Metamorphosis

Isn't metamorphosis such an amazing thing!? I'm watching a lot of changes happen with Kendall every day but nothing to the extent of a caterpillar. It's just crazy how they go from a tiny little egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a butterfly. It's really awesome to watch it all happen, and lucky for us, we got to watch it all first hand here at our house.

For Ella's second birthday, she got a butterfly house from our cousins the Bargery's. With it came a coupon to order caterpillar larvae. I just happened to find the coupon a month ago and sent it in. A few days later our caterpillar larvae arrived in the mail.

They were really tiny little caterpillars when they arrived, but over the next few days they grew so dang fast. Then, of course, they spun their chrysalids and for a few days we anxiously awaited their transformation. Sure enough, we ended up with five beautiful butterflies, which we let go a few days later.

The girls and I absolutely loved watching it all happen and we're excited to order more larvae. Go to www.insectlore.com and order your own larvae. I promise you and your kids will not be disappointed!

The larvae came in a little cup like this with the food already inside.

Once they had all formed chrysalids, we removed them from the cup and pinned them onto the side of the butterfly house.

Watching them emerge was really cool. Can you see the butterfly? They drip out this red ink, which is just left over color from their wings. Or something like that. =-)

We spent a lot of time sitting... watching... waiting.

Once they were all out, we kept them for a few days and then finally convinced the girls to let them go in our backyard. We thought it best given the fact that they were mating (which made for an interesting conversation with the girls) and we didn't have the right kind of plants for them to lay their eggs.

Ella got to hold one of the butterflies before it flew away. Brooklyn was too scared.