Cutie the Caterpillar

After dinner today, Nate said he really wanted to spend some time outside. Naturally, all the kids wanted to come too, so we spent the evening in our backyard. Kaelyn wanted to build a new fairy house and Ian a dragon cave.

Annika just wanted to squat, look at stuff and swing. After the dragon's cave was built and the fairy house was started, complete with 'trees' (sticks with multiple side branches stuck in the ground), Ian found a green caterpillar. He loves caterpillars and let it crawl allover his hand and arm. Kaelyn, of course, immediately came up with a name for it: Cutie, because it was such a cute caterpillar. They put some green leaves on one of the 'trees' and put Cutie on it. It kind of reminded me of this Spongebob episode where Spongebob and Patrick play with one of Sandy's pets 'Wormy'. They have so much fun with him and then he turns into a butterfly. Anyway, it's pretty pathetic that I've seen that episode so many times. Kaelyn was convinced that Cutie was a girl and they kept taking turns, picking her up and putting her back on the sticks. She even got to spend a few minutes in the dragon cave and almost on the dragon's tail!

Annika was oblivious to it all, playing in the grass with a lava rock. I love to watch little kids squat and look at things on the ground. I wish I could do that, with my feet flat on the ground. Then she started throwing the rock and when she was done with that, walked over to the swing. She loves, loves, loves to swing. It can't go high enough for her and she'll hang back with her head and just giggle. Kaelyn will push her every once in a while and Annika loves that. After a while, I asked Annika if she wanted to see the caterpillar (the Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of her favorite stories). She was immediately fascinated by the little creature. When it was bedtime, they all said goodnight to Cutie and the dragon. It was tough to say goodbye, because who knows if we'll get to see Cutie again tomorrow...