The Butterfly!

Mara received many nice birthday presents from her birthday: a necklace, earrings, scriptures, a bike helmet....but the most exciting gift was her very own caterpillar!! Grandma Lewis gave Mara a monarch caterpillar! It was kind of like a family pet!

 Every day we watched it eat and eat and eat! Mara wanted to name it Hannah? Or maybe it was Skippy? But Ty wanted to name it Munchy!

It ate the entire plant that Grandma brought it on but it was still hungry! Nate found some new milkweed plants for it to eat but it didn't like that flavor! I was worried the entire time that it was going to die and my kids would cry! I felt responsible for the life of this little caterpillar! 

But one day we noticed that it formed its chrysalis and I was hopeful that maybe it would be okay! 

Again we waited and waited for something to happen! I thought for sure it was going to die inside its chrysalis! But then it became transparent and we could see the butterflies wings inside and I gained more hope that this little family member was now going to make it after all! 

 

Then one night after dinner Mara noticed that the butterfly had hatched from its chrysalis! We couldn't believe it! We were all so excited! Because it was dark and cold we decided to wait until morning to release it! 

 It's just so beautiful! I was so happy to see it alive! 

 

We waited in the morning for it to be warm and sunny. Then the boys and I took our new butterfly friend outside to see the world. 

 

I asked Caleb if he wanted to hold the butterfly and he said no! Carder didn't want to either so I held it on my finger and waited for him to fly away. I must admit that I almost shed a few tears as he flew away into the big world! I had raised this little thing from a caterpillar! Would it survive?! Would it make it in the world?! I just wouldn't know!
A few days later as we were driving down the street we saw a monarch butterfly fly past our car and everyone wondered maybe that's our butterfly!!