Bugs!

Back in July, over Independence weekend, I found a caterpillar on the side of our house. At first I was excited and wanted to show the girls, let them hold it and then put it in a jar to hopefully get a butterfly out of the whole thing. But this was no ordinary caterpillar, people! Holy moly was it mean! I managed to get it off of the house with a stick and over onto a chair; my mom and dad took turns holding it down with a stick and keeping the girls back just enough so they wouldn't get pinched (yes, pinched!) but close enough they could still see it while I got a jar. I wish I had taken pictures, oh well. The ugly lil fella was about 2 inches long, grey, and had pinchers on one end. And he knew how to use them! Luckily we were all chickens (or smart, depends on how you look at it) and we would only touch him with a stick. He was a violent sucker, too! He would flip and twist with a surprising strength for a caterpillar. Well, in the jar he went, and he had himself wrapped in a cocoon within a day. And there he sat on my window sill for the next month. I tried to look the critter up online and what little I found suggested it only took 2 weeks for the things to turn into moths. OH GREAT, a moth?! I came close to just throwing it away several times; I thought it had just died in the jar. So, yesterday I happened to glance at "the jar" and I noticed a change inside- a big, ugly, grey MOTH! UGGH! The girls were excited, at first. Eli would have much rather discovered a butterfly and decided quickly she doesn't like moths. Livi was indifferent. Here's some pics-Eli didn't even want to hold the jar so lucky Livi got to, followed by a pic of the ugly beast that was promptly released after the picture-

On a more pleasant note, we also had a fun few days with a ladybug in our possession. I found this little "Ladybug Playground" in Texas but it got packed in a random box, so it just barely surfaced a while back. The girls have been diligently hunting for ladybugs whenever they play outside but hadn't had any luck. Then, one day last week, both girls came bursting in the house screaming and yelling so I ran to see what was wrong, only to find out all the commotion was over a ladybug! They had finally found one! So here's some pics of that, too.