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.