Our temporary pets

We have had some new pets in the Knott household in the last month or two. I got the idea for this from a friend's blog (thanks Jana!). For Christmas, my parents gave Addison a Butterfly growing kit. In the kit, you have coupons that you send in to the company when you are ready to start the process. We received about 10 caterpillars in jars in the mail with instructions on what to do and what to expect. Over the first week, the caterpillars started to turn into cocoons one by one and attach themselves to the lids at the top of the jar.

We had to leave them alone until we started seeing signs of them coming out of their cocoons.

And when we did, they had to be transferred to their new home which was a mesh container. The piece of material that was on the lid where they attached themselves had to be removed from the jar and pinned in their new home.

Then we waited for them to all emerge from their cocoons one by one.

We had to "feed and water" them like any pet. The instructions suggested watermelon or fresh flowers with sugar water on them... and they seemed to like it. Addison took this job very seriously and even reminded us on some days! Before long, they had all grown into beautiful butterflies (all but one or two - 8/10 is not bad!).

We enjoyed them for several days inside. They sat on the counter and many times we would hear a strange noise that would make us look around the house a bit scared. Come to find out, it was usually the butterflies fluttering around inside the net.

We told Addison that we had to let them go and she came very close to crying. We explained to her that we would probably see them again flying around in our yard and to remember that she helped them to grow from caterpillars into beautiful butterflies!

This was actually a fun family project and we all enjoyed the process! Kevin mentioned to Addison that if she showed us how she could take good care of these butterflies, that maybe someday she could have a pet fish. Oh good, just what I have always wanted! :)

Visit to the park

Another fun afternoon with our friends, The Simmons and The Rentfros. I have said it before, and I will probably say it again 100 more times - but we have such a great time any day we get to hang out. The 6 kids are all between 4 1/2 and 9 months so there is never a dull moment! Parker, the baby of the group, didn't come to the outing at the park that day...but I am sure we will have many more times to go! We are looking forward to our beach trip in June with these families!




Here are the 5 little ducklings making there way to the park!

The only girls out of the bunch - Rylee and Addison.

Cooper and Reid

Cole wasn't interested in pictures - he was very busy playing!

Miss Rylee

Cooperman

Addison working hard to pick up the mulch.

Few words, lots of pictures!

It was a day to celebrate this little friend of ours...Reid turned two!

Reid, Cole, Rylee, Cooper, and Addison relaxing in the bouncy house...


Time for dinner...

Who knew that this was going to be a bucket of fun and laughs for all of us!

Will, Rylee and Cooper waiting for their turns... Addison, Cole, and Matt wondering how this is going to work.
Aw, Matt just missed the water balloon...

Concentrate, Cole!

You have to open your eyes to catch it, Addison! You too Cole! :)
Rylee's turn to throw one!

Addison is trying to hide from the water balloon fight now!

Cooper wore this Astros batting helmet all afternoon - I guess it could serve as protection from the water balloon fight that was going on around him!

Even the dads had fun playing!

Tara, me, Ursula and Tiffany