They hatched!

We received our ladybug larvae and food on April 3, and I put them in the "Ladybug Land" and started giving them two drops of water every other day. They grew in size quite a bit over the next two weeks (and molted many times as well). By last Friday almost all of them were in the pupa stage. Only a couple of them attached to the walls so I was really nervous about the ones that were on the bottom of the habitat, but today they hatched! When the butterflies hatched last year, we were blessed to actually be able to watch most of them coming out of their cocoons.

I was hoping to see some of the ladybugs come out this year because they emerge as soft, pale adults and then in about an hour their exoskeleton hardens and their spots appear. Unfortunately when we saw them this morning they already had their spots. We fed them two water soaked raisins today. I am planning on releasing them outside in a week because they can live up to one year outside whereas the longest they'd live in the habitat would be three weeks. This is the best way to teach science, in my opinion! I will take some pictures of them before we release them.

P.S. I am enjoying my new lens! My most favorite lens is the 50mm one, but sometimes I can't back up enough to use it (because I have a crop body camera and 50mm really is a lot farther for me). I was able to get these today without asking the kids to move. I just snapped (using my new 35mm) while they were playing on the iPad. Proof that I just snapped is the fact there is a Kleenex on the couch (which I wish wasn't in the photo but I am not going to take the time to Photoshop it out). This is real life, folks. Further proof would be the Mr. Potato head eyes on the floor under the couch in the first photo, and the fact that Ian for some unknown reason is holding an ice cream scoop from the play kitchen. :)