Butterfly Update

 Butterflies emerged about 8 to 11 days after they became crysallis.  It was so cool to watch them.  The one that Sophia is holding below had such a hard time breaking out of his crysallis.  His wings were all crumpled up and dried that way.  But he was still alive and walked around instead of flying.

This is after only a few days out of the crysallis.  Girls would take them out of the flight cage and hold and admire them.

 The red stuff is meconium.  Red fluid that they needed to complete metamorphosis but that is released if they didn't need all of it.  This stuff ended up landing on Alex's hand.  She was not even freaked out about it.

 These pictures outside were taken this morning.  We wanted to release them outside on this beautiful sunny morning.  All the butterflies were so happy to fly out in the sunshine and fly away.

 We kept one at home.  His wings got torn last night.  We had a lot of kids over for dinner and somehow with all the hands/fingers touching them one got injured. So the girls wanted to keep him.  He is watching TV with the girls as I type.  :)

May 2014 Update

 This month...Sophia lost her first tooth. Yeah!  She was so excited.  She wiggled that loose tooth all day long wishing it to fall out.  And she ended up pulling it out herself.  The one next to it is loose too.  So the tooth fairy will be kept quite busy.

 Alex and Rachel just came back from a camping trip with their school.  They were away for two nights.  I missed them like crazy.  But apparently they had a 'blast'! Soooo... they are totally fine being apart from home.  How did they grow up so quickly?

 They kayaked, did dragon boat racing, ZIPLINED!! and went for a hike up the mountain.  It rained a lot but they never complained.  These are the pictures that the girls had on their camera.  So cute.  I just downloaded their pictures.  There were more pictures of chipmunks than there were of my girls.

 The resort they stayed at was GORGEOUS.  They stayed in nice cabins, ate in a dining room with a lake view, had good food, it even has a heated pool.  No wonder they didn't miss us.

 Rachel even slept on a top bunk.  Which seems like no big deal, but I never let my kids sleep on the top bunk.  ha ha.

Nicole's First Communion

We just celebrated our friend's daughter's first communion.  It was very special and I can't believe how big all the girls are getting.

HABAB

 HABAB.  Hurry and become a butterfly.  ha ha.  Girls got these caterpillars in the mail.  We ordered them online.  I do not like creepy crawly things but the girls are in love with their caterpillars.  They have named each one.  I named mine HABAB.  They have already tripled in size in the last three days alone!!!  Crazy.

 They will live in these small containers and eat the food on the bottom.  Then in about a week's time they will form a crysallis on the top cover.  That's when we carefully lift off the cover and place it in a butterfly cage (basically an overpriced laundry hamper with mesh sides).  And them in another week's time they will emerge as Painted Lady Butterflies.  Wish us luck.

Here is a video of what is suppose to happen.  It's not the company that we ordered it from but same idea.

Hummingbird

 Highlight of my morning.  I looked up from doing dishes and stopped and watched the hummingbird feed.  So peaceful.   And look, he likes my cooking!  Boiled 2 cups water with 1/2 cup sugar & let it cool down before putting it in the feeder.  Makes me happy.