A frog, an inchworm, and a butterfly...

Nature is in full swing at the end of spring here. It's quite exciting. Daddy found a toad for all to see, Harry spotted not just an inchworm for his sister, but one of the most beautiful butterflies that I have ever seen. And of course as I always seem to manage to do, so extra pictures thrown in the pile as well...Nina's hand back left, Harry's hand front left, and of course, daddy holding the little scared guy. This was amazing. The toad kept jumping out of Andy's hands every chance he had (wouldn't you?!). But then Nina said that she wanted to hold and pet him. Andy set him in her hands and he didn't budge. He let her pet him as long as she wanted to. It was a sight to see, she was pretty happy too, as you can see.

He only stayed for a bit on Harry's hand. Longer than on Daddy, but no where as long as he stayed with our playing in the dirt girl.

An action shot. Kind of hard to see, but the toad is in mid jump.

This was cute. Nina let out this earth shattering scream on the slide and started to run, "Eeekkk, Spppppiddderrr!!". Of all the crawling things that she loves, spiders fall very short on that list. Well, Harry then says to her "Nina, come look, it's not a spider it's an inchworm!". She then laughs and ran back saying "Ohhh, Silly ME!". They ended up finding two and put them in her critter cozy cabin.

He was cute...as inchworms go.

Just a cute one.
This was Memorial day at dinner. We made shish kabobs, or as Nina insisted they were called "tissue bobs". And as we are talking about some of her re-naming things, hostas are not hostas, they are "pasta's".

Daily ritual.

This was absolutely an unbelievable experience. I was sitting taking pictures of them watering the center (unbelievable I know...), when Harry yelled out to me, "Mama, look behind you!!!". I turned around thinking I'd see a bee or something. There was this beautiful butterfly. We have this orange tree that we bought as a little seedling of a tree on our honeymoon. It winters in Mema's basement (thank you Mema) under the lights. Well, the butterfly couldn't get enough of it. It buzzed my head I can't tell you how many times and almost landed on Nina's head and Harry's hand (he was trying to do what we did at the butterfly gardens).

It was a Giant Swallowtail. It's an uncommon butterfly, with a wingspan of six inches and is one of the largest butterflies in North America. (per my trusty butterfly field guide book). I have never seen one, it was magnificent. It hung around for a good half an hour-hour.

Happy Birthday Mieszko! He turned 8 this week.