Magical Moments

We had the privilege of experiencing one of Heavenly Father's many wonders. There are several milkweed plants where monarch butterflies lay their eggs. Naturally, the eggs hatch into caterpillars and we got to witness the transformation 1st hand. You know the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"? Well, these were seriously hungry caterpillars! The book is ficticious on what they eat, but we were amazed how such a little creature could eat so much so fast! Daily it was visibly bigger. It was so fun to watch!

One of my favorite parts was watching the caterpillar go into its chrysalis. The process itself takes only about 3 minutes and right before the girls went to school, we happened to notice it starting and watched the whole thing. Unfortunately, I was too caught up in the wonder of it all and didn't think to get the camera to tape it until it was almost finished. So below is what I did get. It was amazing! And to think that in a week it would be completely different!

They both hatched on my birthday! Happy Birthday! We missed it in the hussle and bustle of getting the girls out the door. But it was still neat to watch them pump their wings to dry them.

The caterpillars were named Sophia and Lucia - (I'm pretty sure the butterflies had different names, I just don't remember what they were.) We took them to the girls' classes so they could share our science experiment. I was amazed how much the kids in Kenna's class already knew. Many of those things I had just learned on the internet that morning. (Thanks Wikipedia! Ha ha Stef!) After school we let them fly away - it was magical!

Kenna was really nervous to let the butterfly climb on her finger, but after much coaxing she did it. She was really glad that she decided to. We got way more pictures of the process with Kenna.

Whitney's, on the other hand, was ready to get out - she didn't even stick around for a good picture.