A Day in the Park

Sunday was a beautiful day, and after a weekend of much needed rest, we were a ready to get outside and enjoy a beautiful day. Before our lovely walk, we stopped for a much needed photo op of Nathan wearing his first pair of shorts and first big boy t-shirt (no crotch snaps).

Bailey and Chad were loving all over Nathan and giving him millions of kisses and he enjoyed every single one of them!

my what a long tongue you have


My good lookin' family!


Then, after a quick photo shoot, we headed off to the greenway. We hadn't made it 50 steps down the walkway when I exclaimed in utter delight, "Look Chad, they're out!" ... and you'll never believe what "they" are... Malacosoma americanum



more commonly known as CATERPILLARS!!!!!

I was so excited! I have so many fond memories of playing with these caterpillars as a kid. Like the day that I decided to "save them from the lonely playground" and bring them home from school to my house. You betcha! My mom opened my backpack and found at least a hundred of these fuzzy things (yes, some of them were squished). I usually had one in my room during the spring time in a jar and I paitently waited and watched as it made a cocoon and turned into a butterfly, well a moth to be exact. I was so excited the day I discovered that these cute little fur balls were what created the giant things I thought were spider webs... these...


They aren't full of spiders, they are full of baby caterpillars. When they are ready to do what big caterpillars do, they make their way out of the nests, down the trees and eat leaves. Okay, enough about my love for caterpillars... well almost. As the mother of a boy, I am beginning to prepare myself for the day when Nathan wants a snake as a pet and I firmly say no, or the day when he's discovered a hill of ants and I get the heebegeebies (sp?). But, no preparation was needed for me to share my love of these furry little critters with Nathan.

Aren't they cute?

I know you've heard enough about my bug adventures as a child, but here's one more story for you. My dad went somewhere, the details have escaped my mind, but he brought back this golf ball sized brown thing and told me that it was a nest.

(It looked more like a really really small bee hive). In the nest, were praying mantis eggs. He told me that if I took really good care of the nest, the eggs would hatch and we'd have baby praying mantisesssss. They would look something like this:
So we got a jar, poked holes in the top... you know the drill. Well, about a week went by, and I went SCREAMING out of my room only to explain that not only had the baby praying mantises hatched out of the egg, but they were small enough to climb out of the holes in the jar. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. Oh well... at least our house was prayed over!