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!!

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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!!!!!!!

The Official Countdown

So today was our last appointment at the Dr office where we found out when we would be having the baby. Since Chris' body does not like to give up the little ones that she carries then we will have to schedule it out. So it looks like it will be this Wednesday that we will be having our newest addition to the Fletcher Five (the artists formally known as 'The Joplin Fletcher's") to make it an official title.

I am not a superstitious person really. I no not believe in not walking under ladders or black cats crossing your path, but I have always been a little concerned with Christine due date being June 10, 2006. What if she had the baby early then that might not be a great date to have a child on. So she and I were somewhat relived that the doctor did not come back into the room and say..."How about Tuesday?" I am wondering if all inductions are cancelled on Tuesday for this reason? Anyway that should not be a problem as long as things go on without a hitch. Wednesday it is!!!! Yeah for us!