Caterpillar Fun

My kids have been playing outside a lot lately and I love it!  Not only do I get a break I feel like a good parent knowing how good it is for them to be outside. but they are out there getting fresh air, using their imaginations, learning how to get along with each other, and just playing.  It seems like always before I had to force them to play outside.  That didn't stop me though, I did force them to play outside when it was nice out for at least 15 minutes a day.  But for the past couple weeks they have been going out on their own.  Going out and staying out for sometimes over an hour.

Even Leon likes it.  He might like it a little bit too much.  Anytime the door gets opened he rushes over promptly gets on  his hands and knees and starts backing down the step.  The whole process takes about five seconds.

I love that we have a fully fenced back yard and big windows in our house so I can easily check on them.  Today when I checked on them Penelope had this Wendy's cup she was caring it around.  When I asked her she told me there was a snail inside it.  We get snails a lot and so I was a little surprised when I looked in and saw a caterpillar.

She told me it was a little bit dead because there was blood.  It was moving around and looked fine to me.  I'm not really sure what she was talking about.  Then she said in all seriousness, "Maybe an animal came and was sucking its blood, or maybe we knocked it over when we tried to put it in the cup."  I'm going to say the second one, if anything.

She even put leaves and grass in the cup for him to eat.  She did call him a snail at first but she knew it was a caterpillar because she went on to tell me that he was going to turn into a butterfly.  I let her play with the cup for a while but told her to let him go before nap time.  She protested but Leon started singing, "Let it go."  And so we joined in changing the Frozen song to "Let him go."

Scarlett saw I was taking pictures and waned one of her bandaid.  I'm not sure why she is wearing that big coat because it is almost 70 degrees outside.