all enjoyed the time and are going to set back 2-3 times a month that we have family time with no electronics and just enjoy each other.

On another sad note because of all the time we lost in a season that you can never have enough time we lost a lot of critical Christmas preparation time and something back out that I swore would not come back again......

For those that might not remember last year I accidentally got this 'Charlie Brown' tree that I swore that I would not put back up ever again, and here it sits in my living room. (See: http://fletcherfive.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-pulled-charile-brown.html ) We were going to get a real tree this year but with all that has happened and time running out till Christmas, this last weekend after getting back home I reluctantly went out to the shed and pulled the tree out while grumbling to myself, "Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you are the Charlie Browniest".

Merry Christmas and we will post more as Christmas come upon us.

Cadens Knock Knock Joke

My Turn..........

Ok so I don't know 10 people that blog and the ones I do know have been tagged. I know that takes the fun out of it but I will post 10 things about me. Thank you to, Marianne and Tracy for making me step outside of my box today.



1) I love to write poetry. I had a poem published when I was 14 or 15 but haven't seriously wrote anything for a long time.

2) Music has a lot of meaning to me. I could think of a song for almost any moment.



3) I never have liked to read very much. Lately, I can't put books down.


4) I really like coffee. Mostly iced. I had an espresso in Sicily that was so good! (Thanks for that one Bob!) My stomach doesn't always agree though.



5) My favorite time of year is definately summer, no coat, just slide my flip flops on and I am out the door. Although fall, is just so beautiful, I am not sold on the whole wearing socks and a coat thing.



6) I take my job way too seriously. Therefore often times my mind is preoccupied with work.



7) On that thought, I take everything way too seriously, I think everything out. Sometimes I think about conversations I have had with people over and over just analyzing myself. That sounds kind of weird I know.

8) My all time favorite movie is My Best Friends Wedding.

9) My favorite days are the ones filled with nothing. Just hanging out at home enjoying my family.

10) I have always wanted to be a cosmetologist. I could still be, one of these days I'll just have to do it.

It took me a few days to come up with these things. Nothing too interesting, just me.

I guess that I got tagged

So my sister decided that I am playing this game where I have to say like 10 facts about me that other people do not know, or something of that nature, then send it to 10 people to do the same. As I do not have 10 friends with blogs in fact she named all the peoples blogs that I looked at in her list I will try and at least come up with the 10 things so that I do not get 'a harpoon in my chest'.



Top ten things that people might not know, from the home office of Sioux City, Iowa.



1. Fall is my favorite season, as we are approaching the time of year with snowmen and mistletoe, turkeys and leaves falling are the predecessor to that joy of Christmas therefore as the grass browns and the leaves start to blow I cannot help but be memorized by not only the beauty of the changing season but also I enjoy being able to again wear layers.



2. I love Rachael Ray, I know that might seem manly if I was saying just saying that Rachel Ray was sexy but I am saying that I love Rachael Ray's magazine, cookbooks, and TV shows. This makes it not near as masculine as I can make it sound.



3. I want to be in a band. Like a heavy-ish, ska-ish, punk-ish I really do not care how I would fit into this band but I also know that I want to learn how to play the guitar, I am not the best singer, and drums really do not interest me all that much, so I am thinking guitar is it. I played Guitar Hero and was not all that bad but I am thinking that the actual thing is a little more difficult.

4. I am, well we are a 'Van Family' now. We took the plunge and decided that that family is not getting any smaller and 2 row seating was just not cutting it anymore so last week we went and got a Honda Van.

6. I like people as individuals but not these same people in society. It is really hard to explain There was a line in Men In Black and I do not have it memorized but it is something like, "A person is smart but people are stupid, panicky, and neurotic. From a psychological aspect I enjoy people but from a sociological aspect people annoy me.

7. I love court television shows. I find my self watching as many as I can each day, and I am not sure why? There are about 10 different shows on each day each with different judges that act different to the people but really there are only also about 15 reasons that people sue each other and about 5-7 of these reasons show up all the time (i.e. ex boyfriend/girlfriend, landlord vs. tenant, contractor vs. customer) so I cannot figure out if it is pretty much the same show over and over why do I have to watch them all the time.

8. I do not have to talk, I would be perfectly fine just not saying anything, but my ability to do this makes it difficult for me to meet new people. When I am around people that I am just meeting I am not sure what to say to them, what questions to ask or what comments to make. When I am around people that I do know then I just feel okay not talking and those people usually know that I am okay with that.

9. I miss twizzlers. Yes the candy. It is not that they are not available anymore just that they are not available for me. I had to totally rule them out when I started my diet I used to eat A LOT of them before I started my diet and I bet that I could have lost weight by only ruling out this item.

10. I skipped number 5 on purpose. I only had 8 things then I ran out of creativity. I guess that is another interesting observation of mine I have little creativity, but I realised the way that the school system works is that they spend the first part of your education teaching you creativity growing your mind to many possibilities of correct answers or behaviors (you can color that tree any color that you want), and the last half teaching you that there is only one right answer to everything which takes away from you ability to think creatively (What color is the tree and how did photosynthesis play a part in this?) I am not knocking education just that I think that becasue I think more logical or mathmatical there is only one right answer to things.

There you are 9 1/2 things I guess about me. I know that Christine said that she was going to work on this sometime as well.

The Fletcher Five are still here

I know that has been a really long time since out last post I am not all that sure that I should be on here late tonight either becasue I have to work early in the morning but I wanted to share the last couple of days with you all, if nothing more in pictures. Not sure that I will have enough time to really get into all the stories. We had a super hero Halloween, as you can see above we had a Batgirl, Batman, and Robin, that went out and trick or treated for candy. This year was the best one that we have had yet. Logan really really liked to trick or treat. As we would go to one house he would ask every time, "Can we go trick or treating again?" All the kids had a blast. Christine did an exelent job picking out the costumes this year (I am so proud of her) and now evenyone is sound asleep with LOTS of candy on the table for them to pick into all day tomarrow.

We did our pumpkins last night and it was one of the best times that we have had as a family doing pumpkins as well. I guess as time goes on you just learn the little tricks that make things easier and with things that you only do once a year it takes a while since you do not do them all the time to have all the trial and error. Anyway this year we decided that the designs would be simple. The kids got to paint thier pumpkins this weekend however they wanted to then Tuesday night we carved them then we watched Great Pumpkin Charile Brown. Micha did such an awesome job cleaning out her pumpkin almost all by herself. Logan was not all the intrested in doing it at all really, he wanted to be a part of it but realy did not want to touch any of it. Then there is Caden that was just really busy 'hamming' it up (as you can see in the picture, he did that all on his own) but he is being silly most of the time anymore. He really has taken on this really super comdeic personality.

At the end of the night we ended up with three beautifully simple jack o lanterns that the kids loved becasue they made them.

I am sorry that we do not sit down and post as much as we did at one time, it is not that there are not stories to tell, and things to share with those that we love from far away. I think that right now we are just enjoying our time as a family and then the day runs out but I would not ever trade that time at all. From time to time we will keep getting on here and posting new information and pictures and we will try to at least be better about getting the pictures up. I think that I am about due for a movie to come out as well staring the Fletcher children. I hope that you all had a great Halloween as well and we would love to hear about it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHA!!!!!

To start out I did not even realise that it had been since July 19th since I had last posted on the blog. I guess that I am turning into somewhat of Jessica as of late. It is just that summer was so busy and fall is on the horizon and it is is not looking like it is calming down all that much. Tonight however I did finally come back to the blog because I wanted to share some of what happened on Micha's Birthday and the things that are in days to come.

Our original plan was for Micha to have a sleepover for her birthday with her friends and Chris was going to take all the girls out to watch Brats the movie, but that fell through because her friends were not going to be in town so we were going to have a special family birthday this year. She got to pick the plans, she got to pick the dinner for the night, and she got to pick her cake.

For dinner at first she wanted corn, potatoes, peas and bread. Then I told her that she could have anything that she wanted and the included going out for dinner and all the sudden she wanted Outback. I am not sure why she wanted it but when asked she did know what and where it was. She told me, "It is that place that you and Grandma and I went once then another time we went with Grandma and Grandpa." (Her mind is soooo like a sponge) Yet as I picker her up that night she decided that she wanted Backyard Burgers. Again I was confused because we do not eat there all that often but it was her call this night so we ate there.

On the way home she told us that she wanted Apple Pie for her birthday and again it was her call on this so we were okay with that. The only disclaimer that I had was that she remember for her whole life that it was her choice to have apple pie because I do not want her to be 16 and see pictures of her 5th birthday and think that we would not get her a birthday cake, so I told her to remember this conversation.

After the dinner we came home for a very 'High School Musical' birthday, with a Troy and Gabrila doll set, a card that sang some High School Musical song, and Logan and Caden really, really, REALLY mad that they were not getting presents as well (more Logan than Caden but that was the best picture that I got of that time).

So for the rest of the very special family birthday we were supposed to go to Silver Dollar City tomorrow but it is supposed to rain all day so we changing plans right now but not totally sure where those plans are going to change to. I talked to Micha today and told her that we most likely would not be able to go to Silver Dollar City because of the rain and asked her what she wanted to do. She told me that she wanted to go to Tulsa, I am not sure for what but I think that we are going to Springfield for lunch at Incredible Pizza and I am not sure what else but we want to find another fun thing as well.

So that is the Fletcher this week and I am sorry it has been almost 2 months since I posted I will have to get better at this if I plan on keeping it up. I will make my New Years resolution to post at least once a week but that is like 3+ months away so I have 3+ months to get ready for it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caden showing off his skillz

Backyard waterpark part 2

We haven't had the slip n slide out since the Dicoccos were here last year. Its one of those toys that I would love to join in on
.................................................if it wasn't in the backyard in front of all of the neighbors.



Our yard has these huge holes all over it from the dog who once lived here. The end of the slide has this pool of water that Caden loved.

We had some friends over and they all had a great time.

After playing in the water Mike made us all a wonderful dinner. Logan sat with Mike.
When Mike sat their plate down Logan said, " Daddy that's a big corn!"


They decided to eat it together.

This Weekend..............

This weekend we were invited to Wes and Nancy's to see their new 2 day old pony.
As most everyone knows our children are afraid of real live animal.

I thought Logan would do a little better than he did. At first none of them wanted to touch. Micha warmed up eventually though.

She rode with Seneca with Wes, Logan rode for about 10 seconds.

Then Micha rode while Wes led. She loved it. She'll definitely be talking about it for awhile. She is so brave.


They did find 2 kittens and 2 frogs to chase around the yard. Logan and Caden had fun with that.






Caden has been sick, Mike made him some well deserved cupcakes today. He really enjoyed them.

More Vids of the Fletcher Five

Cheer Camp

In an earlier post we mentioned Micha going to Cheerleading camp. She had a blast. We finally got the pics in today. I will let her tell each of you about it when she sees you.

Have a good weekend.

Where have the Fletchers been?

Sorry it has been so long since we posted the last couple of weeks have been busy, but that is why I am here to fill you in on the fun! Two weeks ago Micha had Cheerleading Camp, she had a blast every day. She would wake up in the morning and be so excited that each night she was going to get to go to Cheer camp. The camp was from 6-8 PM nightly with a performance on Thusday night that the whole family attended. Her friend Casey also got to go with her so each night one of us (Chris or myself) would stay home (with Danny or Erica) while the other one was at cheer camp. It was a great week of just hanging out with friends and watching our daughter grow to into a new enviorment of social interaction that she does not deal with on a daily basis.

Then the weekend hit and not only did Christine have family in town but also Ken, Lynette and Sophia came over to see us. We had a great time with the KC Fletchers down here to visit us. I always enjoy when we either get to go see them or they come to see us. We just got to spend some quality time hanging out with them and that is the best. In fact is was the only part of the weekend which did not feel rushed to me.

Ugggggggggg

At Christmas time we sent a package to Chris' grandparents in Iowa that never got there.....In about February I went to the post office to pick up a registered letter that had no name on it but my address, when I got there they could not find it but I was not all that worried because there was not a name on it so I figured it was not that big of a deal, I was not even sure if the mail was for me because of the lack of a name on it. So then last week I get a letter in from the USPS that said, You mailed this package on December 18th and we tried to reach you by certified mail but did not get a reply (yeah you did not get a reply because YOU lost the letter!) anyway the package was found now.I called the USPS on Tuesday when I got the letter and asked why the package got stopped there and how I was about to go about getting it back. Apparently it was mailed in a box that said 10w-30 motor oil on it and they considered it a flammable liquid that exceeded the weight limit. Also it did not have a name on the return address (hence the certified letter without a name on it) label just the address. So now that I am claiming that it is mine you can just send it back to Joplin and I can pick it up here. Nope can't do that because it is flammable liquid over a certain weight. But really it is not, it is Christmas gifts, but that is cool whatever I will play your game and come to Springfield to pick up the package. I told them that I would be there next Monday to get it. Christine's grandparents are coming into town this weekend from Iowa anyway so I can get it on Monday when I am off work and we can get it to them this weekend. Chris had to work this Monday but I can take the kids with me and just hop on up there.
So today comes and the kids and I go to Springfield to the post office. We get there and it is the longest line ever well in relations to the lines at the Joplin post office it is really long. The kids were just in the car for about 2 hours because we had to pay some other bills before we left town so they were all wound up and I am in line (kinda, while chasing kids) after I give the paper to the guy he makes a call and I go to this other door where a really nice guy is there to greet me. He checks my ID and then is gone for a really long time. As he returns he does not have a package. The guy tells me that the package is not there and when it was not he went to ask his supervisor where is was who told him that the package had sat there since December 18th and someone from Joplin post office had taken it back to Joplin on Friday to try to get it back to us. I pulled a line from Ken's dictionary and said," Really, I mean really?"
Ohh I could not believe this after holding the package for almost 6 months, and after I called them and asked them to send it back and got rejected there, then I told them that I would be there today to get it.
Uggggggggggggg

Today...............

I have nothing exciting to post. I just sat down with a tiny bit of time to kill. The boys are both sick today. No symptoms just high fevers. Kind of weird..........but it happens. I can't quite decide if I would rather them all be sick at the same time or just to take turns with the same sick. (I would rather neither) When they are sick its the best time to baby them, They snuggle up so close. They aren't caught up in the busyness of being 1 or 2 or 4. All they need is me. Now that Caden and Logan are both sick I get the needy mom time, times 2. Until Dad gets home and then I am lucky to get one. Nobody is better at snuggling than daddy.

We don't have any new pics but I will post a few that we have not shared.

Love to all.

Search for money!

The Ronald Mcdonald house introduced us to this search engine called GoodSearch. The way it works is, you use it like a regular search engine like google but instead each time you use it , it then donates 1 penny to your charity of choice. Our is set to Ronald House so I am not sure how you find new charities or if you can sign your charity up but its pretty cool.
If any one is interested it is at www.goodsearch.com

A day in the sun

Second verse same as the first.

I wanted a chance to share some of my favorite memories as well as some of my favorite pictures, so here I am to encourage you all to not only read my blog today but also to (as Chris said) look at our new 'flickr' account. I will try to put the pics that we have on the blog as I sit down to blog but there are a lot of times that I want to put like 30 pics on here and I do not have a lot to say so I will try to keep both of them updated, really I will.

So the things that I took away from Sicily I wish that I could actually put into words. It was THE most amazing vacation that I ever taken. There was is so much that I want to tell each one of you individually but I will try to be as general as I can here.

Mom and Dad did a great job showing us as much of Sicily as they could in 3 days and I want to thank them again for the opportunity to go there. There were a lot of firsts on this trip; it was the first time that Micha took a plane, it was the first time that Chris or I had been to Europe, it was the first time that Micha has seen a beach (BTW she LOVED it), it was our first family vacation, it was the first time that I felt real jet lag (I am not sure that I am still over it), it was the first time I took a vacation and NEVER thought about work, and it was the first time of many that I went to Italy.

I am going to try to sum up the whole trip in as little as possible, I know right now that this is going to be really hard because there are a million things that I want to say about Sicily.

As Christine said earlier I miss the smell the most. There are a lot of orange trees there and right now they are all blossoming so anytime that you were in the north east part of the island no matter where you were it was like smelling the orange blossoms. I had never encountered such a strong pleasant smell over that large of a space.

I loved the history that was involved with Sicily, I think that my favorite day was the ruins just to look at them and imagine how those people built them and looking at the cities on hills and to think about the battles that took place to keep their city in their control. Just looking at the things that were built over 2000 years ago was incredible.

Mount Etna was so phenomenal to look at every time that I could look at the volcano I could not take my eyes off of it. It was just the most beautiful piece of earth that I have ever seen. I added a picture but it does no justice to actually looking at it with your own eyes.

My favorite part of the whole trip was to watch how much fun Miss. Micha was having. There were parts of Micha that I met on this trip that I had never seen. Sometimes it was not so great, she was more tired than she had ever been in her life, and other times she showed me a caring side of her that I had never seen. Yesterday I was making breakfast and she asked, "What are you making for breakfast daddy." I told her, " I am making biscuits and gravy I hope that is okay, I know that Uncle Ken just made us biscuits and gravy but I wanted them today." She answered with the most amazing thing that I ever heard from her lips. "Whatever you want to make is okay...people need to be thankful for whatever they get." Wow that is quite a thought for anyone, yet alone a four year old. In fact it has made me think the last few days. I should be thankful for everything that I get.

Thank you so much Dad and Mom!!

Italy

We had an incredible time in Italy. It was absolutely amazing. The scenery, the sights, the smell, oh the smell. We really miss the smell. We spent 3 days there and 3 days traveling. We could have spent 10 more days! Mom and Dad showed us a great time, being able to be there with them was such a blessing.

We got home Thursday and went to Tulsa to the zoo on Friday, we have run Micha ragged!

We did put a flickr on so you could view some of our photos.

Hope you enjoy them.

EASTER

We had a cold Easter, but we are very very thankful we didn't have snow.
Saturday night Mike told Micha while she was sleeping the Easter bunny would come and leave a basket by the front door. Immediately that did not sit well with her. She was very upset that a walking huge bunny would be lurking around in our yard, in the dark, while she was sleeping. After about 20 minutes of trying to explain to her that he was a very nice bunny we decided to tell her he was not real and then told her what Easter was really about. Once we talked about Jesus she was cool with everything. "So okay mom you can put an Easter basket outside for me if you want"

We had a really great day, We have been doing the nursery at church and for the first sunday we had one child besides ours, piece of cake. This Sunday we had 5. So we had fun with that. We would love to be more involved with the childrens ministries. Nursery is the first step, we'll just slowly work our way up. Mike has always wanted to work with the youth.

We went to Duenweg to have a cookout at my parents' like we always do.

The kids ate tons of candy. Logan didn't find one egg, he totally was not interested in anything except for what was already in his basket. When I finally got him to start looking for eggs they were all gone............ so his darling sister hid some of her eggs in the play house and took him in to find them.

Although it was a little cooler than we would have hoped for we still had a great day.

On another note...........Caden is walking. Just cruisin all over the house. Now he can keep up with the other two.

I have a good video but I haven't the slightest clue on how to post it so I will leave it for Mike.

Hope everyone had a great Holiday.

Happy Birthday Logan

A few weeks ago we had decided to have Logans Birthday Party this weekend. To be honest (and this is sad) I had totally let it slip my mind. I mean like usually 2 months ahead of time I am getting excited.

With all we have been so busy with one day I was like oh yeah Logan's Birthday is in April.

Anyway, we had prepared very little. Wednesday night I stumbled upon a clown. Which was cool. The kids really liked him. He did magic tricks, jokes, and last but not least balloon animals. (Debby, you really hit it with that one!)

I felt a litlle sorry for the guy because of the age group we had there was little to no attention span.

But the adults watched the whole thing. I enjoyed it.

We had such a busy day, Mike and I both had to work this morning, we had nursery at church and then the party at 3. But we made it and Birthday boy is up way past his bed time.

He was confused all day as to what was really going on. He woke up from nap at 2:45 and there was a party here? At about 9:30 tonight (we had some friends over watching a movie) Logan came up into the kitchen raised his hands in the air and said "ITS A BIRTHDAY PARTY, ITS A BIRTHDAY PARTY!"

(And we will do it all again in 2 months. I should probably start planning now.)

I guess the last post does not like comments!

Happy Birthday MOM!!!!

The other day I got an email from my Mom that said something to the effect of: Send more pictures and send more vids!!!! More pics and more vids!!! So here are some pictures of the kids and a little vid of the kids just being my kids before bed.

Lately I have not been sitting down to post all that much lately so I just stick a vid or two on here so that you all can still see the kids but I thought that tonight I might actually write something on here to go with the pics. There is a lot going on in our house all the time lately. Christine and I are trying to make final plans on going to Italy to see Mom and Dad and getting that to match with both of our work scheduled is horrible. She has something this week and I have something the next week and it is leaving like a 2 day window of opportunity. The planning of the vacation is making me need a vacation in itself.



Logan has a birthday coming up so we are trying to make plans for that. (he looks really scared in that picture hu?)The big 2 years. We are thinking a lot about themes but I think that we have Ken to thank about the theme because I am pretty sure that it will be a dinosaur theme. Ever since we were at Ken's house and went to the T Rex store he has been obsessed with dinosaurs and mostly the sounds that they make . He runs around the house all the time yelling "Growllllll, I'm a dinosaur" I am really excited about the party but I love to have birthday parties for my kids I like all the 'Monica like' hosting things that go into them.

As For Miss Micha she is growing up so fast... She said her first 'cuss' word this week....teehehehe. Thursday she was on the computer and Christine overheard her say, "damn computer" NOW I am sure that she never heard her dad say that at all so I am not sure where she got that from. Actually Micha has been amazing as of late she is growing up so much and helping out with her brothers which is awesome. She is in this new state of mind that is she does not want to let people down. Her whole goal in life right now is to make other happy. There are small times in her life that she get a little selfish but when I ask her to think about it then she comes back to the reality that people are more important than things or situations. With Micha (and I think that I speak for Chris as well) it is like every day we see her grow a little bit more emotionally and that is a new amazing part of child rearing that we have never dealt with.

Sorry that the vids are so much darker with You Tube but that is all that I have tonight. I hope that you all enjoy it.