Late Afternoon Outing

Where's John Parker?

What's that I hear and see.......a helicopter?

I love DIRT!!


Boy, if only I could wander out in that tall grass!!!

A little boy has a lot of work to do with his own machinery.

WEEEEEE.......I love to swing!! What a way to cool off!!

I'll help daddy cut the grass!!

Better yet, I'll just take a ride in what my daddy calls the "Ugly Car"!! HA!!

We have been trying to "Beat the Heat" as much as possible. John Parker absolutely loves the outdoors and would rather spend every waking moment in this environment. Being the prego girl that I am, the heat is really getting to me. So......we have been limiting our outside play to 10 minute increments.....if I can last that long. We save our "Big Outing" for the late evening when it has cooled off just enough for me to withstand it without feeling like I am going to faint! These are some pictures that I took on Tuesday of this week. He was toooooo busy to slow down to even smile or pose for the camera. As I have mentioned before, I have to set my camera to "continuous shooting mode" so I won't have blurred pictures.

Little Prayer, Big Heart

I have a precious story that I wanted to share with all of you. On Thursday, John Parker and I came back to the house after spending a few morning hours with my parents, neices, and nephews. I quickly got his lunch prepared so he could lay down for his usual two-hour nap. Being the terrible mother that day, I neglected to say a prayer with John Parker before he had his meal. So after he scarfed it down, I began cleaning his mouth, hands, and booster seat. All of a sudden I heard these precious, sincere words from my 2 year old......."God is Great; Thank you for our food! AMEN! Not only did he quote those exact words, but he had his tiny hands folded in prayer. I got this huge lump in my throat and tears filled my eyes as I hugged him for saying such a sweet prayer!!! It was so touching!!! Especially, since I was so caught up on getting him fed and ready for his nap. Boy, did I feel convicted!!! I was so proud to hear it come from his mouth all on his own without any of my "coaching". I was so excited that I immediately phoned Jeremy at work to let him know what his little man had said! Isn't it amazing how God works through our little ones?

Our Little Fish

The Hardy family always stays at The Breakers in Fort Walton for the 4th of July, but decided to try another place and location this year. After listening to Rick and Bubba advertise The Wharf in Orange Beach, Alabama- it became our destination.

I definitely recommend this place to anyone that might want to get away for some R & R. As you can tell from the slide show, Mr. John Parker Hardy thought everything was GRAND!!! The Oasis is where we spent every day!! This is the place that John Parker decided that he didn't need any floatation devices and that he was a bonified swimmer. We started out going down the slide with him and then he found out that he could do it all on his own. He is soooooo independent-which is good and bad. As of right now, there isn't anything that he is afraid of-including going underwater. He did this several times while we were swimming and came up smiling. He actually held his breath!!!! I, of course, was afraid for him! It didn't bother him what-so-ever!!!! I believe that we have an early swimmer on our hands.