As most of you know its been quite a time for me which is why I took a short leave from my art and my blog. I wanted to thank all my wonderful friends for your kindness and support during my moms ordeal and all the other issues that arose during the past few months.
My mother had an aneurysm in her heart two days before Christmas so its been hard trying to focus on much else. I think of many of you as good friends and extended family and am happy that I have you all. Sometimes you have to stop and take a break because all the stress gets to you at once. Thats what I did, took time off to reflect on the important things in life. I did a little sould searching. I am going to share my journy with you these next few posts.
I would also especially like to thank Cat, Sherry, Chris, Denise, Margie, Kim and all the gals from the YOTP group for being there for me. I don't know what I would do without you ladies. I also would like to say thank you to Robert who has been a rock for me.
Something else to be happy for...
My princess is 5!!!!
Sissy turned 5 and had a wonderful party this weekend at haunted trails. What is haunted trails? lol a halloween themed amusement park of course, where else would this crazy halloween loving family go?
I know you guys are thinking **gasp** Heather never posts pictures of her kids on the internet, and I typically don't I am just a little anal that way lol. I wanted to share with you guys though as you all mean so much to me. Isn't she beautiful? and when she is about 13 and the hormones kick in I will look back fondly on these days of sweetness. I will post some more pics of whats been going on around here lately including my new scrapbook room!
love you all,
hugs,
Heather
Look what crash landed on my deck two weeks ago. I had no idea what it was or what it was going to be. My son who is turning 10 on saturday decided we should save it. I spent some time researching catapillars on the internet so I knew what it was and how to care for it. Thank goodness she didn't die from the fall out of our tree. I also didn't know if she was ready to go into her cacoon or if she would need to eat. I had no idea what they ate, and that each species also eats something distinctive and different from the rest. I found out what we had was a tiger swallowtail butterfly. Those crazy looking eyes on top her head aren't really eyes, they are to scare off preditors because they look snake like lol. I have never seen a 2" snake let alone a scary one but it must work.
My son decided to get a piece of bark from a fallen tree and set her on that. That was all it took to answer my first question. She began to attatch herself to the bark. It also started to turn brown after two days. Then the weird stuff started to happen. Her outer body not having a leaf to wrap around it to make the cacoon started to mimic the color and texture of the bark. She started to look like a piece of bark herself lol. In my mind I am thinking "I really hope its not just shriveling up and dieing" because thats what it looked like. We decided to hope above all else and wait out the 14 days it normally takes to hatch. My son found a nice little plastic dish where he placed some rocks, grass, leaves and the piece of bark with the creature conected to it.
Tonight just after dinner 14 days later she hatched! I can't believe something so big came out of a shell so small. she is beautiful and took flight around my kitchen for a while before decideing to sit on the ceiling fan. As far as I can tell we have a girl, she has the blue markings in with the yellow and black at the bottom of her wings. Careful not to touch her with our hands we coaxed her onto a paper plate and into a plastic container so we could set her free.
I watched all 4 of my kids take her outside with my oldest setting her free into the back yard. This is the kind of stuff moms live for. It also reminded me with a little patience we can take the time to save another living creature that might not have lived without our help. My son said it was the best birthday gift he could have gotten. I told him she probably was thinking the same thing.
