Wednesday, February 11, 2009

All about Bugs

I just ordered Kimberly's birthday present online. She is going to be SO excited. Other little girls her age may not be so excited to receive what she is getting, but Kimberly is all about bugs so I just ordered some bug collecting items. She needed a professional grade bug catching net. Last year we went through about 10 cheapies (no kidding). So I got her a good one that will hopefully not break for awhile because I had to pay about 3 times what a cheapie cost.

To go along with the net thingie, I got a specialized board so she can pin the butterflies and moths, which allows them to dry properly...who knew? We learned by trial and error last year when Kimberly caught some really cool looking butterflies and moths. She put them in the freezer like she did all of her other bugs (yummie I'm telling you at the sight of those lovely things every time I opened the freezer!) They became all scrunched up so she couldn't pull the wings out to display on the board. I know now why there is such thing as a drying board! I also got some bug pins so they can be displayed in a case, and a book about catching and displaying bugs.

If these had been my birthday presents at age nine, I would have given them all to my brother and demanded a redo. Thankfully, I received the usual assortment of dolls and books. Much better in my opinion. Not for Kimberly though...she is all about bugs. She loves collecting them and trying to find new critters. She has even recruited her friends and neighbors to be on the lookout for cool creatures. Yes, we got several calls from neighbors. "Hey, there is a really wierd looking bug in our garage - does Kimberly want to come get it?"

Sadly, her bug collecting has been on hold during the winter. Want to know the first think Kimberly asked when we told her about our trip to Hawaii? "Can you bring home a cool Hawaiian bug for me?" Unfortunately for her, I was not going to bring back a bug souvenir.

5 comments:

James and Katrina said...

Love the background!

So, Kimberly likes bugs? Maybe she would benefit from a 4-H project with entomology. Julia will be raising a lamb this year with 4-H, so I will be learning a lot. Happy Birthday Kimberly!

Janell said...

I seem to recall loading a dead porcupine off the side of the road into our trunk for John. Sounds like she takes after her Dad! :-)

M. Nelson said...

And John is hoping for a boy? What for????

zohner said...

This bug thing is contagious. Every time that Emma comes over to play, the girls end up catching bugs. Emma then decides that she needs to start catching them on her own. Thankfully, she seems to forget about it within a few minutes but it starts all over again the next time the girls get together.

Anonymous said...

How fun to love bugs so much. Luckily we haven't ventured to the freezing them. We like to catch and watch them for a little while then let them go before we go inside. I'm not one to keep them for very long =)