Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Butterflies!


Olivia got some real caterpillars for her birthday in this fun butterfly house kit.  Those little caterpillars ate and ate and ate, and produced enormous loads of "frass" (caterpillar poop--vocabulary word of the day.  Incidentally, John loves to insert the word "frass" wherever he can fit it into conversation now.), and then turned themselves into chrysalises (chrysali?).

We watched those little cocoons intently until they all hatched into Painted Lady butterflies.  Excitement!

We fed them yellow-tinted sugar water.

And then, because their life span is only about two weeks, we decided to let them fly into the great loveliness of our backyard.

We thought they'd possibly hang around for a bit and let us enjoy them, but they took off immediately as high and as fast as they could.  Do you think they were traumatized by the three weeks they lived in a house with three little girls?

4 comments:

cowbell kelly said...

Uh I absolutely love that word and now want to incorporate it into my vocabulary.

Mike and Kelly said...

What fun. I am sad that your butterflies left you. I know that they would have left as fast as they could from mine too though. Tell the ladies that we said HI and miss you all.

Renae said...

Ooooh, I love the collapsable butterfly house. We're trying to grow some here, but keep losing the caterpillars. :) Liv and Mimi are getting so big! The frass gets increasingly bigger as the caterpillar grows - that's what Zach learned.

Steph said...

Em, have you and the kids ever tried letter boxing. Try it, they will love it, I believe, it is a great way to take in a hike while treasure hunting. Meagan got Celine going and she loves, loves, loves it. Went tonight with achievement day girls, they enjoyed it as well, let me know what you think. Sorry to post this info here, don't have your email address. We love you, does sweet girl #4 have a name yet?