Father's Day

Yes, I'm a bit behind on blog posts, but what's new :)

I think Dany had a relaxing, enjoyable Father's Day last Sunday.

The major event of the day happened during supper when Matteo lost his first tooth!

It was rather funny. He was eating when he stood up suddenly, took some food from his mouth, and set it down on the table in disgust, saying, "What is that!?" That unchewable bit of "food" was a little baby tooth. After he got over the shock, he excited made an envelope for the tooth to put under his pillow that night. He didn't sleep well that night because he was so excited about the Tooth Fairy coming :)

Here are some pictures of his new look. These are typical facial expressions from him these days when we try to get him to smile for the camera :)

If you're done laughing at those pictures, I'll move onto the end of supper. While we were cleaning up, we made the mistake of leaving Elena's plate on the table so she could finish up her dessert. Dany's favorite dessert these days is chocolate fondue and fruit. Well, I guess Elena was full but didn't want to waste her chocolate...

Regina Caeli

During the Easter Season, we sing the Regina Caeli before lunch. Chiara has really enjoyed singing this over the past 50 days, so on this last day of the Easter Season, I have a video of her singing.

Tomorrow, we return to the Angelus!

Caterpillar to Butterfly

The kids have been studying insects this Spring. As part of their study, we raised some caterpillars and watched them change into butterflies. The kids enjoyed this so much!

We got 3 little caterpillars in this cup. They were around an inch long when they arrived.




In a week, they more than doubled in size. See this one at the top of the cup, just under the lid.

They crawled up to the top of the cup and hung from the lid in a "J" shaped. In a couple of hours, they had formed crysalis around themselves. We never saw this in steps. We saw them one minute as hanging caterpillars, and then the next time we checked, they were hidden away in their crysalis! In this picture you can see one in the front which is already a crysalis and one toward the back that had not yet formed.

A couple of days after they had formed into their crysalis, we moved them to their tent to emerge. The lid of the cup was lined with paper, making the transfer easy.

One week later, they emerged within hours of each other! We were hoping to see at least one of them as it came out of the crysalis, but they were sneaky :) We checked on them frequently throughout the day, but we never caught one of them emerging. They would be quietly tucked inside the crysalis one minute, and then we would find a new butterfly completely out the next time we looked!

Here is one getting ready to eat. We put drops of sugar water on some flowers from outside. It was neat to watch them use their long probiscus to eat.

Of course, we finally had to let them go. Cati suggested that we release them on Ascension Thursday, about 4 days after they emerged. Maria wanted to let them out in our flower garden, hoping they might like the area and want to stick around.

We had to wait a few minutes for them to become brave enough to venture outside their little tent, but as soon as they found the door, they were off!

One decided to stick around on our bushes for a few minutes before flying away.