Summer comes to an end

With the passing of Labor Day comes the unofficial end to summer. It's been a quick summer with Conner changing more and more every day. There are always new words, new faces, new reactions.

We closed off the summer with a visit to Uncle Allan's and Aunt Leslie's house in North Carolina with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Palm. We visited the zoo again -- Conner seemed to really like it, although after a few hours he was really happy. He has a great story though of a gorilla getting in his face. With two trips to the N.C. Zoo and one to Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, Conner has learned a lot about animals in the past six months.

We closed off the extra long weekend today with a picnic to the Peaks of Otter. No one else was around, so it seemed like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We'll definitely have many more visits up there I think, especially this coming fall. We also saw a bear in the middle of the road on the way up -- kind of cool to see in person, safely in our car.

It's really hard to believe it, but Conner will be 2 in less than 2 months. The picture below tells the story of how fast he's growing. He pretty much puts himself to bed after "reading" Curious George for about five minutes.

Another first!

Where did July go?

Month No. 20 has flown by for all of us! It's been a busy past few weeks with a fun-filled Fourth of July, lots of playing outside, visits from both sides of the family and so much more. Above is a video in which we attempted to catch Conner in action, but as we've said before, he LOVES the camera. All his words disappear when he sees it. Below are some photos from throughout this month.

He's happy and knows it ...

... and a few other things too.

Here's a collection of a few things from Conner in the past couple of weeks.



(Sorry for misspelling fussing!)

Thomas, and more!

On our trip to Ohio over Memorial Day weekend we got to ride on a real-life Thomas the Train. Here's a short video of that experience.



And here are a few photos of a very busy weekend!

Conner continues to learn more and more every day, adding new words all the time, including "Dukie" for our dog, Duke. He's also into learning his color, pointing at the different colors and having us say them. He's getting good at saying yellow and blue and can easily recognize others when we tell him to point them out. It's hard to believe he'll be 20 months old soon!

Showing off ... a little

We just got a Flip cam (a late Christmas present after selling our Wii that we never played), so I hope to have more videos to share soon. Conner's reaction has been to just stare at it, but he's opened up a little bit. Here's the first clip from the new camera:

Almost 18 months

Time flies so quickly that when Conner turned 17 months a few weeks ago, that we didn't even realize it! But tomorrow Conner will be 18 months ... half way to year 2 already! Here are some relatively new photos:

Conner has always loves vegetables and fruits, and corn on the cob is no exception. We can't wait to buy some locally grown corn this summer and let him chow down.

Conner loves our watches, so he got one in a "special" meal - but he didn't like to wear it ... then he did like to wear it ... then he didn't. On, off, on, off ... but it was all good fun.

Some quick updates ... Conner's speech grows every day. Some new words recently include "Hooray" from the "If you're happy and you know it song," "all right," and "cocoa" from one of his books. He knows all his body parts and can say "elbow" and "knee" very well. He also learned "boo-boo" after a running incident I had.

He has settled down with his weight, but he continues to get taller. Most of his shirts are 24 months -- some are even 2T. His pants and shorts are generally 18 months. He continues to be very happy and friendly to everyone he sees. He's also becoming a runner ... who knows, maybe a kids race is in his very near future.