Watching a Transformation

For Christmas, Brooklyn received a Butterfly Treehouse. You send in for caterpillars then watch their metamorphosis into butterflies. We decided to wait until it was a little warmer to put this gift to good use.

About a month ago, we finally received our caterpillars in the mail.Day 1

We had five caterpillars in this little plastic container. The brown junk in the bottom is their food. In six days, they had grown HUGE and started making their way to the lid to hang upside down and form their chrysalises.

Day 6 ~ Three of five have formed a chrysalisDay 8 ~ All caterpillars are now chrysalidesMoved them into their "treehouse"

At this point, we are three days from our California vacation. Obviously if we left them home, we'd miss the butterflies hatching!! So we took these little boogers with us! Amazingly, they survived the ride.

When we returned home from dinner on Sunday, we had our first butterfly!!

Day 13 ~ Butterfly #1 emerges

This pattern continued daily until we had 5 brand new butterflies! Every night we'd come home from Disneyland, there would be another one out of it's chrysalis. I wish we could have actually seen one hatching, but I'm just glad that they made it through the traumatic journey with us to California!!

Day 17 ~ The last butterfly is out, but has a curled wing :/One feeding on an orange sliceWings spread!Once we got home, we decided to release the butterflies that weekend.

Day 19 ~ Saying goodbye to the butterflies!

One poor butterfly took flight and out of nowhere came a dive-bombing bird!!! We all shrieked as we watched the bird try to snatch the butterfly out of the air, but the butterfly narrowly escaped, thank goodness!!!

Remember I mentioned we had one with a gimp wing? We named him (her?) Nemo. Seemed fitting since Nemo the fish had a mangled fin.

Turns out Nemo wasn't ready to go, so we kept it for a few more days then tried again *(see footnote)

It was such a neat experience for the kids to witness the process it takes for a butterfly to be born. And I loved that they were already familiar with the thanks to the Little Einsteins, A Brand New Outfit episode!! We'll definitely do this in the near future again. :)

*Nemo didn't make it. :( I found it's body all dried up on our lawn a few days later.

California Vacay Addendum

[HoTeL maddness]

We stayed at the Ayers Inn. It's so hard to know what you're actually getting when you book online. We were pleasantly surprised! It was pretty nice!!! They offered a full, hot continental breakfast, which sold Matt on it right away! The only downer was that the hotel is caddy corner from a hospital, so we heard plenty of sirens screaming in the middle of the night. ;) Our room was kinda small, just with two queen size beds. How did we all fit? Well, Blake and Gavin shared one bed, Brooklyn was on a twin air mattress on the floor between the beds, Matt & I had the second queen, then Preston was in a Pack n Play on the other side of us!!!On the last night, while Matt was making an In-N-Out Burger run, I let the little rascals jump on the bed for two minutes. ;)They were in heaven! But we were sure ready to get out of there after staying for 6 nights!!!

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EVERY time we drive through Palm Springs, I'm amazed by these windmill thingies that generate electricity! I call them whirlybirds. I have always been curious about how long those propellers actually are, wanted to see a human being strapped to one of them as it spins. LOL!Well imagine my surprise when we were leaving the gas station just past the California/Arizona border on our way home and I see THIS bad boy laying on a trailer bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told Matt that was what I thought it was and he didn't believe me, so he went into the gas station and asked. Sure enough - I was RIGHT!!! The thing is MONSTROUS!!!!!

California Vacay Part II ~ The Happiest Place on Earth!

****WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD****

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent at Disneyland and California Adventures. Let me tell you, my feet were ACHING by the end of day one!!! I don't think I heard the kids complain one bit about that!
I had THE most fun, though, experiencing everything there is to do at Disneyland. I get so giddy about it all, just like a little kid! We skipped in the walkways, sung loudly and screamed a LOT on the rides. Ate lots of churros and had dinner at the Blue Bayou one night, the restaurant that you see while riding Pirates of the Carribean. I used to think that whole thing was fake too, when I was a kid!

I loved being able to take Brooklyn, Blake and Gavin on almost every single ride this time. Brooklyn and Blake were brave enough to do Indiana Jones and Tower of Terror with me, bless their sweet little hearts! Super duper grateful that Disneyland caters to families with little kids in every way. We used the "Switch Pass" who knows how many times, which allowed everyone to ride the rides that Preston couldn't without having to wait in long lines each time.Since we had been season pass holders for a couple years while Matt was in school, we do Disneyland differently than typical tourists. We don't have a strict schedule to adhere to or a guidebook outlining what rides to go on first-second-third. We took our time, did everything nonchalantly and enjoyed ourselves completely without rushing around. We had no problem taking the kids out of school for the week so we could go during an off-peak time and it paid off. Matt did some running around acquiring FastPasses, but I don't think we waited more than 40 minutes for anything! Most of the wait times were between 5-15 minutes. I still miss living so close and going so frequently! Hopefully we can visit often. :)

Favorite rides:

Brooklyn -- California Screamin'
Blake -- Star Tours

Gavin -- Toy Story Mania

Preston -- Small World

Least favorite rides:

Brooklyn -- carousel (after she begged to go on this since everyone else had already had a chance????? tsk tsk)
Blake --Tower of Terror (he tried to be brave.....)
Gavin -- Space Mountain (wanted to do this one the most, once he got off he proclaimed he would NEVER to that again!)
Preston -- the hotel elevator, haha! (poor kid whimpered every time we got in the thing!)

We rode most every ride, some of them LOTS of times!!!

I think Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters will always and forever be the first ride we go on!!Check out Matt's score!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He even ranked!

He's highly competitive. No one messes with him! LOL!First nap (of many!) in the parkGavin sees what he can "sea" out the porthole on the Finding Nemo submarine voyageDaddy, Blake and Gav go for a spin on Autopia -- Brooklyn is driving like a proPreston oohed, aahed, pointed and clapped on Small World.

I wonder if songs get stuck in babies' heads? Churros~ yummo!

Matt's the real churro-monster. Too bad he kept sneaking them
when I would take the kids on rides while he sat out with Prest!!Haunted Mansion with a little sun flare ;)Getting our zippity-doo-dah on ~ Splash MountainOur family in the traditional castle pose :)Presty-boy's very 1st pair of Mickey Mouse earsMore evidence that random people can't be trusted to take a GOOD picture. I had to crop a stray child out of this picture that was already off-centered. Is it too much to ask, really??

Rant over. For now. Rest assured there will be more incompetence in the years to come.Cute kids!!! Picture taken by ME!Everyone had to have their try at pulling the sword outta the stone! Better luck next time....Mommy doesn't *do* Dumbo......or the teacups

Now over to California Adventures :)

This was our first time riding Toy Story Mania. We loved it!!! We have the Wii game, which made it more familiar

We always have to get the Mickey Mouse suckers!!Once Preston got ahold of mine, it was all over.
He was a sticky mess by the time I pried the stick out of his death grip!Brooklyn and Mommy ready to embark on California Screamin', the BIG roller coaster that goes upside down. Little did we know that Brooklyn would be our thrill-seeker child!!! She screamed the entire time and did her best to keep her arms high in the air, despite the G-force. Love her!

She rode this thing a total of THREE times and begged for more!! Here she is with Daddy ==>They survived the Tower of Terror!!!Barely. Haha!! Blake pretty much clung onto me for dear life!!So cheesy, I know! ;)Gavin bites the dust at the end of day 2!Back to Disneyland for a few more rides (the kids took me on Star Tours) and souvenir shopping!

The boys couldn't leave without building their very OWN double-sided ultimate light saber!!!
You woulda thought it was rocket science with the amount of time it took to put them together!
Love you honey! ;)Brooklyn was very happy to finally BUY a souvenir of her very own!!
She also got a princess diary with a real lock & key! ;)

It was hard to say goodbye!
Thanks for letting US celebrate, Mickey!!We finished out our trip at California Adventures ☼

Gettin' buggy with it!!
Got our hot off the press tortillas from the Mission Tortilla Factory!Waiting for the Pixar Play Parade with ice cream comes and the sun in our eyes Hey, how'd she get my outfit???? My alter-ego ;)Dory "swam" on over to see PrestThis dude was a trooper the whole time! Look at that smile! At the end of day 3 no less!The boys chose Star Wars guys for their other souvenir, of course! Preston loves his little Mickey!

We saw lots and lots of characters!!!

We had an AWESOME time!!!! I can't wait to go back in a couple years!