The Best Part of this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week was pretty much a blur. We had family come in on different days and the anticipation almost equaled the actual events. We had lots of candy(I have a great candy bar guessing game if anyone wants it for the holidays), food, fun and laughs. It probably resembles what you might have had with your own families, only much cooler.


The best part, in my eyes, was at 4:00am, Wednesday morning, I woke to what I thought was a newborn baby cry. I was completely confused to say the least and could only guess that it was my younger sister whimpering. She was having some teeth pain (sound familiar, maybe it is contagious) earlier and I thought maybe she was up crying in agony. I leaped out of bed and I stood at the top of the stairs, blind as a bat. I can't see a thing without my contacts in so I called out to the commotion below.


"Who is that and what is going on?" I said.

"Who is that up there?" Someone answers.

"It's me, Rachel......I live here." I say.

"Who do you think it is?" My mother replies in answer to my first question.


Just at that moment, it dons on me that it couldn't be anyone else besides my sister Katelyn, her husband Mike and their 7 week old baby girl, Daylin. I let out a huge, "Are you kidding me?" and then I don't remember using the stairs as I catapulted myself to the ground floor and got my face to about an inch away from my niece's. The only thing I could say was, what are you doing?

It was 4 am and they live in Provo, Utah. You do the math.

They had an unexpected change of plans and decided to hop in their car at 4pm and drive all night. I got to eat up that little baby girl all weekend and the best part was, whenever she cried, it wasn't my problem. Does anyone understand the peace that comes with that? That is the first time that a newborn has stayed in my home and it not be mine. Hallelujah, the angels are rejoicing.

They left Sunday morning and took that sweet, eatible, crying baby with them. I didn't mind the crying at all, but I didn't mind sending her home with them either.


This Thanksgiving, I was grateful for atequate sleep (which I got none of), my richly blessed family, all kinds of food, my dear husband, but mostly I am thankful for my dear children who sleep through the night.

Speaking of my children and husband, we took our annual family pictures this weekend as well. I won't show you the final picture yet (that gets sent out with our Christmas letter) but I will give you a taste.

I call this "Our Family. Rob, Rachel, Eden, Indy and their half-sister." Ah ha ha ha.