Butterflies!

My sister in law gave me this awesome idea of getting caterpillars for Macie for her birthday.  Fun, educational, and not another toy in the playroom.  I was sold!  She told me to make sure I bought a kit that already had the caterpillars in it.  But I found one without them cheaper on Amazon, so I didn't listen to her.  I got the "cage" and sent away for my caterpillars a week before her birthday. 

They didn't come.

So she opened her empty cage for her birthday and I explained that they were coming in the mail. 

We started racing to get the mail each day. 

Still no package marked "live insects."

Finally 2 weeks later, they arrived. The mail lady was kind enough to just shove them in the mailbox in the 100 heat and not bring them to the door.  But our 5 caterpillars survived!  We watched them grow fatter and fatter for exactly 7 days, then one by one they all climbed to the top of their little cup and made their chrysallis'.  I was amazed by it all!  So were the girls.  I then had to take them from the cup and put them in here:

I was freaking out a lot about doing it, but I was brave.  Then they started shaking like crazy in their little chrysallis'.  I started shaking like crazy in my kitchen thinking I'd killed Macie's present.  Maddie quickly let me know that they were supposed to do that if they were feeling threatened. 
Glad she read the instructions better than I did!
Exactly 7 days later, Jeramy was home sick from work and we were at my mom's.  He sent us a picture of our first butterfly!  So cool! 
All 5 of them came out on the same day, and we never got to watch one of them emerge.  That was a bummer.  We kept checking it every few minutes, but never saw it happen. 
We kept our little butterflies for a few days, and even got a surprise lesson on how butterflies mate! 
We had to let them go when we were leaving on vacation.  Macie was sad to see them go, but had fun seeing them fly away. 

She's pretty sure one of them followed us to Park City.