Thursday, May 19, 2011

Butterflies

A couple days ago, I talked about how we decided to order a "Butterfly kit" online ... and grow our own Butterflies for Julianna's first birthday party (Party Theme: The Very Hungry Caterpillar - See the connection here?)

Well we got the caterpillars in the mail already & they were living in their self-feeding containers. The caterpillars turned into chrysalis's about a week later ... and we my husband gently moved the chrysalis's into the Butterfly habitat cage. The chrysalis's hung out for about 7-8 days... and POOF ... out popped 8 beautiful butterflies from their cocoons.

It's actually a pretty neat thing to experience, and I decided we will do this again with Julianna when she is old enough to understand the butterfly life cycle.

So anyway ... we have these 8 beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies fluttering around in their habitat. We give them fresh orange slices every night... and they seem happy. For now. I am hoping I don't wake up one morning before the party (May 30th) to find 8 dead Butterflies.

I have a plan to do a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" story time and then do the butterfly release for the kids at the end. I thought it would be exciting. What won't be exciting is 8 butterflies that croak before May 30th. They are supposed to live 2-4 weeks. The party brings us right to the 2 week deadline. Cross your fingers. I also want them to live so they get to see the light of day and go pollinate and do what butterflies do. It's great for the environment.

I would really love to get a picture of a Julianna holding a butterfly, but I'm scared she might try to eat it. She tries to eat everything. That would probably not be a good thing ... for the butterfly or Julianna.

In this picture, they are still kind of brownish in color. But in the last day, they started to turn a pretty orange color (shown in the 2nd picture) - Butterflies are really quite beautiful creatures.  





7 comments:

  1. What a grreat 1st birthday theme-- Addison favorite book... I am happy to see that the butterfly garden was a success (I want to order one for Addison but was never sure) Fingers crossed they will make it two weeks.

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  2. I was wondering what you were going to feed them to keep them alive. That's interesting. We are crossing all our fingers and toes over here that they stay alive for you!

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  3. What a cool idea! My fingers are crossed that they live long full lives :) I keep laughing at the image of Julianna eating one!

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  4. What a neat idea. I hope they stay alive long enough for the party :)

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  5. I used to teach 2nd grade math and science and we always had a butterfly unit and would raise butterflies, absolutely loved it! This is such a fun theme for a birthday party, can't wait to see pics of it!

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  6. Thanks everyone! (I can finally reply on blogger today!) - I am looking forward to releasing them ... I have a vision in my head of how i want it to go ... so we'll see! As of today, they are still alive and kicking. Come on guys- give me a few more days!! haha!

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