A Little Pre-Birthday Fun

Because life is so busy, we helped Princess Sparkle celebrate her birthday a little early.  We invited two of her friends over and surprised her.  They had lots of fun hanging out and playing together.

 

Decorating cupcakes and making chocolate decorations

Kenna loves anything soft, pink and sparkly -- what a great gift!

It was a perfectly gorgeous day while we toured Heinz Field.

We finished the day at a church bowling activity.  Here's the three amigas!

Everyone bowled a pretty good game. Bud has been counting down the sleeps until this activity!

Sparkle bowled 3 spares, 2 strikes and had a total of 129 on her second game!

Suessical 2013

I'm thrilled that my kids like the "fine arts" (although you couldn't tell it from this first picture)!  Many times I've asked the Knight to take me to plays or other such things.  He's gone with me and endured a few performances, but that's not his thing.  Now a football game or a NASCAR race -- he'd be the first to sign up.

 

Every spring a local college puts on a Children's Theater.  This year's production was the Suessical.  We had a great time in our 2nd row seats!! (Thanks to our friend and her son.)  Bud was singing along with the songs towards the end. 

 

Bud didn't want his picture taken at first, but other pictures I have he's sportin' a huge smile!

The Cat in the Hat -- literally right in front of us.  No zoom needed.

Can't wait to see what show they put on next year!

Goodbye, Pap

Some good memories I have of visiting my Pap's farm were walking barefoot through the soft, newly plowed dirt where Pap was going to plant his huge gardens - I remember he planted a whole row of waxed beans just for me one year.  My siblings and I would climb the apple trees in his yard, and we'd take long, exporatory walks in the woods with my dad.  We'd pet all his coon dogs along the path to the woods.

 

Over the last few months, my 87-year old grandfather's health has been declining.  He had congestive heart failure among other health issues.  We were able to visit him when we were in Ohio for Christmas and again at the end of January when we went up to celebrate Gramma's birthday.

 

A few weeks ago, he was put in a nursing home to help with rehab after a visit in the hospital.  The doctor didn't feel he would come home from the nursing home.  The last couple weeks his health began to decline -- kidney failure, fluid build-up, etc.  He didn't feel like eating much, but the medical staff said his heart would give out before his lack of eating would be a problem.

 

Last evening, he took a turn for the worse.  He became almost completely unresponsive.  My dad (Papaw) stayed with him through the night.  He was able to rest peacefully since around 2 am.  This morning as I was talking to my Dad on the phone, Pap slipped into eternity.  Even though we didn't have a real close relationship with that side of the family, we are thankful he was saved and is now in Heaven.

 

Pap from his days in the Navy

Pap and Nan with me and my siblings - July 2010

Office Before & After

The Knight has been at his new job since November.  He loves it.  They love him.  This is a true answer to prayer!  So we thought it might be a good time to make it look like he actually worked there.

 

I have a few cell phone pictures he took to give me a head start on ideas.  We still ended up being there over five hours and still didn't finish!  We ended up moving filing cabinets out to a storage area and moved his desk around.  I thought we'd just be hanging diplomas and setting out some personal items!

 

This is the old view from the back of his office.  You enter his office through the door on the left.  There was a credenza behind his desk with his printer on it.

We moved the credenza over to give him an L-shaped area to work on.  He recently just added a second screen and couldn't see people that came to meet with him in his office with both of the screens on his desk.  We added his college diploma, CPA license and PICPA membership certificate.  The strange gray duck artwork was already in his office on another wall.  It matched the black and silver theme, so we kept it.

Along the whole right-hand wall, was a row of filing cabinets.  We took out the two on the right and then moved the others down. Unfortunately the two cabinets he kept were connected, but we put our backs into it and made it work!

Use your imagination (until I get a new photo).  We had to get new frames for the area on the right as the old ones got damaged.  I also found some greenery to cover the cords over by the computer screens that still needs to be added.  Once I update his personal photos, they will be placed along the window sill.

 

The old view towards the door.

New view of desk and towards the door

Welcome to the Knight's new office!

Ew! GROSS!!

UPDATE:  We did still see these moths for a couple weeks, but thankfully they seem to be gone now. (Aug '13)

This post isn't for the faint of stomach -- especially if bugs gross you out!  It may seem like a strange post, but blogging is also a way for me to document our lives.  Unfortunately, there is bad with the good sometimes.

Last July after we arrived back home from Florida, we noticed these moths in the pantry and flying around the kitchen.  "Pantry" moths or Indian Meal Moths to be exact.

Our neighbor told us what they were and warned us that they had to throw hundreds of dollars worth of food away when they had this problem a few years back.  Seeing as the Knight lost his job shortly after we started dealing with these bugs, I didn't want to lose a bunch of food.  We did have to throw out quite a bit of pasta, powdery mixes, nuts, chocolate and (for some reason they love) Cracker Jacks!  They leave webbing behind and their nasty little larva. {shutter} It's so gross.  We smashed them all.  Warnings say not to vacuum them up or throw them away as they can still hatch and infest somewhere else.

We cleaned through the pantry twice in a month.  The first time wasn't real thorough, so we had to do it again. Opening and checking inside cake mixes (as they can eat through the plastic bags and crawl through the smallest holes).  We set up traps and killed a few moths that were flying around.

They seemed to go away.  I had cleaned very thoroughly the last time and thought for sure I had gotten everything -- cleaning every crack in the pantry I could find. We bought and borrowed heavy plastic containers to put the grains and snacks in.  I did a lot of research online and found that their gestational period is around 40 days.  So once we passed 40, 50+ days, I thought we were done with them!  I had also read that they like pet food.  We have cat and bird food in the garage, but we had no reason to think they were down there.  (Our garage is attached to the house and you can enter the house in the basement through the garage.)

However, that wasn't the end of these pests.  My heart sank when I began to see them again.  We immediately bought expensive, sealed containers for the pet food.  We checked things in the pantry, and they almost didn't seem to be coming from in the pantry.  I'm about panicked at this time because who knows where else they could have set up shop!  We have a vent in the hallway that buts up to the back pantry wall.  The Knight took the cover off, and we saw a couple in there but no evidence they were living there.  Thankfully!  He also checked the attic as there were a couple holes drilled for wiring up to the attic. Still no evidence of them.

We called the exterminator.  They wanted to charge $130 to come out and spray.  They were kind and told us that we could use Clorox spray to clean the pantry, and it would do the same thing their spray would do.  So we once more emptied the pantry and fumigated the place with the Clorox spray.  Twice just to be sure.  [They aren't kidding when they say use in a well ventilated area!  I had the kitchen stove vent on and the back door open with a fan blowing the air outside in the cold winter just so we could breathe while hiding out in the basement and the back room.]  My neighbor had suggested they might be behind the shelving, so I made sure to squirt extra along the boards so that it would drip down behind them.

At some point, I can't remember when now, we found larva inside CD cases we have in the pantry.  Never thought to look there!  Online I read that someone found them nested in their kitchen equipment (a mixer or something).  I panicked again!  We stuck the VCR and stereo out in the cold all night to freeze anything that might be living inside.

Boards are nailed up around the sides and plyboard shelves lay on top.

Shortly after that, they came back with a vengeance.  We bought traps again.  This time they caught a disturbing amount of moths.  I knew we had to tear the pantry apart.  So yesterday we emptied the pantry again.  I'm really thankful I have an area to put all this stuff.

An all too familiar site (except for the flowers from my secret sister and my dad)

Last night, the Knight and I tore out the shelves.  This is what we found behind the first board we removed.  Definite evidence they were behind the shelves.

Close up of one of their "nests". You can see a couple larva.

This was the worse section under the top board.

This is the end of a board.  They squished between the wall and the board.

This is the top view of the above board.

Here's a full view of the empty bugged pantry.  All those dark spots on the "yellow" strips are bug evidence.

I've already sprayed it down -- too tired to scrub last night.  We will scrub it down, fill holes and paint the pantry while it's at this stage.  Hoping to buy some different shelving since the wall are a bit bowed and left an opportunity for the moths to nest in there.

I truly hope and PRAY this is the last we see of them.