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.