Christmas Eve

Can you believe I forgot my camera on Christmas Eve!! Thanks for the pics Heidi!! Here's Charity and Nana.


I like this picture.


My cute little brother and sister


Luke kept asking Heidi to take pictures of him doing the weirdest things...so funny!

sadly this is how his face looks more often than not.

Christmas Eve this year was AWESOME!! I totally loved it! The kids and I basically just bummed around and got the house cleaned up most of the morning. We were all really anxious and excited for the evening and of course the next day, but that evening was VERY special! At Nate's work they do a think every Christmas Eve where they let the kids of the controllers come and look at and talk to Santa on the radar as he is flying through the air!!!!! Now how cool is THAT!! I was seriously so excited for the kids. I wanted to document what they talked to him about. Charity was first, Santa told her thank you for doing such a great job at cleaning the kitchen lately (that's been her job for the last 2 weeks, more on that in another post in the future maybe). Then he said a few things to one of the reindeer, and then he had one of his elves point out to him that he had a pretty cool present for her in his sleigh and that she was going to love it. Then he told her that for next year he was going to be watching how well she cleans her room. Charity was pretty excited about talking to him, but she didn't say a whole lot back. Kelly was next. Santa told her that he was glad that she was such a good Kindergartener. He told her that he knew she liked pretending to be a horse, so the present he had for her was something that would help her with that. Then he told her to be sure to keep helping out with her little brother Noah. Bradley was next and first off Santa called him "Bradley the Shepherd" and told him he did a good job in his Preschool Program. Then he told him that he was giving him a present that had lots of marbles and wanted to make sure that Bradley could take care of all the marbles. Then he told Bradley to use his big muscles to take care of his little brothers. And Luke was last. Santa asked him if he liked the candy canes and hot chocolate that he had given him and told him that there was more treats and presents to come. Then he told him to be sure to listen to his mommy and to that Luke said, "Okay!" It was such a FUN experience for me (and hopefully the kids). I seriously thought it was the neatest thing.
On top of the talking with Santa, we all got to have a tour around Nate's work. It's always so fun for me to see where Nate works and being that it is all Top Secret Government facility, I wasn't sure we'd really get the chance. But we sure did!!! And it was really cool. It all looked pretty important, and we all feel really cool to have Nate working in such and important place. The kids were actually talking more about seeing Daddy's work all day than they were about talking to Santa, so that was pretty neat too. What a fun day!!
After Nate's work we all headed on up to visit Grandpa Mottishaw and Grandma Ellen, and then over to Nana's house with Brent's family, Heidi and Grandpa Hatch. We had a good time, and then drove home in the scary blizzard. I honestly thought I was going to die and miss Christmas when the wind was blowing me all over the road at the point of the mountain (if we can still call it that after they've dug it all out!) I had a very special experience with the power of prayer on the way home that I hope I never forget. Testimony builder for sure. And I was still alive to watch Kelly spread her "Reindeer food" out all over the back yard....very cute and very special for Kelly. It was a really fun day. It's too bad Christmas Eve is only 1 day.....

But as I was driving around the day before, it hit me what a special thing Christmas Day really is. And not because of all the gifts and visiting, but because it was the day that MILLIONS of people would be celebrating Jesus Christ's birth. No matter how they were celebrating it, or how much they were focusing on the fact, the fact still remains that it was his birthday celebration. And I thought that was pretty neat. I bet it makes Heavenly Father (and Jesus for that matter) smile at least a little to see His children all focused on that one day. Just something interesting to me. I'm so grateful for Christ's birth. I'm grateful for his perfect life and the Atonement as well. I am so grateful to have a knowledge of these things as well. Kelly told me of a family in our ward that has a birthday cake for Jesus and they sing Happy Birthday to him on Christmas...what a neat tradition!! I've always had a birthday cake on Christmas, but it wasn't exactly for him. It is neat to think that that is his day. That is the day that we celebrate because of him. A few weeks ago during FHE we asked the kids why we have Christmas and Bradley slowly answered (in such a cute way), "because Heavenly Father wanted Jesus to have a birthday party". I just love that!! Anyway I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas....I'm going to go to bed now, but I'll post the rest of Christmas later...