Congratulations Aunt Sarah!

Last month we headed to Greenville, SC for Aunt Sarah's graduation! Aunt Sarah graduated from Bob Jones with a degree in nursing - way to go Aunt Sarah!!! We had a wonderful time celebrating with Sarah and getting to visit with some of Jeff's family.

The college graduate

Aunt Sarah and her roommate Julia celebrating!

Gramma Wedding, Aunt Sarah, and Grampa Wedding

The whole gang after the Nurses Pinning Ceremony

Aunt Sarah and Aunt Stacy

Aunt Sarah and Jonathan (Isn't his outfit from Aunt Stacy adorable!!!)

I love my outfit, thank you Aunt Stacy!

Jonathan did fairly well eating out at restaurants - having lots of people to entertain him definitely helped!

Barbecue at Sticky Fingers - MMMMM mmmmmm :-)

Congrats again Aunt Sarah! Our family had a wonderful time getting to visit you and celebrate your graduation!

7 and 8 Months

Due to all the crazy and hectic things that have been going on in our lives lately, I am WAY behind on Jonathan updates. So here is what you have been up to the past two months baby boy:

*You have been sitting on your own since shortly after you turned 6 months old

* You ate your first baby food sometime during your 6th month, and some food off and on the next few weeks. You didn't start consistently eating baby foods each day until about 7 1/2 months, and just this past week you started eating 3 meals every day. You seem to like just about anything - peas, sweet potatoes, corn, green beans, squash, apples, pears, prunes, rice, yogurt, bananas, peaches, avocado, etc.

* You started crawling at 7 months, and love the freedom it gives you

* You now pull up on everything and think you are such a big boy!

* You LOVE kids of any age. You were crawling behind Mommy down the hall at church until a group of kids walked by you going the other direction. You quickly turned around and followed them. That really made Mommy laugh!

* You love it when Mommy or Daddy wear you in the Ergo baby carrier. During our spider problem Mommy wore you on her back in the Ergo a lot, to keep you up off the floor and away from the spiders! You do great in there and will snuggle right in and go to sleep for a nice long nap when you get tired.

* You love to give kisses and have become quite a snuggly, cuddly little guy.

* You have an adorable laugh that we love to hear!

* You think Granma and Granpa V's dog Comet is really funny, and chase him around the house trying to pull his tail - Comet doesn't think it is so funny.

* You wear 12 month clothes and weigh somewhere between 18-19 lbs.

* You are learning to wave "hi" and "bye", and are a pretty friendly little fella when we see people while we are out running errands.

Sleeping in the car

You love to stand up!

This is one of the first places mommy found you pulling up. You were trying to type on Daddy's computer :-)

You love the freedom crawling gives you - oh the places you can now explore!

You still love the Jumparoo!

This picture is from when you first learned to sit on your own.

Chewing on an organic Granny Smith Apple in a teething feeder, while riding in the Ergo.

Hanging out with Uncle Daniel

Less than a year ago...

Less than a year ago, my sister-in-law Mindy and I were both pregnant. And we both had boys!
This was the first picture these two cousins had taken together.

Look at these cousins now! Wow, what a difference 11 months makes!

Finally... A New Post!

It has been a busy last few weeks for our family. Here are a few of the reasons I have been neglecting this blog:

1)Jeff began some remodeling of a bedroom in our home and found termites in the process

2) Jonathan came down with his first ear infection

3) Jonathan and I took a short trip to Kentucky while Jeff worked on the bedroom and our Pest Services worked on the termite problem. We were very thankful that we already had a termite contract.

4) Jonathan and I returned home

5) We were only home for a few days before we packed up and headed to South Carolina for Aunt Sarah's graduation from nursing school.

6) The day before we left for SC, we discovered that the multiple spiders I had been finding and killing in our house the past few weeks were ALL BROWN RECLUSE!!!

7) Pest Services super treated our house the day we left for SC. We are very thankful that we already had a pest contract, as the super treatment would have otherwise been very expensive.

8) We had a wonderful trip to SC and had a blast getting to see some of Jeff's side of the family. We also got to see my brother and his family and my mom during that visit too.

9) Mini vacation was over and reality set back in as we returned home and find 60-70 dead BROWN RECLUSE spiders in our home!

10) We quickly discovered that they aren't all dead as we had been hoping, as we began finding new dead spiders caught on sticky traps each morning and found more live spiders. We started our quest to spider proof our home - no cardboard boxes in the house, no piles of anything anywhere, no dust ruffles touching the floor, no dark places, etc.

11) We became minimalist and got rid of half our belongings (seriously!) - if it didn't fit on a shelf or have a place to hang.. adios!

12) Jonathan and I stayed with wonderful friends from church for a week, during which time Pest Services super treated our home for the second time. After this treatment we found close to 20 dead BROWN RECLUSE spiders.

13) We believed our spider problem to be a problem of the past, and Jonathan and I returned home.

14) I found and killed one BROWN RECLUSE a day for 4 days in a row.

15) Jeff called and talked to the head guy of our Pest Service Company, we discovered that the guy who had been treating our BROWN RECLUSE problem had been fired, and we set an appointment later in the week for the head guy to come super treat our house for the 3rd time!

16) We decided to move into one of our rental homes that had just become vacant.

17)My mom came to help me organize my house and move us temporarily into the rental home. First thing we did is go over to clean the rental - and discovered a terrible case of fleas!!! We BOMBED the rental for fleas twice, discovered that it hadn't even touched the problem, realized we wouldn't be moving in there, decided that the carpet would be pulled up and Jeff will tile it before we rent it out again, and we stayed a few nights with awesome friends in Conway.

18) Head guy with Pest Service spent over an hour and a half treating our house. After this treatment we found a handful of dead BROWN RECLUSE and were very hopeful that the problem was gone.

19) Jonathan got his 2nd ear infection :-(

20) We were encouraged to go a few days with no new spiders.

21) Kibbie and Jonathan packed up to head to KY with her mom for a two week visit. One brown recluse spider was found and killed the night before they left.

22) While in Kentucky Kibbie is working on scheduling Jonathan's meals, naps, bedtime, etc. after their chaotic last few weeks. Kibbie is also looking forward to a reunion with some of her best girl friends from her childhood. Jeff is working hard at home on both our home and the rental, while also keeping his normal work schedule. Kibbie and Jonathan are missing Jeff, but are getting lots of good rest and getting caught up on some things that have been neglected lately (like this blog!).

23) No BROWN RECLUSE spiders have been seen at the Ogan household the past 4 days :-)

A few side notes:

We are VERY thankful for God's protection of our family during this entire process, especially in the weeks before we knew we had a Brown Recluse infestation. And also very thankful for wonderful friends and family.

We have decided we don't care much for Brown Recluse spiders :-(

We are now experts at identifying Brown Recluse. And Kibbie has a great eye for spotting them.

Our house is now super organized :-) Every drawer, shelf, box, article of clothing, paper, etc has been sorted through.

Our house has been a work in progress ever since we got married. The spider problem has helped accelerate a few things - I now have shelves and rods in all my closets thanks to my wonderful, hardworking, handyman of a husband :-) We are very close to having our second bedroom finished - which will leave only 1 more room to fix up. And I now have a dishwasher (not really related to the spider incident, but I am excited about it!). Our fireplace is currently being painted - Jeff, is doing that now and it looks awesome! The brush around our house has been cleared out. And we are also getting new carpet.

Our theory of what caused our Brown Recluse infestation. BR are common to Arkansas and feed on other insects. We believe that the BR were living under our house, feeding on the termites we discovered a few weeks ago. When we rid our home of the termites, we think the spider came up into the house because their food supply had been taken away.

Sorry, no pics in this post - a 7 and 8 month post of Jonathan, complete with pictures, will be posted soon!