We Have Butterflies!

Two of the butterflies (Laura and Casey) emerged yesterday, and 2 more (Esther and Peter) today.  The kids decided to name the 5 butterflies after the members of our family, and they were named as they emerged in order of our ages.  One caterpillar waited an extra day after the other four to form its chrysalis, so that's probably the one that hasn't emerged yet.  Maybe Miriam will join the others sometime tomorrow.

It's been so amazing to watch them emerge and start to fly, and also to see the proboscises in action as they've started to eat/drink.  Those little curly straws they have are so cool!  We put sugar water on a flower and on some wadded up tissues in the habitat for them to drink. 

It's hard to get good pictures through the mesh, but I did get a few by opening the top a bit and sticking my camera lens inside:

The chrysalis in front of the butterfly
is close to emerging...

you can see the wing pattern

One that just emerged, and empty chrysalises next to it

In other news, we had a male duck and a female duck in our front bushes this morning.  When I went to get the mail, I noticed an egg under one of the bushes.  We're hoping maybe we'll get to see a baby duckling hatch!