Butterflies in our house!

There aren't too many things that can fascinate a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old equally, but my mother-in-law found one. She sent us a butterfly-growing kit in the mail, which included live caterpillars & their food, a cylinder-shaped butterfly house, and everything you need to take care of the butterflies after they emerge.



We forgot to take pictures of the caterpillars, but they just ate and ate and ate. Then over the next 2 days or so after receiving the package, each one hung itself up from the fabric at the top of the jar and formed a chrysalis around its little body. So we took lots of pictures the afternoon we transferred the fabric to the butterfly house.





Both boys have been excited about the experiment from beginning to end. The little insects actually came out of their cocoons while we were in Texas, but Parker sent texts to keep us informed. This picture was taken the night we got back and saw the fully grown butterflies for the first time:



Eventually, though, we had to let them go free. We all got up early Saturday morning and took the butterfly house to the back deck:




I was really proud of Lincoln for being so gentle with the tiny creatures.




And here's Parker holding one with its wings open:



We'll probably do it all again when Anndra is older since she was too young to really know what was going on this time. She was more interested in playing with a bubble wand from our trip (thanks again, Erika!) than in watching the butterflies:



She makes the funniest faces every time she tastes the bubble mixture, but it doesn't seem to stop her... she still thinks she has to put it in her mouth to get bubbles to come out. Silly girl.



Speaking of bugs, Lincoln also got a bug mask/glasses and insisted on wearing them while he pulled the husks off the corn the other night. I just HAD to capture the moment: