Caterpillars and Butterflies

Why do caterpillars and butterflies make me feel all melancholy inside?? Maybe it is because it makes me realize that it will not be long until my cute little fuzzy caterpillars will blossom into beautiful butterflies and fly away. It is what I want for them, but it makes my heart a little sad to think about it. Thankfully, they won't be ready to fly for quite some time, so I get to enjoy them a good bit more before I have to release them to this big beautiful world!

Joshua has to memorize poetry for his grammar class on Fridays. A few weeks ago the poem that the class memorized was about caterpillars spinning and dying to live again as butterflies. His grammar teacher brought each student in Joshua's class a mason jar with vented lid holding 3 caterpillars! She also brought each student a bag full of the specific leaves our caterpillars would need to eat over the next week or so.

We fed them. We watched them get really, really fat. We watched them as they lay dormant in their cocoons. And, then we watched each emerge as a beautiful butterfly. We checked a butterfly identification book out at our library, and the boys had fun paging through it to correctly identify our butterflies. Then, we set them free!

Here is a picture of our first butterfly. . .

So, pretty!
The butterflies kind of wigged JCT out. This is about as close as he would get to them...

But, Joshua loved them...

This is our second butterfly. . .

Joshua set it free, and it flew right to Elijah! It startled him at first, but then he enjoyed it!!

I got one more quick picture of this butterfly before it flew over the house never to be seen again!!

Erik set the last butterfly free with the boys, and it took off so fast that I didn't even get a picture!!

This was such a fun thing to do! It wasn't our first time to do it, but, I can honestly say, it never gets old! The whole process is amazing! And, almost everytime, I feel quite certain we've done something wrong, and the caterpillar has died in his cocoon. But, amazingly, life comes from what appears to be death, and God's beautiful, creative heart is displayed for all to see! I love it!