New Baby Niece!

 On May 27th at 9 a.m.-ish, Alana Noelle Swift was born to Tina (my big sis) and Hunter.  Now Soren is a big brother and Russell and I have a niece!  Alana was upside-down and, although attempts were made, wouldn't flip, so Tina had a C-section.  This meant that recovery was a bit harder, especially with a 2-year-old.  Enter the heroes: us.  I flew out with Ty (on Jet Blue--only $29!) and a day later Russell drove out to help out our favorite SoCal family.  Unfortunately, Russell's bag failed to make the trip, so we had a bit of clothing and personal item shopping to do. Besides that, I had a fun time and am glad that we could be there to help, even if it was just lifting Soren in and out of his high chair!  Russell "helped" Hunter, too, by keeping him entertained at a couple of fancy car events on Saturday morning one at which they met Tanner Faust!  (For those of you who aren't familiar with this dude, he's a racecar driver and a host of the American Top Gear show.)  Anyway, we are happy to have a cute new baby in our fam.  :)

 

 Baby Alana, meet Aunt Carolyn (or Auntie C.J. or Uncle Beej, whatever you prefer).

 Uncle Muscles looks so good holding a teeny baby.

 Ty had some mixed feelings about Alana.  I think he may have thought she was a toy and, as evidenced below, really thought she was funny and would crawl up to her and laugh.  Whenever I held her, though, he climbed up to me and grabbed on to me...a bit jealous?  I do want to have more children whenever the best time for them to come is, but I am very grateful that I don't have babies 10 months apart!

 We took this picture to show size comparison.  It felt really weird calling Ty "baby" since he is so ginormous next to Alana--literally 4 times her size!  This precious little hand-hold was spontaneous on Ty's part.  Sweet cousins... 

On a trip to the store (which Soren was VERY excited about so we could stop by the toy aisle and buy a car for baby Ty since he discovered how fun it was to play with them now that he crawls), we plopped Ty next to Soren in the cart just for a picture.

Apparently, one picture was all that Soren could handle.  He said, "Get baby Ty outta dis cart!"

 They made up, though, and they're still cousin buds. I suppose they're even, though, because as Soren "read" Ty a book, Ty was interested for about as long as Soren wanted Ty in the cart.  Luckily, I got a picture first!

 Soren's reading skills extend to the very small, too, as he reads his baby sister one of his new Cars books.

 (He must have been reading the really surprising part.)

 Last, but not least,Ty woke up crying pretty early one morning and since he was sharing a room with Soren, we didn't want Soren awake, too, so Ty got to come out to the couch with Russell and I.  Look at these little snugglebugs.

Congrats, Swift family!