Changes in the Hirota household

Well, things have been a little crazy lately. Abigail has rapidly begun to learn to crawl. A few weeks ago, I thought that she was maybe a little delayed in development as far as crawling, but, she has been proving me wrong. She was just skipping certain signs, such as crawling backwards. I guess what really made me nervous was that she was trying to pull up on furniture before she showed any interest in crawling. I was afraid that she would walk first. I started to put her on her tummy more and hoped that by putting toys and other desired objects (such as Tupac, haha) just out of her reach, she would try to get to them. Well, it worked, a little faster than I thought that it would. Silly me thought that it would take a while and that with Christian coming home next month, I would have until then to really baby proof. WRONG! So, that is what we have been up to for the past few days.

In a state of panic, I called my friend and fellow mommy, Jessica, and begged her to help me!!! She loves to organize and decorate and is just overall so much better at keeping a home than I am. Over a three day span, we worked tiredlessly late into the night (hehe, we're wimps, we couldn't stay up all night) to tear down some furniture, hang up shelves, put together furniture, anchored said furniture, reassemple electronics (or got her handy dandy husband to do that, haha), put together a toy section for Abby, finished her nursery, ORGANIZED, and now we are only left with my and Christian's bedroom and baby proofing the kitchen cabinets. I am going to try to do that sometime next week. We did attempt, but, it's hard getting those locks on these cabinets! We actually made it a job for either Tim or Christian, bwahahahahah.

In all of this mass chaos, I missed the debut of Abby's second tooth!!! As I was downstairs nursing her at work, Abby gave a precious little smile and there it was! A brand new baby tooth! She is so cute with her two little baby teeth! She has only bit me a few times, so, I consider myself lucky. It does hurt like crazy!!! I'm sad that her toothless little grin is going, but, baby teeth are also cute! We actually took the time to brush her teeth for the first time the other day. While she was taking a bath in her ducky, I tried out her new tooth brush and tooth paste, and, she didn't seem to mind it that much. Now if only I could do this with Tupac as well, haha.

Abby is still quite clingy, and, we are working on it. Jessica and I had an encouraging talk last night about just letting her cry it out. It's bad to the point of, in my own home, I cannot walk out of the room without her panicking and crying because she cannot see me. Jessica kindly let me know that if she isn't hungry, doesn't need a diaper change, and it's just her feelings that are hurt, she'll be okay. She needs to be self sufficient. Well, it really was starting to take a toll on me! So, I just put it into action. I put her in her execauser, came over here to finish this blog and let her cry for....two minutes, haha. She's now chatting away and playing by herself! How exciting!!! OH, and we are really working on getting her to sleep in her crib!!! She does great for naps, it's just bed time that's rough! We are getting there, though!

If you haven't heard the very wonderful and exciting news, Christian is coming home early next month. He leaves Iraq the second week of May and will be home for 18 days!!!!! Time is flying by really fast, and, he'll be here in no time :-D :-D!!! After he returns to Iraq, he will only have four more months of his tour left! I can't wait until things are normal again!!

Here are a few pictures of the last week, including some of Jessica's and my work. Oh, and, I made a new bow holder!!! I painted it by myself, as well as the letters above Abby's crib. I had so much fun doing those!!! And, we are still working on the computer area, haha...don't mind the mess there.

Yesterday Abby and I met a few friends at America the Beautiful Park. Jessica and her two boys, Noah and Trent and also Valerie and her son, Donny. It was so much fun, and, I can't wait until Abby is old enough to enjoy the park even more. Here are a few pictures from the day.

These pictures are from last night at work. At the end of the night Jenny and I had already cleaned up everything in the room, so, I dumped my diaper bag to amuse Abby. I was almost appalled at how much extra stuff I had in there. I counted almost 8 pacifiers, two outfits, 4 diapers, three hair bows, and a lot of trash. At least it's clean now.

I love you Christian! Most of these pictures are from last night.

Everyone's gone, now it's time for Christian to come home.

Well Kristen left yesterday evening, and, Alex left this afternoon. That means, the next person to come visit me is MY HUSBAND! I can't wait! Though time has gone by faster than it would for most, it has still been so hard to be away from him. I can't wait for him to hold our daughter again!

I brought Alex up to Westminster on Thursday, and, we planned on going to Boulder. Well, unfortunately that did not happen. I ended up staying up too late on Wednesday, therefore overslept on Thursday. We left about an hour and a half later than we planned. If that wasn't bad enough, I noticed that I needed to change my oil. It took Honda around 2 hours to do that, so...yeah. We had Tupac with us, so, instead of waiting in the waiting room, we decided to walk over to Taco Bell for lunch. It was cold and windy and we were without proper attire for the weather, including Abby. In order to keep her head warm, we put a blanket over her, and, secured it with her bowband (made by me :-D).

Sadly, we got to Westminster at 4pm instead of 10am (whoops), so, we ate dinner that Lynda made (yummy) and hung out. After a little while, I realized that I forgot p.j's, so, Alex and I ventured out in the rain to pick some up. On our way home, we passed a Dairy Queen and decided that butterscotch dipped cones would be an execellent desert!

This morning, we took Alex to the airport and reluctantly said our goodbyes. After dropping her off, Lynda and I drove through the rain, sleet, and snow up to Boulder to have yummy sushi at Sushi Tora (the best place in CO, no lie!). After that, we ran by The Cheesecake Factory to pick up some desert :-). After we got home, we just sat back and enjoyed the beautiful snow! It's so nice that we are getting this much snow and rain after such a dry winter! Hopefully it will help keep away the fires this summer.

Oh, and yay for tulip season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy eight months to Abigail!!!!!!!

Abby turned eight months today!!!! We celebrated it by taking an extra long bath, buying monkey stuff from Gymboree, eating at Chick Fila, and hanging out at home, yay.

I got the monkey stuff because, if you do not already know, Christian loves monkey's...and, who could resist?? I also made a bow!!!!! It's the elephant one!

That's about all I have for today, enjoy :-D.

Yesterday, Alex came to work with me. She had so much fun. She likes working with small kids, and, she did such a great job. I don't have any pictures from that, unfortunately.

After work, we picked Krissy up from home and went to Sonics. Alex told me that in California, they have a ton of Sonics commericials, but, no Sonics, haha. So, we got drinks and lunch. We took our goodies to Garden of the Gods and ate in the parking lot, haha. Alex and I saw the movie about how the Red Rocks were created (lame) and then we proceeded to walk around the park. Now, my wonderful husband got onto me for not lathering Abby up with sunscreen on a certain sunny day in Boulder. Abby didn't get burnt, but, I did, haha. So, I made sure that I had her protected from the sun, haha. Abby didn't really appreciated it, but, oh well, haha.

After we got home, we just sat around and watched t.v., hehe. Krissy was outside talking on her phone when she saw a stray dog walk by. It was really cute and sweet. We knocked on doors to find it's owner, but, no one recognized it, so, we took it to the Humane Society. We named her Benji :-D. Krissy is going to post pictures of her on Craigslist too.

Our fun filled Easter

Well, my sisters, Heather and Lauren, and cousin, Alex, flew into Colorado on Friday evening. We decided that we would celebrate Easter on Saturday, since, I had to work on Sunday, and, they were leaving shortly after. Bruce and Lynda came down on Saturday and celebrated with us.

Lyda cooked a wonderful lunch/dinner for us! Lauren was so excited, because, she doesn't get many home cooked meals nowadays (mom, hint hint). We had ham, potatoes, corn, carrots, bread, salad...and I can't remember what else. For desert we had yummy angels food cake with strawberries and cream.

We pretty much just hung out at my apartment. After Bruce and Lynda left, Alex and Lauren played Dress up with Abby. We had so much fun!!!

Updated by Lynda

We had a lovely Easter celebration with Shannon, Heather, Chrissy, Lauren, Alix, Bruce and Lynda and, of course, Abigail and Tupac! We all ate together at Christian and Shannon's apartment, complete with Easter baskets and candy!! Here are some photos and some extras of Shannon, especially for Christian! Happy Easter, Christian! We can't wait til May and you come home!