Butterfly Garden

Emma received a very fun, educational gift for her birthday from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Becky.  They sent her 5 live caterpillars that came in a little jar.  We watched them eat and grow exponentially for 9 days until they entered the pupal stage of growth and turned into chrysalids.  At this stage we had to move the cocoons from the cup that they arrived in and put them into the butterfly garden.  We waited patiently for 8 more days until suddenly 5 live butterflies emerged!

Emma and Anna both loved watching the changes.  Emma watched intently every day and literally called me over to the cup 10 times a day to see the "growing caterpillars!"  She was so excited to be able to see the final butterflies and even more excited that all 5 caterpillars made it alive all the way to the butterfly stage.  We took pictures along the way of the growth and changes.

Yay!  Our LIVE caterpillars have arrived in the mail!

Caterpillars Day 1

Caterpillars Day 3

Caterpillars Day 5

All caterpillars have turned into cocoons and are "hanging" from the top of the jar

We have a butterfly!!

 The girls were so excited to have 5 butterflies and we decided to take them outside to let them be free.  They first watched them very intently as they were flying around in the garden.

 We watched as the first three butterflies slowly flew out of the garden and disappeared.  The last two butterflies were very reluctant to leave and we had to help them along a bit.  I picked up the fourth one and let it fly away.  Emma decided she wanted to pick up the last one and let it fly away.  She got scared to touch it and gave the task to me once again:)

This might be the part of the story where your heart is going pitter patter.  What is sweeter than a four year old enthralled in the process of metamorphosis?  She intently watched the process every day for 17 days without losing interest and was BEYOND excited to finally see the butterflies emerge.  However, the story does not end here.

The very last butterfly that I had to fish out of the garden I decided to place on the leaf of a flower in my pot on the porch.  I thought it would be fun to have the girls look at it up close outside of the netting.  Emma immediately ran over to watch the butterfly and the butterfly immediately flew and landed on her leg.  Emma got all excited and nervous to have it on her and started jumping up and down.  The butterfly fell off her leg and landed on the ground.  In Emma's fury of jumping up and down, what happened?  SPLAT!!  She jumped right on top of the butterfly and smooshed it!

OMG!  I almost died laughing.  The irony was just too much to not find hilarious.  She could not wait for the butterflies and in her excitement she jumped on it and killed it.  She cried for 30 minutes straight.  She felt horrible.  I even made up a lie and said it might be OK if we put it in the bush in the shade and it had some time to heal.  This butterfly was not healing, but I had to try something to calm her down. 

It was really quite funny how this all ended.  It was a great learning experience to watch the whole process of metamorphosis and both girls loved it.  Thanks Uncle Ryan and Aunt Becky for the fun gift!

Tuberous Sclerosis Walkathon

Our family of four headed into Washington DC this past weekend for the first ever National Walkathon for Tuberous Sclerosis.  Last year I participated in the walk in Silver Springs, Maryland where the headquarters of the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance is located.  This was the first national walk and we were thrilled to be a part of it!  There were over 300 people from 16 different states who participated and over $120,000 was raised!  We raised $3,100 and were so excited to be able to have such an awesome amount to give to our special cause.  Our hope is for this money to be used towards research that may benefit Anna in the future.  A great big thank you to all of our friends and family who donated to support us.  We can't even begin to express how grateful we are for every single donation.  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!

The walk started at the Washington Monument and went around World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial.  We love going into DC and are always mesmerized by the beauty of all of the monuments/memorials.  It was a gorgeous backdrop for our walk!

Waiting for the walk to begin.

Awesome morning view of the Washington Monument

Tents set up for the walkathon

Emma was holding Anna's hand all the way up to see the Washington Monument.  Then she proceeded to have her arm around her the rest of the way.  Sisterly love makes mommy happy:)

Going on a Bear Hunt......

Last weekend we packed up our family to go hiking in Shenandoah National Park.  It is just over an hour drive to the entrance of the park.  Jay and I had been hiking there before and loved it so we decided to find some easy trails that we could take the stroller and girls on. 

Last fall when Jay and I went we saw a mommy bear with her three cubs as we were in our car driving to our lodge at dusk.  We were shocked to actually see a bear "in the wild" and I was secretly happy that we saw them from the comfort of our car.  Little did we know that we would see ANOTHER BEAR on our hike, and this time we were 1.5 miles back into the woods, without the safety of the car, and with our two kids!!  So, I realize that there has never been a bear attack in Shenandoah but I am a bit scared of them.  And when you come within 30 yards of one it becomes so much more real.  Jay saw it right away and we all stopped dead in our tracks.  We watched it for a couple minutes and took some pictures.  Emma saw it and kept whispering that "we have to be quiet because there is a bear."  The bear also saw us and kept staring, but it did not move.  We couldn't believe that it didn't run away from us.  I quickly decided that we had to turn around because it was sitting on the trail where we needed to go and I was not about to sit and wait to see if it would get mad at us.  Let's just say that Jay didn't exactly argue with me about turning around!!  I swear I checked behind us 1000 times on our 1.5 mile trek out of the woods to make sure that the bear wasn't coming after us.  Whew - it sure was cool to see a bear in the woods, but I am happy to be back in my home blogging about it and not facing it again!

Overall, we had a great day with gorgeous views of the mountains.  Jay and I both laughed at Emma because she said probably 10 times, "It sure is quiet in the woods!" 

Starting out on the hike

Daddy hitting a bit of an uphill climb

This friendly little guy was waiting for us around a corner about 1.5 miles back into the woods.  He wasn't willing to move for us either, so we had to turn around in our tracks!

Our beautiful picnic lunch view

What is this?  Both girls looking at me AND smiling?!?  I don't believe it!

Daddy hand in hand with both girls:)

Beautiful Shenandoah National Park

Another friendly animal we stumbled upon

At one point we had to ditch the stroller because of rocky terrain and Anna got a fun ride on Daddy's shoulders

Anna's silly face

We have had a super busy week with Anna's doctors appointments (4 in one week!!).  In a very short synopsis the neurologist finally got back from vacation and read her kidney ultrasound.  We were very concerned about it because she had developed a lot more cysts and AML's.  He didn't have a lot to say regarding the results except that she would have to be more closely monitored and that he was fairly confident that she does not have polycystic kidney disease.  Double YAY!!  That was really all we wanted to hear.  He did refer us to a nephrologist to get a more clear picture of what is going on with her kidneys.  We don't see him until August.

She also had a 24 hour EEG done.  She had to wear the equipment at home for a day.  She really didn't mind it at all and kept patting her head and saying "hat."  She also loves backpacks and had to carry the monitor around in a mini backpack all day, which made her very happy.  We will get these results within the next week or two.

Today we saw her developmental specialist.  She got another awesome report and the doctor said that she scored at "well over 2 years" in her receptive vocabulary (words she understands.)  They recommended to continue her speech therapy to work on her expressive speech, which continues to be her only area of delay.  Jay and I have noticed even in the past week her starting to want to imitate more words and becoming more vocal.  This makes mommy very happy!!

Have a good weekend!  We are headed to our local festival called "Celebrate Fairfax" to hit up some fun rides and fair food.  I am hoping to find some elephant ears.  Sunday will probably bring us to the pool for some fun in the sun:)

All smiles despite having to wear her silly "hat"