Life Cycles 101.

The life cycle of a stay at home mom is complicated, but it becomes even more so when you factor in the lives of other organisms.  Namely Butterflies. (I bet you thought I was gonna say kids right?) Last Christmas my sweet Sis in law Laci gave me my dream present.  It had sat on my wish list for two years, constantly being looked over by those who were searching for the perfect gift.  Anyway I opened the box on Christmas morning last, and was instantly ready to send away for those fluttery little creepy crawlers.  Unfortunately it was to cold.  Then it was to busy, then there was a new baby, and then there was vacations to go on, then there was school starting.  I realised suddenly that it was about to become too cold again and figured I had better get my backside in gear.  Anyway, here is their story.  Their short but exciting story.  (Although there are lots of pictures so it may take you just as long to read this post as their entire life cycle!)

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.

One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and -POP!- out of the egg came a very hungry little caterpillar.

(We were not present for the blessed event of hatching, so I have no idea if it happened on a Sunday or not...  Plus we had 5... )

Anyway you know how the story goes.  he ate,

and ate...

and got big and fat. 

This is the part of the story Eric fails to talk about.  The upside down part.  I was so excited when this happened that I probably was the cause of one of the poor guys to fall from his Bat like roost.  Don't worry he went on to live a perfectly normal butterfly life.

 Then he built a house and lived in it forever...  It felt like forever...

Then one day, they came out.  And that's that.  But aren't they pretty?!

Pretty wrinkled, we caught this guy right after he came out.

Anyway, Matt said it would be mean not to let them fly, so after a week or so we let them go.  I tried to take a picture of one on my hand before they flew away, but man these guys were just itching to escape.  (It probably had nothing to do with the fact that every time Gibson got a hold of their container they experienced the shaking of their life!)  One hung around the park for a little while, so we did get to say a proper goodbye to him...  I like to think that it was the one that dropped, and it was his way of saying, "I don't blame you for the possible brain damage".  Or maybe he was just a little dumber than the others...

And they're off !

 Small orange blur...

 Small black line at the bottom...

 Jonas saying goodbye.

Thank you Laci!  This was so much fun!