The Little Nemeceks

One of Nathan's extensive science experiments this spring has been to grow a set of painted lady caterpillars, watch them form chrysalises, emerge as butterflies, and release them into the wild.  We ordered the caterpillars in the mail, and they arrived in two jars, five caterpillars in each jar.  The caterpillars ate the food in the jar for about 10 days, and they quadrupled in size.  I kept thinking about "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, except these caterpillars didn't eat any sausage or cake :)  The caterpillars then hung upside down in a J shape for a few hours before molting and turning into chrysalises.  After all the chrysalises had formed, I pinned the paper to the inside of the butterfly habitat.  After another 10 days, the butterflies started to emerge (and drive our cats crazy!)  Today was the day after the last butterfly emerged, so that meant it was time to release the butterflies outside.  The kids were very excited to see the butterflies fly away (except when one landed on David's neck and freaked him out), and Nathan ran around the yard for a while afterward pretending to be a butterfly.  We got lots of pictures of every stage of the experiment to remember and talk about.

Caterpillars Day 3

Caterpillars Day 8

Beginning to form chrysalises

Close up - chrysalis

Nathan poses with the butterfly habitat

The first few butterflies

In the habitat

Butterfly after release, outdoors

The kids pose with the butterfly

Heggie's Rock is a nature preserve close to us.  It is closed to the public most of the year, and people are only allowed in for guided nature tours.   It is an exposed granite outcrop that is home to a bunch of rare lichens and mosses.  It was created by a magma bubble rising to the surface and cooling to rock.  We decided to reserve a spot on one of the spring nature walks since Nathan loves science so much, and he had a great time learning all about the plants and the rock formations.  He learned how the rock was formed, about other rocks embedded in the granite that were pulled out of the ground by the sticky magma, about the feldspar crystals that cooled first and are white rectangles in the granite, and about the cracks that were formed when the rock was almost cooled.  Nathan did a very good job not stepping in any of the pools where the plants grow, and has since explained all of his newfound info to Josh via email and drawn a picture of Heggie's Rock to remember. 

Golf Art

Nathan rolling his first golf ball

David gets in on the action

more painting

Nathan rolls multiple balls at once

The finished project

So, it's April in Augusta.  Masters Week.  So what do we study at the art museum?  Images of golf in art, of course.  This is not very exciting to me, but the kids got to dip golf balls in paint and roll them around on paper to make their paintings, which they thought was pretty neat.  Nathan struck up a conversation with his golf balls, and had four of them rolling around in his box at one time.  It was rather a crazy day for him, topped off by wiping his paint covered hand on his shirt multiple times.  Oops.

This week we visited Reed Creek Nature Park with the Mom's Meetup.  The kids got to use all their senses at five stations inside - they looked at bugs and butterflies with a magnifying glass, tasted things that were salty, bitter, sweet, and sour, listened to different noises, touched rocks and feathers in boxes, and  smelled cimmanon, rosemary, and honeysuckle.  Then we broke into groups and took a nature walk on the boardwalk.  Each group had a clipboard with pictures of things to look for on the walk, like water, a bird, a lizard, flowers, etc.  Nathan had a great time finding everything on the list, and David found some of the things too!  Nathan enjoyed the trip so much that we plan to go back for some of their other programs!

Tasting

Hearing

Looking

Touching

Smelling

On the nature walk

Aunt Becky and Uncle Greg came over for Easter, and Becky and I helped the boys dye some Easter Eggs as well.  We had several colors, stickers, a magic crayon (white crayon on the egg so the dye would not stick), and lots of fun.  This was the first year that David participated in the egg dying and he was very interested!

I set up an egg hunt in the backyard again for both boys, just lots of eggs spread randomly throughout the yard.  The boys had an absolute blast running around and picking up the eggs.  Won't be long till I'll actually have to hide them!  Oh, and yes, I forgot to put their shoes on, and when I noticed, they did not care.  So, egg hunt in socks!

While at Papa and Nana's, we visited the zoo in Frederick, the Catoctin Zoo and Nature Preserve.  The highlight of the trip was getting to feed so many of the animals.  At the beginning of the trip, Nathan claimed that he just wanted to watch, but he quickly changed his mind as we got into the zoo.  Thankfully there were a lot of dropped pieces of zoo food around the area that we were able to pick up and feed to the animals.  Both kids got in on the action!

Papa and David with the macaws

Investigating the black swans

Emu who?

The lion king

There is nothing to do in Augusta the second week of April, unless you happen to be so lucky (or rich) as to have Masters tickets.  Since we are neither lucky nor rich, we decided to get out of town to visit Papa and Nana.  This was a good break for the kids, who have been somewhat unsettled with Josh leaving for four months (writing on walls, potty training regression, etc.)  The boys had a wonderful time playing with their grandparents, and I had a nice break also.