A Butterfly Dream

My good friend Kjirsten Howe gave me a Monarch chrysalis to take home and watch turn into a butterfly! It was SUPER cool & I loved every minute of it. I will DEFINITELY watch this miracle again in the future. Such a cool thing to do with kids. This butterfly TOTALLY made my day/week!

After awhile, the caterpillars attach themselves head down to a convenient twig (or in this case, the lid of a jar), they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed in a matter of hours.  I love how the chrysalis has gold specks and a black/gold ring around the top.  Apparently this is how the Monarch get's it name as that ring resembles a gold crown.

The pupa resembles a waxy, jade vase and becomes increasingly transparent as the process progresses. The caterpillar completes the miraculous transformation into a beautiful adult butterfly in about two weeks.

Once it broke out of the chrysalis, I took the lid off the jar.

I let it crawl onto my hand.

I love how the light is captured in its wings.

I love this shot.  The wings have dried out and you can
really see the awesome texture of them.

It practiced moving its wings, and then eventually took
off in flight.  It was hard for me to get a good picture
of it flying because I wasn't really ready for it to fly
away.  I really had high hopes that it would love my yard
so much that it would just stay.  I loved my beautiful butterfly!

And, lastly!  Here's a picture of my other sweet little butterfly that I get to play with EVERY day!  She better not fly off to Mexico (like the Monarch Butterflies do) without me!