Conference Weekend

Usually after sleeping somewhere else for a night or more I crave the comfort of my own bed. Not this time, however. Andrew's parents went to Las Vegas for the weekend to hear the music and feel the passion of Barry Manilow, leaving us to hold up the home front. We slept in their big, fluffy, king-size bed. I did not want to get out of bed in the morning and now our bed just feels so-so.

At least Rachel sleeps through the night here. She didn't over there. First, she didn't want to go to bed because there is a piano in the guest room and it was much more interesting than sleeping.

Will somebody open this for me?

After piling pillows up around the mattress, turning off the light, and closing the door, I left her to her own devices. She was still crying after ten minutes so I tried to go back in and check on her but I couldn't open the door.

Rachel grabbed her favorite blanket, crawled over to the door, and had lain down right in front of it. I slowly pushed the door, and Rachel, open, picked her up, gave her a hug and kiss and put her back down on the mattress.

The next time I checked on her she had fallen asleep, but it didn't last long. She woke up soon after Emily arrived home from her date and about every hour after that. And the one night I get to sleep in an exquisitely comfortable bed, too!


Saturday morning, Rachel woke up for the day between seven and eight, as did Uncle Jacob. He came and took her from us and started playing with her, so we went back to bed. Turnabout's fair play: we were babysitting Jacob and he babysat Rachel. It was nice to get to sleep in.

We got up just in time to eat breakfast before General Conference started. It's a good thing we had breakfast, too! Rachel was as busy as ever during conference and we all took turns entertaining and being entertained by Rachel. Except me. I will admit to sleeping through the first session of conference--my excuse is that I was up all night with Rachel. How she stayed awake the whole time will remain a mystery.

Rachel and Auntie Em

Rachel and Uncle Jay-Bro

I think Rachel spent half the weekend with her tongue sticking out

Beware of baby

We spent Saturday night at our house and Rachel, thankfully, slept through the night. However, we did not watch conference at home. Our television hasn't been receiving any channels for quite some time now so we don't watch any television at home. We went to my parent's house on Sunday morning instead.

Rachel wanted to play all through the first session and no matter how many times I tried to get her to take a nap she would not close her eyes. I handed her over to my dad right at the end of conference and he had rocked her to sleep in about five minutes.

Napping on the floor

She slept for quite a long time, but woke up in time for the nerf gun war that we had between sessions. There are no pictures because I was also involved. We shot everything in sight, including Rachel, but mostly each other.

After we showed Rachel how to play rough, Auntie Josie decided that it would be a good idea to show her how to play nice by teaching her how to pet kitties. Lahki is afraid of little children and she runs away whenever she sees Rachel, even though Rachel has never touched her before. But Josie caught caught and held her still while Rachel proded, pulled, poked and, eventually petted.

It looks like they learned how to get along.

This is the way we pet the cat...

Oooh! She's soft!

We went back over to Andrew's parents' house for the last session of conference and had a lovely crepe dinner afterwards. Rachel had a fun time playing with Grandpa. She crawled up the big flight of stairs twice in a row! She's never done that before.

Her first encounter with stairs was at the Provo Library a few weeks ago. She climbed it, but it was only one stair.

Her second encounter was a church last Sunday during combined Preisthood/Relief Society. Andrew was up at the piano in the chapel and Rachel and I were sitting in the first row of benches. She wanted to visit Daddy so she crawled right over to the stand and climbed up the stairs. But that was only two or three stairs.

This was a full stair case and she did it two times! Now we just need to teach her how to go down them backwards so that she doesn't hurt herself.

Stairs is so hard...

...but so fun!

Grandpa wore her right out!

That's twice in one day that I wasn't able to get my baby to sleep but a Grandpa was!

Conference weekend was a lot of fun, but we were happy to have today at home to rest up a bit. Being away from home for that long was a little hard on Rachel. She just likes her own things in her own house.