Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Our Butterflies Have Taken Flight

We let our butterflies fly away this morning. The whole life cycle was really one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to watch. Way to go Jeff on an awesome Christmas present for me and Aubrey!

Here is Aubrey & I opening up our Butterfly Kit from Jeff. (Can you even believe how young Aubrey looks?) I was so excited. Unbeknownst to Jeff, I have heard of these and have wanted to have one for a long time.


You can get the caterpillars in the winter, but if you do than you have to keep them in the pavilion for their whole life cycle. That seemed kind of cruel to me. And now that I think about it, I don't think I would have liked seeing the butterflies die. Anyway, we decided to wait until Spring. We were kind of busy with Brooke then, so we ended up getting them in the Summer instead.

We mailed away our coupon and received two containers, each containing five caterpillars and food for them to eat. It was amazing to see them almost double in size on a daily basis. The ones in the picture are in the middle of their caterpillar stage.

The morning we left for camping all of the caterpillars had turned to chrysalides - so we could put them in their new home.

Aubrey was really excited for them to move into their home. Here she is checking out the chrysalides.

The next Sunday morning our first butterfly emerged. We were all so excited. We didn't get to see that one or the next one emerge. But, the third one we actually watched it come out. It was soooo neat. It's the only one that we caught in the act. But, I am glad that we at least got to see one.

Aubrey watching her first butterfly!

All Sunday she played out the whole process. She would crawl around on the blanket, pretending to be a caterpillar. Then Jeff would roll her up in the blanket to be a chrysallis. Then she would emerge out of the blanket and run around the house exclaiming, "I'm a butterfly, I'm a butterfly." What a fun little game daddy made up for her!

Here's a bunch of our butterflies in their pavilion. The first couple of days they didn't fly around much. They crawled around a little - but their wings remained shut most of the time. But then they started to get more active and fly around with each other. I was glad to see them fly around more.

This morning we decided that it was time to let them go. A couple of them were seeming a bit restless and looked like they were trying to get out.

For some reason Aubrey has been convinced that she was going to hold one of the butterflies. She has been talking about it since we got the caterpillars. So, before we let them go we had her put her hand in the pavilion to see if she could at least touch one. Almost immediately after she put her hand in, one landed on her finger. It was so exciting! A little blessing for my little girl! I was too busy being excited to snap a picture fast enough. After, her success, Jeff and I tried too, but we were not so lucky.

Here is Jeff trying to catch a butterfly.

Then Aubrey wanted to try again.

She got close. It didn't land on her finger, but it flew around her hand and she felt the flapping wings on her fingers.

Here she is excited that she felt the butterfly on her hand.

Here are our butterflies ready to fly away!

One taking flight.

Three of them were flying around the yard for a while. Aubrey was chasing them saying, "My butterflies, my butterflies!"

One landed in our garden and hung out for a while. As soon as we got too close it flew away. The pamphlet said that we might see them around for the next few days. We'll have to hang out in the yard and see if we can get a glimpse of any of them.

Brooke just enjoying being outside with her family! She of course didn't have a clue what was going on. Although, one day when the butterflies were being active I sat her next to the pavilion and she watched for a while.

What a fun few weeks we had watching our butterflies! If anyone is interested the company is http://www.insectlore.com/. Or you can buy them at Funfinity. I was looking around at the website and they have ladybugs you can watch too. Now I really want those!

2 comments:

Keri said...

That is so cool. We're going to get some for Ayden, he'll absolutely love them!

Susan said...

Wow, that looks really neat. When I saw your first post I looked close at the picture so I could see the web address on the cup. I am so glad you posted about this, I am doing a preschool with Owen this year and we are totally going to do this. I am so excited. Thank you!