Monday, April 19, 2010

From Caterpillars to Butterflies

Awhile back I purchased a butterfly house at Toys 'R Us and never got around to sending in the little coupon to have the caterpillars sent to us. I finally ordered the larvae and they arrived at the beginning of Spring Break. The boys enjoyed watching the bugs crawl around their jar, growing bigger and bigger. These things literally doubled their body size daily! After about 2 weeks they spun cocoons and so we transferred them from their little jar to the mesh butterfly house. After a week of "sleeping" the first two butterflies emerged. The boys were ecstatic! Over the course of 2 more days the rest of our butterflies "hatched". This past Saturday we decided to release the butterflies in our backyard. Cole got to unzip the house and then we sat back and waited for them to find their way to the door and fly away. The boys had fun running and chasing them all over the backyard. It was fun to watch the whole metamorphosis process and Cole is already bugging me to order more caterpillars. I'm sure I will, I kind of miss the little critters...

Our "baby" caterpillars. Imagine them about 10 times bigger...ick!

The cocoons and our first 2 butterflies...
Cole unzipping the house...
The boys watching and waiting...
Cole got to hold one, Carson was too scared to hold them...