Butterflies!

Today is a glorious day full of sunshine and being out doors.  We hurried out as quickly as possible this morning and stayed out through lunch.  While we were wrapping up our meal GW said, "5 more minutes Briana?"  It made my heart soar knowing everyone's love for just being outside.

Earlier a few of our butterflies had hatched from their chrysalises!  This pattern of moving from egg to adult, a butterfly in this case, has been something we have been talking a lot about during this past week.  There has even been moments where we have pretended to be inside of an egg and "Pop!" out, just like the caterpillar does in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  So when I noticed a few of the butterflies came out we were all excited.

I brought them into the sunshine.  One butterfly was flapping around the enclosure and the other was moving slowly.  I brought the slower one out and held it for close examination on my finger.  "Don't touch it!  The wings!" SW said while peering closely.  Everyone was very interested.  We talked about how fragile this new creature was, and how when she was ready that she would fly away and lay her eggs somewhere.  "Leaves!  Tree leaves" said SC and ran off to the tree, running his hands through the low hanging branches.  

Eventually I set this butterfly on our raspberry bushes and she was frequently checked on and admired as she warmed her wings in the sun.  The other butterfly walked onto my finger as well and quickly flew away, much to the surprise of the boys after I brought her out.  We then settled into exploring the buckets of camilla flowers I had brought:scooping, tossing, dumping on heads, laughing, gathering.  Frequently the remaining chrysalises were checked on and after being moved around a lot they were twisting and turning furiously and we all hoped they would open soon.