Some recent sketches:

And this is a longish video of us releasing our butterflies on the weekend. I could have edited it down but I rather like hearing us chattering away.

Free!!

Looking for where all the butterflies went.

The other day I said we had butterflies. And, yes, we did. And whenever I think about them I start feeling itchy, imagining tiny little bug feet on me and it makes me scratch. So gross. Did you know that when they’re coming out there’s red blood like liquid? The paper that comes with them said it’s meconium. I remember reading it. But when I saw a little stain on the habitat I thought maybe Isabelle had spilled something on it. It wasn’t until later that I remembered it was meconium. EEEEEWWW!!

Ok, maybe it’s just me that gets grossed out. But just in case it’s not, here are some recent pages from my sketchbook to look at before you run into gross butterfly legs and butterfly eyes and arrgh I’m all itchy.

Ok. That’s it. No more sketch pages. Here comes the gross. It’s coming. Right now!! This picture is from the first day one of the butterflies came out of the chrysalis, back on the 18th. So, from when we got the caterpillars, less than a month to get butterflies.

Anyhoo as I was saying, we woke up and there was a butterfly flapping around. We missed it emerging. We thought, oh we’ll catch one of the other four but you know, we never did catch them coming out. We’d just wake up in the morning to new butterflies. And I snapped this picture from a distance. I didn’t want to get close to the gross flopping bug. It was the only time I opened the habitat to stick my camera in. I thought I’d do it again at some future date but by then there were more flopping bugs flapping about and there was NO WAY I was sticking my hand in there.

I skyped my sister and showed her this picture and she couldn’t even see the butterfly. She thought it was just part of the habitat. Ha ha ha!

It’s funny. The first time we saw the butterfly it had it’s wings closed. And we were like, “hey why isn’t it orange?”

But, duh! We obviously don’t know much about butterflies. Because when it opened it’s wings, orange!

I kept trying to take a good photo of the grossness. I finally managed one even though it was through plastic:

Buggy eyes. Furry body. I have a disgusted look on my face as I type this. And I’m scratching like a dog with fleas. Ok enough. I need to NOT think about butterflies before I scratch myself raw.

Go ahead. Click on the above picture to see it in all it’s grossness enlarged.

Ok that isn’t the gross thing. I’m just preparing you for the butterflies ahead. They’re coming up after the next two pictures. You are forewarned.

Yes an older photo that was taken when the kids were sick. She’s no longer sick.

And neither is he.

Eeeeeew! Chrysalides. “So gross.” Those are the actual words Alan muttered as he transferred them into their habitat.

Ok. Sorry. No butterfly pictures today after all. Because, yes, we do have butterflies. And I did take pictures of them. But I also have a fussing Nathan so maybe I’ll gross you out some more tomorrow.

I meant to write about our caterpillars on Tuesday. But Nathan’s isn’t feeling well. He has a runny nose and I’ve just been distracted. You know, life. So, that’s why I just shared a single picture. But today I’ll continue where I left off before I got distracted by the kids.

We received the box two weeks ago. It said “open immediately” but I was too grossed out to open them immediately. I know. Ridiculous. It’s not like the caterpillars were crawling around loose inside the box. So, the next day I opened them. And they were tiny. See, here’s Isabelle.

And see how tiny the caterpillars are?

Well, three days later, they weren’t so tiny anymore.

And now it’s been two weeks since we received our box and the caterpillars are all in the becoming chrysalises stage.

Oooohh cool and so creepy. This has actually been a really awesome “toy”. And it was easy. We didn’t have to do anything except leave them alone. When we get butterflies I think we’ll release them as long as the weather is warm enough.

Ok. Enough talk about creepy crawly bugs. The bug talk has got me all itchy now.