The Life and Times of The Fetscher Family: Learning, Birthday's, Halloween- Oh My!

We have been busy since the first of September. It seems like every 2 -3 months I decide to blog again, so here is your chance to get caught up. September brought us Hurricane Ike- which was not as much fun as the news made it out to be. Ike did nothing to our house (thank goodness!), but did damage two trees. Ike also decided to do major damage to all the electric lines around our neighborhood which resulted in 13 days of no power. Thankfully we have the most awesome friends and they let us use their generator. (They evacuated to San Antonio. Thanks Amy and Brandon!) The down side to all this was coming home after errands and Maggie not getting out of the car. She would re-buckle her carseat and say "NO HOME! Go byebye!" While it sounds amusing, it really isn't when you are her mommy and saying the same thing! After we got power back we had a week to get life back in order before we packed up the Jeep and headed to Indiana. This year we spent our birthday with the family. They missed out on the first birthday, so we made sure everyone was together for #2 ( and I am still 26 in case you were wondering). Maggie was AWESOME in the Jeep! She hardly fussed at all, and only watched DVD's for maybe an hour each way. I couldn't ask for a better kid :) We got to partake in many Fall Festival activities, and we found out the Maggie is a ride junkie! The higher and faster the ride the more she wanted. This she gets from mom, and most definitely not dad. We had a wonderful week with everyone and miss them tons. Once we got back home we just back into the swing of things. Maggie's babysitter had to go work in a center so Amy is now watching her while I go to work. It seems to be working out really well. Mostly. There are still most times when we get in the car and she cries, "No home, Amy, Baby Jordi!" Baby Jordi is Allison's little sister Jordan. We get to hear Allison's family names daily. Most questions now get answered with "BreBre, Amy, Baby Jordi, YaYa, HoHo, CloClo, meow". For those that don't speak toddler this is how it translates- "Brandon, Amy, Jordan, Allison, Hunter, Chloe, cat". What mommy hears is "I hate you, the Schrenks are so much nicer. I wish I lived at their house!" I think what it really means is, "Mommy, you don't understand anything I say, so I'm just going to repeat what you do until I get what I want." This has gone on for a month now. I'm getting used to it, but man does it drive me up the wall. I guess I am just happy that she is building her vocabulary. She is also really into more books lately. I think this is due to the book Uncle Chad and Aunt Susan gave her. It is "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?" We have only been reading it for 2 weeks, and she knows all the animals now. She really knows them! I point to an animal and she says its name. My favorite is Bald Eagle. That one she says the best. I am totally blown away by how well she can verbalize now. (Is that the right way to say that Maris?) She learns more and more everyday. Including the word: CANDY! Yup, good thing Halloween came around so I had an excuse to shovel chocolate in my face daily. ( A little reward for getting down to Pre-Maggie weight!) Hopefully I will get around to downloading all the video we have of Maggie, so we can take some more of her talking. It rocks! Now for more pictures!