Christmas

(the only thing Henry said he wanted for Christmas was a drill.  The first gift he opened was just that and he didn't need anything else.  Out of politeness he opened his other gifts, but only if he could use his drill to rip the paper)



Christmas was spent in Utah with all of Spencer's family there. Although I did a terrible job documenting the holiday, I will always remember this Christmas as the one where my kids came alive.  They started to understand the birth of Christ, the absolute joy of giving and receiving gifts, and were able to spend hours and house with sweat and tears (literally) making their own gifts for everyone in our family.  Shouldn't take a major holiday to remind us to become more like a child, but sadly it does.

I totally hit the jackpot marrying Spencer and that just manifests itself more and more as time goes on.  I am beyond grateful to have amazing in-laws and feel as though their family is my own.  Because it is, right?

We had all 9 grandchildren together and managed to thoroughly enjoy the house full of chaos. Snowmen were built, cookies were frosted, dance parties were thrown, sleepovers were rewarded and the contagious Harding madness was caught by all.  (no I'm not talking about sickness, but that went around as well - inevitable)





Jerusha moved to South Africa in January so we threw her a South African farewell party - the highlight being the hats from the dollar store :)




Ever since Henry was about one, my mom has mentioned that she thinks he looks like Macaulay Culkin a nd it wasn't until this random post-church family photo shoot that I saw it.  I finally saw, so much so that it was screaming at me.  I mean, look at the kid!  All we said was, "smile!" and these are gems we got.  We finally joined in and all did our best Henry face, didn't quite match it but the attempt was there.