Cocoons to Butterfly's

A couple of days before school got out we were walking through one of the teachers classrooms when we noticed her butterfly habitat. We started talking about it and I mentioned how I saw those on TV and always thought that it sounded like fun. She told me that if I was serious, I was, to come in on Monday and she would give me the extra one she had. The caterpillars had already wrapped themselves up into their cocoons, but it would still be fun for the kids to have. I agreed and then kinda forgot about it over the weekend. Not Avynlea though. On Monday we weren't at the school and so nothing was said about it but on Tuesday we were there for Rykers graduation and Avynlea asked me if we could go and get the butterfly's. After I got over the surprise of her remembering, but really I shouldn't have been, We went down to Ms. Compasses room and asked if we could take the butterfly's. She handed it over and we brought it home. The kids spent all day looking into the box and kept asking me when the butterfly's were going to come out. I told them it would not be for a couple of days and to just leave it alone for a while.
The next day Rylee climbed up on the stool to look into the box and she accidentally made it fall to the floor. I ran over to find one of the cocoons totally smashed, ewwww! I picked it back up told her to be careful and put it back up on the counter. Seeing the smashed cocoon had induced my gag reflux but what really got to me was when one of the cocoons started doing what seemed to me a death rattle. It started shaking like crazy and I thought maybe it was trying to come out but it kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it. I finally told Ryker to take it outside and put it in the garden. If it were still alive it could come out in peace but if it was dying I didn't want to have to witness it. Plus it was rattling quite loud and was making me sick thinking about the dying butterfly trapped in its cocoon. Who knows, it probably was fine and is now a beautiful butterfly flying to the tropical islands, and that is how it will be forever in my head!

The next day we noticed that one of the butterfly's had emerged from its cocoon! We all were so excited and stared and stared at this butterfly.

Throughout the next couple of days it was so fun to see these butterfly's appearing in our butterfly box. The kids and I even got to watch one emerging from its cocoon! Now that was pretty darn cool!
In all we had about 12 or 13 butterfly's pop out. After a couple days of them being in the box we would let them go in the front yard. I was still grossed out from the smashing ordeal of a couple days previous and wouldn't touch the butterfly's but Ryker was my right hand man and had no problems taking them outside. I finally had to tell him to leave them alone because he would take them out, leave them, and then later I would see him outside again with the butterfly back on his finger. He really is a gentle soul and was into these butterfly's.

See how cute he is!

Kefford was a big help too in the letting go of the butterfly's.

This was really fun for the kids and someday I would like to do it again where we can watch them start out as caterpillars. Definitely fun for the kids, kinda gross for me, but it is always all about the kids...right? :)