Metamorphosis

The last several weeks around our house have been filled with excitement and anticipation as Nat & Stephen have excitedly watched baby catepillars grow, form chrysalis', and emerge as beautiful butterflies!! They have wanted to have a butterlfy garden for a LONG time and it was as much fun as they expected. My little bug enthusiast couldn't get enough and Natalie was just as enchanted by her long time favorite bug!


Besides the amazing experience of watching the butterfly's emerge- yes I am a nature lover and was just as amazed as my kids- this little experience in this video was my favorite moment of the experience. These two are just too cute together.

Stephen carried the catepillars around everywhere for days. He wanted to open it so badly and hold them but I told him they would die so he resisted.
Awww babies!!
Growing and spinning silk...
Getting even bigger...

Somehow I never took a picture of the chrysalis' but they were cool. Another fun thing is that there was a little stow away...we were supposed to get five and instead there was a teeny tiny catepillar that was about 6 days behind the other ones in growth. It was fun to watch him lag behind and reach all the milestones a little late, kept the excitement going...

Several of the butterflies emerged while Nat was at school, but I was glad that she got to see at least one. I thought it was cool how quickly they emerged, and even cooler that we witnessed a few just as it happened. And it was so cool to watch their little wings expand and get stronger after they emerged.

For days both kids wanted to eat sitting here on the counter top so they could watch all the excitement. It was so fun to see them so excited and to have something that cool to look forward too.

And what could be more enchanting than holding a butterfly and feeling it tickle your skin or watching it drink nectar from a watermelon...
Just look at this smile!



In heaven!!


Actually I have a funny catepillar story to tell; this happened in April. We were at Six Flags one day and as we were eating lunch a catepillar startled me and landed on my leg. After finding it was a much less scary creature than I anticipated when I suddenly felt it on my leg- I was excited to show it to Stephen--big mistake. This kid has a BUG PROBLEM. He carried that poor catepillar around for the rest of the day at six flags (like 5 more hours) and made all of us take turns holding it, search for him in panic when he was suddenly missing, and he even picked grass and made him a little home inside of his empty bag of sour gummy worms.

My brother's family was in town; so we were out and about quite a bit and this catepillar got the experience of a lifetime. He attended a birthday party and then had the GREAT pleasure of going to a Rangers baseball game where we were all forced to take turns holding him when Stephen got tired or his hands had been tickled too much. I was AMAZED the little catepillar made it through the baseball game. Then he went out to eat with us and made it back to our house. After sleeping in a jar for a bit; he escaped because a certain someone couldn't leave the jar alone! He was missing all night long; and miracuously was re-captured in the morning just as we were walking out the door to go to six flags again.

He spent another adventurous filled day at six flags alternating between being stuck in two little hands and getting lost on people's shirts. Somehow the poor little thing made it through the day-even staying with Stephen when he took a nap in the stroller and in the car- that amazed me! I'm not sure how long this SUPER CATEPILLAR OF STEEL would have lasted if it weren't for me making the mistake of trying to give him some water in his jar...I think I drowned the poor thing but I guess he had quite the story to tell in catepillar heaven:) That is the depth of Stephen's bug obsession!