Baby Love Times Four

This past weekend......oh, this past weekend! It was truly one of the most joyous times of my life. Matt, Makenna, Annabelle, and I loaded up in our car and drove to Indiana to meet all of the babies.

We had three babies to meet: our nephew Noah {born Jan 17th}, our nephew Jacob {born February 21st}, and our niece Cora {born April 9th}. Noah and Jake belong to my sister, Erin, and her husband, Dan, while Cora belongs to Matt's brother, JJ, and his wife, Jennie.

Out of all of these adults, none of us had met each others' babies. And thus, none of the baby cousins had met one another. It was such a wonderful time for all of us as Aunts and Uncles.

Our first stop on Friday was at JJ and Jennie's house. Cora Jean Perry is just beautiful! I am so excited that Makenna has a girl cousin now who is only eight weeks younger. They are going to be best friends, I just know it.

I had matching outfits for Makenna and Cora--I just couldn't resist. However, we waited until pretty much the worst time {Cora was hungry} to try to take the photos. Oops!

Truly, this was the best photo in the bunch.

And, the crying begins...

Brothers with their firstborn babies. Of course, God's sense of humor would be
that brothers from a family of all-boys should start out parenthood with girls!

Now Cora's really ticked.

After several hours with JJ, Jennie, and Cora, we headed over to my sister's house.

And then one of the sweetest moments of my life happened.

Erin and I had last seen each other on January 4th at my baby shower. We were both super-pregnant, and I knew that Erin and Dan were planning to welcome their soon-to-be-born adopted son in a few weeks. We also knew that because of the timing of our due dates, we wouldn't get to meet one another's babies right away. That was so very hard for us.

So the last time we were together, we hugged and sobbed our eyes out. We were very emotional pregnant women, after all.

As Matt and I pulled into their driveway last weekend, there was Erin, Dan, and Will waiting for us on the front porch. The moment I saw Erin, I lost my ability to speak. A huge lump formed in my throat and my eyes welled up with tears. I sprang from the car, and Erin and I ran into one another's arms and cried, hugged, and cried some more. All tears of joy, of course! It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Then we went inside to meet the boys! They are so amazing, so wonderful. I had been dreaming and dreaming of them! 

We had a little photo shoot with the three newborns:

As expected, we never really got a shot where all three had perfect expressions.

And, how tiny does Makenna look between those two boys?!

Jake's got some catching up to do with the hair-growing-thing.

One of my favorites, because it looks like Makenna is affectionately resting her
head on Noah's shoulder.

Then we tried all four cousins...

...and never got the money shot.

We decided to stop at this point.

I just have to show you a peek at Noah and Jake's nursery, to show off how wonderfully creative my sister is!

Erin saw this somewhere and replicated it. The quote says:
"An elephant went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day.
He had such enormous fun
That he called for another elephant to come!"

Absolutely adorable, huh?!?

We stopped by JJ and Jennie's house for one last Cora-fix as we headed back north towards Michigan.

Little sweetie.

One of life's cutest things: tiny baby feet.

Sleeping  beauties.

It was so hard leaving all the babies. But we truly could not have asked for a more perfect and memorable weekend. Now we're just counting the days until we can get our hands on Makenna's amazing cousins again. We are praising the Lord for these fantastic babies!

{P.S. Matt deemed this past weekend: "Babyfest 2013."}