Merry Christmas!

We had a great time celebrating Jesus' birth this year! This was the first time we've had Brock and Addi at our house Christmas Eve night to wake up for Christmas morning. Brock still believes in Santa, so Troy went out on Christmas Eve and made foot prints leading up to our back window (because we don't have a real fireplace, and Brock couldn't figure out how he was going to get in the house!).

We had to wake the kids up on Christmas morning to find the Christmas tree packed with gifts and cards. After cinnamon rolls and milk, we proceeded to have all of our wishes fulfilled through the opening of presents! It was a special time for us together at our house.

After we had played a little bit, we went to my parents' house and enjoyed Christmas traditions there, including "stockings" (in the forms of baskets) and a wonderful meal. We even got to see "Santa", whom we snuck up on as he was finishing up some packages in the shed. He had special gifts for each of us, which was really fun. Brock actually bought the whole bit, even though Santa was a little less than "Round and jolly", and had one of those "double mustaches" (a mustache over a mustache, if you know what I mean). It was very fun, and as always, memorable!

This year we really were reminded the true meaning of Christmas... besides the gift of Jesus to us so many years ago, we learned the gift of giving out of love! It's not always the biggest gifts that mean the most - it's those that were labors of love for someone else.

Merry Christmas to all, and a happy new year in 2009!

My Little Songbird!

Mama's Pride and Joy!
This is one of my favorites... Caylie was taking a bath and we were singing together. She LOVES to sing. Makes a mama happy. Our favorite of late is each time we get in the car, she sings whatever song is on KLUV. Her current favorites are "Empty Me" by Chris Sligh, and the new Toby Mac song with Kirk Franklin and Mandisa... "I don't wanna change the whole world and lose my sooooouuuuulllllll". Someday I'll get that on video. It's a little tricky while driving. I'm not supposed to talk on my cell phone while I'm driving, so I'm guessing that taking a video on my phone isn't allowed either! :)

Enjoy (and pardon the nudity... she is only 20 months old, after all!)
Stacie

Happy Halloween From the Fleischmans

We wanted to share fun some Halloween pictures. We had a great time - Caylie's first official Trick-or-Treating night... we made it about 45 minutes, or half way around our block! We had a blast, though, with Mimi, Papa, Auntie Amy, Uncle Glenn ("LaLaLa" is Caylie's name for Glenn), and Abby-dabby (#1 cousin!). Enjoy the pictures of our wonderful children! We are so blessed!

Addison - Raggedy Ann (13 1/2 years)
Brock - Old School Gangster (8 1/4 years)

Caylie - Little Tutu Elmo (20 1/2 months)

Happy Fall!

We had a good time at the Pumpkin Patch. Caylie wanted to touch all of the pumpkins, but wouldn't stop for a picture. So we tried "Give the pumpkin a hug..." so she proceeded to hug ALL of the pumpkins.

Such a lover! :)

Brock's Baptism October 19, 2008

Brock was baptized at Porterville Church of the Nazarene on Sunday, October 19, 2008. It was a wonderful day; one he had looked forward to for many months! Pastor (and friend) Jonathan Colburn baptized him, which was an honor for Brock. Enjoy!

The ABC's

Here's a quick shot of Caylie singing the ABC song (18 1/2 months old). It starts out pretty good, and then kind of falls apart, until she gets to "y... z..." and ends with a little "cha-cha-cha", which sounds more like "z...z...z"! She's quite the singer! I hope to get more singing on video soon! The best singing goes on at bedtime, so it's a little hard to share that, but one day we'll get something sweet! She is SOOO sweet when she sings! Melts a momma's heart!

My Brilliant Daughter!

Caylie is a ball of energy - and has learned so much this summer. I've loved being home with her, and being a part of this fun learning time. Talk about a sponge! She's really picked up counting. At first there was no "1" and no "10", but after some prompting, and "modeling", as all good teachers do, she picked it up! Now she practically yells the TEN (I guess modeling has it downfalls, too!), and loves to count pretty much anything! She also loves to sing... hopefully I can get that on video sometime! Enjoy!

Here we are! My weak attempt at maintaining a Blog. Hopefully this isn't the last entry! I would like to be really good at it.

Here are some updated pictures of the family.

Caylie - 17 months
Brock - almost 8 years
Addison - 13 years