{Daily Moments} Target Practice

King Birthstone and King Curious

Landon's Butterfly

Our last butterfly finally emerged from his chrysalis and was released yesterday. To sum it all up, Landon decorated a caterpillar to butterfly puppet.

He loved his finished product and had fun turning it back and forth between its two forms for the better part of a morning. My favorite part was when he'd make it "hang" on the wall and said that the caterpillar was a chrysalis.

He also had fun making it pretend to eat everything in sight and pretending it was flying and landing on people. All and all I think they both got a lot out of our butterfly experience and Ethan is already asking if he can raise another type of butterfly next year.

Two boys and a Toad

{Daily Moments} Looking for Worms

Ethan on my parents compost pile looking for worms in his Easter clothes.

Butterflies of our own

As promised, when Ethan finished Kindergarten and reached "first grade" we ordered a butterfly habitat and some caterpillars. He had seen a set in a curriculum catalog under first grade and had been anxious to raise caterpillars ever since. The 6 caterpillars arrived and were so teeny tiny. Each day they noticeably grew. Those hungry caterpillars ate and ate and ate. Almost always. They kept shedding their skin and growing bigger until after a week and a half they were long and had grown many many times bigger than when we received them.One never grew and eventually disappeared in the cup. 4 of them reached chrysalis phase around the same time of each other and one was a late bloomer and was almost 5 days later. Eventually we had 4 painted lady butterflies emerge over a two day span.

After surviving two cat attacks to their habitat, we decided on a butterfly release-day so that our butterflies could live out half of their lifespan outdoors. It was a little emotional for a little boy because one of the butterflies was still in his chrysalis and he didn't want him to emerge and find himself all alone. He was so sad for the remaining one that he had named "horns" but worked through it and we agreed to release them the following day.

Two of the butterflies got excited as soon as the habitat was brought outside and flew away within minutes.The other two were slower to leave. Ethan sang to "flip flap" and "beautiful" encouraging them to fly away into their natural habitat. Eventually they left and no tears were shed. Success! Now we are waiting on the last one who may or may not emerge and crossing our fingers!