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!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I finally did it. I have been trying to get a picture of Caden smiling for days. After bathtime is the most smily time for him. (I wish he was the same during bathtime)

His colic is so much better. It did get worse before it got better though. There were days that he would cry for like 5 or 6 hours. I just felt helpless, I couldn't figure out whether he was hurting or if he was hungry because there was no apparent reason. The doctor put him on nutramigen which is a hypoallergenic formula. (I so should have breastfed, I wonder if it could have prevented some of this) After that it just got worse, our poor babysitter I couldn't imagine having 3 one year olds and a crying baby.

She was a trooper though. It hasn't completely gone away but the doctor prescribed him some zantac and he is so much happier now! We have also learned that if we keep him calm he does good, once he gets restless he has a hard time calming down. So.................him and I do a ton of talking, it seems to keep him calm.

Today is good though, I get to spend most of the day with the kids, I work at night tonight. I work 5pm to about 1am but its worth it because on a normal work day I would see the kids for like 2 hours. (We get home around 5:30 or 6 and the kids are in bed at 8)

Anyway, we haven't posted in a while. Just thought I would touch base with whoever wants to read this.

We can't wait to meet Sophie!!!!!!!

The Future of Nascar

I remember when Micha was about 6 months old we somewhat puched Dora on her and right around her first birthday I remember telling Christine, " You can make a child like something based on how much (one) presents it to them." I am not sure that Micha loves Dora beasue Dora is cool and she likes her or that I made her love Dora. As for Bob the Builder she found him on her own so I know that I had nothing to do with her love for Bob the Builder. I think that passion is based on time. Another story she can realise that it is Sunday and I only know this becasue Bob the Builder is ONLY on Sunday morning. Every Sunday after she wakes up she askes to watch Bob the Builder without even telling her that it is on or that it is Sunday. This should not surprise me though.... When I was younger I can remember Sandy (our family dog) getting really excited when Dad came home on Wednesday night (more than normal) and it was because Dad took him on a walk on Wednesday night.

So my thoughts are tonight if I push Nascar on Logan right now could he be the next big star? Or will he despise me for making him race when he was a child (not stockcars but gocarts) and not want to race at all when he is older. This is not at all about NASCAR in fact I am totally fine with whatever he wants to do and Christine and I do not want to push him into anything that he does nto want to do, or we are nto trying to raise a child star to carry us through retirement either. We are very happy making just enough money to pay the bills and sleep at night. My real thoughts are just about how great will I raise my kids. In 20 years where will they be? I would love if they still lived with me assuming that they were not still waking up at 2:00 AM crying about a bad dream or they were hungry.

What will Micha be?
What will Logan be?
What will Caden be?

You tell me?

Babies, Babies, Babies!!!!

Ohh My.... if Logan's face was not dirty and if Caden was smiling this would have been the best picture EVER. However we live in the real world and I cannot belive that all kids could be clean or that all kids could smile at the same time.

Tonight Christine went back to working nights. It has been a long time since she worked a night at McDonalds so I would like to say that I am looking foward to seeing her come home tonight, but since we close the store at 12:00 am I am thinking that I will be fast asleep by that time.

The kids and I had a great night however, Micha was such a help with getting all the laundry done as well as she plaied a huge part in taking care of Logan while they were playing outside. So for that I thank you Miss Micha.

I am sorry that we have not posed lately but with Grandpa funeral and all the company here it was a little hetic here this weekend. I will do better this next weekend.

I am planning on going to see Grandma this weekend so I will try to send a pic of her as well on the blog.

Happy 4th Of July!!!

So Christine and I decided that we were not going to the BIG 4th of July celebration at the park in Joplin this year since we had to work the next day and we wanted the kids to be able to go to bed but as new(er) parents we did not realise some things that I think I will try to remember....

Starting last night (because we did our own fireworks on Saturday and Sunday) we realised that it really does not matter if we do not do the fireworks becasue every neighbor around us will be doing them so the kids will be up with booms, ohhs, and aww ha ha's until at least 10:30. Last night Logan was up until well after 11:00 PM watching the fireworks out the bedroom window and loving them. Then tonight we were not going to the city fireworks since we did not want to keep the kids up too late, but after last night we realised that the kids could not actually go to sleep when all the booms and bangs were going on. We still did not goto the city fireworks but we did let the kids watch the neighbors out of the back yard. It is so much fun to see the smiles and excitement in their faces and this only comes one time a year. SO my realization was that next year the 4th will fall on another work day but I think that I want to plan on taking the kids to see it becasue obviousally they are not going to sleep anyway so we might as well have fun.

I hope that you all had a great 4th of July, it was a great four day celebration here. I think that some how or another The Fletcher Five took advantage of each day in some way as a holiday. We had a great time as a family and we are excited for more family to join us in the upcoming holiday months!!

test

COUSINS

Gage Abby

Here are some pics of the cookout we had tonight. Every year we all gather at my mom's for fireworks and stuff. The kids had a ton of fun playing with cousins. Between us, my 2 sisters and my brother there are 9 kids. One 7 year old, two 3 year olds,
three 1 year olds, and three babies.
I am pretty sure all but 2 kids were scared of fireworks. Micha spent a lot of time watching from in the house. Logan was okay with them but he didn't really know what to think.
We had a great evening.

June has gone by so fast! ( probably not for the KC Fletchers) I don't really have much to say today, just kid stuff like always.
Logan is doing awesome. This week he has done so well. He is almost totally back to normal. He is mostly all smiles.
I go back to work next week. I am inbetween about this. I miss my job and the people, but this time it is much harder than the times before. I have spent so much time with all the kids lately, I HAVE ENJOYED IT SO SO SO MUCH. But as Mike said yesterday, reality sets in so off to work I will go.
Stephanie has done so good with the kids, She is great! Micha can speak spanish, (Not fluently of coarse but more than me) and Logan is using his sign language very well. So she makes it a little easier for me to go back to work. When they are there its just like they are with family.
We will be celebrating the 4th on Saturday night at my parents house. Last year Micha was scared of the fireworks, I am sure like most 3 year old are. But Logan will be amzed by them I am sure. I am anxious to see how they do. It will be fun. I will post pics.

Cousin Colton

Meet baby Colton. He is the kids' cousin. He was born almost exactly 48 hours after Caden.
Hopefully they can be good friends.

2 WKS OLD

We have all had to do some adjusting this past week. I did tell myself for nine months, no big deal 3 kids will be a piece of cake! Well, we did have our work cut out for us, I will admit.
Micha absolutely loves Caden. Logan though is having a tough time. He loves the baby, he just has a tiny problem with whoever has the baby. He will adjust, If any one has any advice on how to make things easier for him I am all ears!
They are all wonderful.
I took Caden for his 2 wk check up today, he weighs 9lbs 6oz. The checkup was great.
We can't wait for everyone to meet him.

The kids had great time with grandma and grandpa last weekend. They planted a flower garden!

They were great help, we enjoyed having them.

It was only a few blogs ago.......

Okay okay I know that I told you all a little bit ago that the most amaizing thing in the world was that Micha could reconize the letters to her name and place them on the fridge but I was telling a fib. Please forgive me in fact I bow at your feet and ask for forgiveness for lying to you the other day. This is the coolest thing that ever happened EVER! As you can see the picture with Micha's name on it I will tell you how we got to that point.

This week I am on vacation, so Micha and I have spent a lot of time together and the other day she was telling me how she was so grown up now that she could have markers now. She even was asking as to the reason that she is not allowed to have markers and I told her that she could not have markers because she would write on the walls. She assured me that she would not do that any more, in fact she was so old that she would ONLY write on paper. This little story brings us to today......

Today I was making lunch for the family and as Christine was getting ready to go out, and I was feeding Logan as well is getting lunch ready for the rest of the family I heard Micha tell me, "See I told you I could do it!" As I looked at the table I saw 3 pieces of paper with marker on them so I assumed that she was telling me that she was telling me that she found a marker and she could now write on the paper and not the table and the walls. As I looked at the pages one of them had scribbles, one of them had a picture of a person, and the final one had what you see above. I told her to take that page and show Mom becasue I was so amaized that she could now, not only spell her name but also write it! She is only 3 years old and she did this without my help at all in fact I was not even trying to get her to work on letters but rather I was "too busy" to help her at the time.


Sometimes as proud of her as I am I feel bad becasue she just gave me a HUGE milestone in her life and 5 min before that I was too busy to give her time becasue I was making lunch, so she got her own marker and paper and turnd it into a magical memory for me!

Corn???

If we fed the kids corn everyday they wouldn't mind one bit!
They are huge fans! Tonight they got a little silly with it.
Micha started it and Logan thought it was so funny.


Monkey see monkey do!

How do they grow so fast?

Two weeks ago Logan was my baby boy, in my mind he still looked like a baby. When I came home from the hospital I was amazed at how big he looked to me. Not only the way he looked but the way he acted. I was so sad about this for a couple of days because, although I do have a new little one I wanted to keep enjoying Logan as my baby as well. Yet over this past week he has been so fun. Learning things so rapidly, and of course his new haircut makes him look like he is two.
I took them to the park on Monday (Micha and Logan) and he just sat up on the picnic table drinking out of a Mcdonalds cup eating a cheeseburger and that is when I realized maybe he doesn't look like a baby or act like a baby but he is still my baby boy, does that feeling ever go away? I hope not. They will all always be my babies.

I got to take a few hours yesterday to go get my hair done. When I came home all of the kids were snuggling on the couch. It was so cute.

We are Home

Thursday we all came home for the first time.

After getting Chris and Caden settled in at home I went and picked up Micha and Logan and we knew that it would be a task to have all three kids in the house at the same time.

Logan just liked to point and laugh at Caden as if he were a squirl playing in the yard. Micha on the other hand thinks of him as her new toy that she can play with and interact toward.

Times are a lot diffrent since we brough our first little Micha home. We have a lot more to think about then I realised.

Caden Riley.....The real story

Okay now that we are home and settled in I wanted to share the story of 6/6/06 with anyone that I have not yet told. Most of you heard all of it, and some of you have heard most of it, but there could have been something that I left out here or there. So here is the story.....


I was at work at 5:00 Pm Tuesday trying to get everything together for not being there for 2 more days since Wednesday Christine was going to have an induction. As I was working Chris called me and asked me to come home becuse she was hurting really bad. Not just I am pregnant hurting but really in pain. I dropped what I was doing and ran out the door to get home...........Since I am only 6 blocks from work then I was there in less than 2 min and when I got home I could tell that this was something to prepare for. When I got home her contractions were between 5 and 2 min apart. I stared to get the kids bags packed as well as Christine's thinking that we might go to the hospital tonight. We had not prepared bags becasue with both kids before we had with no reason to since both labors were induced.


We decided to take the kids to our friend's Stephanie house for the night and we were going to see how the night played out. When I got back from the one city block drive and after calling the birthing unit of Freeman we decided that Chris would just take a warm bath and see how that made her feel. As I was finishing getting things in order 'just in case' we had to leave I went to check on her in the bath and I saw this look on her that I had only seen 2 other times. Once was Micha and the other was Logan, right then I knew that it was time (and I think that she did as well LOL)

We decided to go to the hospital for sure right then and since the car was already packed we just got her dressed and were on our way. We drove to the hospital got admited and the next time that I looked at the clock (to time contractions) it was 7:25. At this time her contractions were only 1 1/2 min apart. From there were were in the hand of experts so I let it go a little bit.

It did not take long though until were were in a delivery room where Chris was giving birth, with no drugs at all, to Mr. Caden Riley Fletcher. Born at 9:01 PM on 6/6/06.

It was kind of exciting to actually experience labor as a suprise for once and since this might be our last time it was a great experience to have.

The Fletcher Kids

Just a side not I am not sure if anyone realised this or not but there is a link to all of the blogs in my 'links' section so you can navagate to whatever site you want to from mine. Just another reason to visit My blog FIRST!! LOL
Plus I am Moms favorite.........

If at first you don't succeed.................

Well, I have tried twice to post new pics but it is not letting me. I will just try again later.

Welcome Caden Riley Fletcher

Caden Riley Fletcher

8 lb 2oz

Born: 6 June 06 @ 9:01pm

Mom and baby are both good, in Freeman Rm 114 (417)347-1141

I will add more later

Painting with water

Mike once told me he used to love to paint the fence with water.


I kind of thought it was funny.


Today Mike bought paint brushes while we were out shopping.


It was a big hit here!!!!!!!