Butterfly Exhibit

Today we surprised the kids with a trip down to the Oakland Mall in Troy. But we didn't travel to the mall to do any shopping this time. We went to go see their annual butterfly exhibit. Last year I took the kids and they loved it! This year, Andy was able to go along since I found out about the exhibit right away and he had today off from work. Thankfully, the crowd of kids was much smaller than it was last year and we were able to thoroughly enjoy the afternoon.

First, we got our free tickets and were told it would only be 30 minutes until the next tour. So we took the kids back out to the mall courtyard where there was an indoor play area with alligators, hippos, turtles, snakes, and mushrooms to jump and climb on. This captured their attention until it was our turn to go through the butterfly greenhouse.

Inside it was over 80 degrees (because that's how butterflies like it), filled with several different kinds of plants, dishes of Gatorade and fruit for the butterflies to feed on. Netting was draped overhead for them to land on as well.


I showed the kids what I remembered from last time how to pick up a butterfly, and Aiden immediately wanted to try.

Last year he was a little too excited and didn't get the concept of holding his finger still while letting the poor thing try to climb onto it, but this year he mastered it and wanted to hold one several different times. He was amazingly gentle, and was really intrigued by it sitting on his finger.

Here's proof that Andy was with us....here is a picture of his arm! :)

Mikaela, on the other hand, seemed to forget the enthusiasm she had last time and took a bit of coaxing to get her to try to hold one. We knew that she would regret not having done it if we left without her doing so, so after some persuading, this butterfly made it upon her finger. Beforehand, I told her that it would feel exactly like a "butterfly kiss" only it would be on her finger instead of her cheek. :)

After the first one, she gladly tried another and her response was much better! :)

Afterwards, we headed over to the craft area and made some butterflies like last time with moving wings made out of paper, straws, string, and tape.

Here is Aiden's:

And here is Mikaela's:

She also liked to make hers fly:

They added another play area this year that included a large checkers board, building blocks, and a really big Connect 4 game. Aiden particularly enjoyed the checkers. He liked to stack them higher and higher. He eventually got the pile higher than he was tall, and after exhausting the supply of black checkers decided that it was time to knock the pile down. And since it was noisy, it was especially great in his mind! :)

After that we headed home with homemade butterflies and extremely tired children in hand. It was a great afternoon spent together as a family. I'm hoping that we can make it an annual event!

Butterflies at Oakland Mall

Today I took the kids to the Oakland Mall to visit their free butterfly exhibit. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me, but I don't know how I would have taken pictures anyway because I was holding Aiden most of the time while we were in the actual exhibit. When we arrived and got our free tickets, we were told that the next 'tour' would not be until over an hour from then, but I decided it would be worth it, and I drove 20 minutes to see this, and had been wanting to go for over a week!

They said that we could do a craft and/or go play in the play area just outside until it was our time to go. So we headed over to the craft area which was bustling with kids (several school tours were there, which I did not know was going to be the case) and both Aiden and Mikaela got to color a picture of a butterfly. Then I cut them out for them and punched a hole in it's middle. With a few pieces of tape, a section of a cut drinking straw, and a string, the butterflies were rigged up to flap their wings. The one above is Aiden's and the one below is Mikaela's. Really fun, cute, and easy to do.



Then after that we headed to the play area. It consisted of a big long alligator shaped climber/slide and a curled up snake tunnel, a few frog sculptures, turtle sculptures, a humongous pink hippo, among other things to climb on and run around. The kids played on those for at least an hour and would have continued to do so if it hadn't been our time to go in the butterfly 'greenhouse.'

We were given some base rules before entering like - "Watch out that you don't step on any of them." "Don't swat at them if they land on you and you don't like it." "Don't pick them up by their wings." Etc. Etc. We were allowed to hold them after being properly instructed on how to pick them up the correct way.

Mikaela held at least three or four different ones. She would hold one for a while and then she would ask for me to help her put it down only to immediately ask again to hold another. She was really good - I thought maybe she would freak out and there would be an 'incident.' But 'twas not the case :)

Aiden so desperately wanted to hold one too, but he was just not as gentle and usually ended up scaring the poor things. But he did enjoy their fluttering all around him after he spooked them. One ended up landing on his shoe and he just didn't know what to do about that. He was a little frightened I think, but then later on he thought it was funny.

It was really warm in the little room. They had fruit and Gatorade feeding areas set up for the butterflies, and we were told that since that is not what their natural food looks like, they have a hard time finding it, unless they happen to land on it. So therefore, the ones eating were not fair game to pick up. After we were done, we were told to make sure no "hitch-hikers" had joined us, and we exited through the screen door to the outside busy world again.

The kids enjoyed one mini-merry-go-round ride and then it was off to the car. Aiden fell asleep in the car on the way home, but Mikaela chatted about our adventure the whole way back. The little guy was so pooped out he didn't even wake up when I pulled him out of the car. I knew pushing a nap for Mikaela would be pointless today since she was too excited so she got a snack and then got to do one of her favorite things - playing with Mommy's dollhouse (which will soon be hers....stayed tuned later in May for more on that!)

I hope they do this again next year - I would take them again!