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.

For your viewing pleasure

Please turn off all cell phones and pagers before viewing the movies out of consideration for others around you..........




There were just a couple of videos that I wanted to get posted. The first one is Harrison reading a story while he was down last weekend, and the next is my little boys eating "popcorn". I wanted to write a little bit tonight but I am so very tired that I think that I need to just go and rest but I still wanted to get those vid's going so that you all would have something to do while you were at work tomarrow.

Last weekend was great

This is the first time that I really sat down at the computer since last weekend that I could post on the blog so here is the recap of last weekend for those of you that I have not bragged about it to.

The top picture that you see is the picture of Christine and my girl that we would/will have. if this looks somewhat famliar to you it is becasue Ken and Lynette also did this Dave and Busters experiment at one time and they found it so much fun that they sent Christine and I there as a Christmas gift. It was such a great gift Christine and I had the best time ever. First of all we have 3 kids (for those of you that lost count) and we really never spend time away from them. Sometimes one of us goes somewhere or the other of us go the otherwhere but never do we just go out with each other. We got to do that this weekend and thanks to Ken and Lynette we got to go out in KC one of the nights this weekend just to have a great time. For Christmas the KC Fletchers took us to KC so that we could goto a place called Dave and Busters (it is kinda like a Chucky Cheese that you get carded at the door). Anyway we went last weekend while The KC Fletchers watched the kids and we had the greatest time. There were a lot of video games which puts me in heaven in ANY arcade. There were 3 things that I HAD to do when I was there.

1. They had a small "Old School" video game section and I had to play those. I played Donkey Kong, which I was quite good at actually, for quite some time.

2. There was the Biggest Madden game there I have ever seen with the best graphics as well. IT was a full sized game with at least a 60 inch screen and I had to play it.

3. There was a boxing game there that I saw walking in that you actually boxed while playing it. You picked up the gloves and boxed to play the game.

I got to do all of these things, when I walked in I was like "A kid in a candy store" this was the best place ever.

The next day we all went to Chucky Cheese (still some of KC Fletchers gift to us) and again we all had a blast. The kids love Chuckey Cheese espicially the one by Uncle Ken becasue they know that when they are at Uncle Ken & Aunt Lynette's they ALWAYS get to go there.

Thanks again for the GREAT Christmas gift Ken and Lynette--

Fletcher Five

We now have a David

We did get a new Hamster. This one is more alive than Hammy ever thought of being. His name is David. I am not sure why she picked David that is just what she thought of when we got him home,[or he is a she who knows.] He is so wired all of the time! The first night we had him Mike and I had gone out for our Anniversary and when we got home after everyone had left, we noticed there was no David in his cage. Gage or Logan had taken off the cap to one of the holes in the top of the cage and he had gotten out in the den. Micha was so scared, you mean he can climb? I was just kidding mom, I didn't want a hampster. What if he climbs on me when he I am sleeping? She was hysterical. Like scared out of her mind. So I guess maybe the hampster is mine now. But, the best part of it all is Michas room is still clean.
Still clean, can you believe it?
She is great. She is very proud of her room. And so are we.
I'll post a pic of David and Michas clean room later, now its off to work.

Out with the old and in with the new.....

Or, maybe I should say out with the dead and in with the new. I know that doesn't sound very hmm, whats the word............... appropriate but we have given it that kind of approach so that Micha isn't so devastated that her Hammy has already gone to be in everlasting peace with God. He never woke up this morning. We made it a whole 5 days with Hammy. I am asking myself "Are we going to try again?" and as Micha would answer, Mom, we totally need a new one.
When the lady that sold us the hampster told me the Hampster had a 7 day warranty I knew we may need to prepare Micha for that, so I did. Apparentaly hamsters do not adjust well to moving from one enviorment to another (at least that is what the lady told us and what I am hoping happened. I would hate to think that we are the reason that Hammy is no longer a part of the Fletchers. Even with Hammy gone we will always have Hammy with us in this video that Micha wanted to make the other day.