Butterflies Baby

In early June we visited the Butterfly Exhibit at Brookside Gardens with some friends from our Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group.

While the exhibit is indoors, it feels very much like the outdoors with all of the beautiful, blooming plant life.

Xandra and Theia found lots of butterflies to examine, up close. This was the first one we saw upon entering the exhibit.

Theia and friend Kaylee examine another butterfly.

Back row: Andrew & Ava, Xandra, Jillian & Faith

Front Row: Theia and Emmie

Xandra and Theia are both in butterfly attire. Xandra's are on her shirt and Theia's are on her skirt. Aliyah had no butterflies (maybe that's why she's grumpy), but she did have flowers.

Aliyah was grumpy about being carried around and I was less than excited about carrying her around, so, as is the norm these days, we set her on the brick path and let her crawl around in the dirt. Our friend Faith happened by and spontaneously gave Aliyah a hug.

The girls got to touch and hold some butterflies that were dead. The butterflies were surprisingly soft and the girls were surprisingly careful.

One neat thing about the butterfly gardens is that the butterflies will sometimes land on people. Our friend, Lauren, had two butterflies on her at once.

Theia was also fortunate enough to have a butterfly land on her. At first it scared her, but as soon as the butterfly flew away, she wanted it to come back. Xandra was devastated, as she was the one who most wanted a butterfly to land on her, and, of course, one did not. As you might imagine, a fair amount of whining was heard regarding this disappointment. I took the opportunity to talk about having a grateful heart for getting to visit the butterflies at all. I'm pretty sure it fell on deaf ears as the first thing she reported to daddy when he arrived home for the evening was that, "No butterflies landed on me, but I really wanted them to." All in her best whining voice, no doubt.

Contrary to the picture, the whining, and the grumpiness, it WAS a fun morning together and the girls did enjoy themselves a bunch. I enjoyed exploring with them, too.