the new leaf on our family tree

Nearly a week ago, my sister Brooke and her husband Elliott added another adorable baby girl to their family. Echo Noelle Hinckley was welcomed with (extremely eager and loving) open arms, by her big sisters Ellee and Emelyn. Who would have thought that their dad, who grew up in a house full of {tall, tough} boys, would one day have 3 sweet little girls to teach him to play Barbies and dress-up? :)



Britt and Marnie were anxious to meet Echo. Marnie has been getting over a cough, so we weren't able to introduce her to Echo until yesterday. The moment we walked in, she took her coat off and said, "where's baby Echo? I wanna hold her." Britt's enthusiasm surprised me a little. He was always excited to hold Marnie as a baby, but I didn't know how "into it" he would be as a too-cool 5 year old. He begged to hold her first, softly smoothed her hair {there's a lot of it to smooth!}, and sang his Great-Grandpa Jones's lullabies to her. It makes me grin just remembering how tender he was with her. He needed to ask me a secret right after he held her...the secret?..."can we take her home with us?...just for a while?" :)
He did clarify that he has no real desire to permanently have a baby at his own house. I believe his words were, "ya know, they grow into little sisters." He merely wanted to borrow his cousin's baby sister while she's still too small to get into his stuff or knock over his block tower.