Growing Butterflies

I found a great deal for this butterfly garden online a few months back and thought it would be perfect for Carson, Owen and I to do over the summer. Once we recieved the habitat (basically a large net), we sent in for our caterpillar larvae and special food.  The caterpillards hatch from the eggs after a week or two, and then we got to watch them grow bigger and bigger until they formed their cocoons. We then hung the cocoons inside our habitat, and one morning another week or two later, we had our first butterfly! It was so exciting to watch the transformation. Carson was really interested in our 5 little "pets", and even Owen enjoyed looking at the caterpillars and butterflys, although I'm pretty sure he just wanted to grab them and squeeze them in his hands! After a week watching them fly around in the habitat, we thought it was time to send them on their way. Hopefully they survive this dry heat! Now everytime we see a butterfly outside our house, Carson thinks it's one of the ones we watched grow. Here are a few pictures of our butterflies.

 

 

The cocoons, with our first butterfly (sorry the picture quality is so poor, I think the netting was messing with my camera and I couldn't figure out the settings)