School with Daddy

School happens at all times of the day around here and Daddy has an infinite amount of knowledge on all sorts of things that I don't, lol! So, it wasn't too out of the ordinary when Michael started talking about all of the cicadas that would be hatching this year. He talked to the kids about it and how long they have been in the ground. We found several to bring in and show the kids, but they hadn't natched completely. He decided it would be fun to put them in our cricket bucket (very scientific term) and see what would happen as they hatched. These pictures are out of order for some reason, but I'll try to recap for you...

Gathering around Daddy to check out these weird little bugs that haven't hatched yet. This discussion was complete with exo-skeleton talk, etc.
Trying to get a good picture

Another attempt at a close-up...

I have to admit that these little critters are pretty neat- aside from all the noise they make once they hatch. After the kids had gone to bed, Michael checked on our new little friends one more time and started calling for me to come to the kitchen. Mind you, I was already in the bed and had no interest whatsoever of going to look at the cicadas again.

I'm glad I did though, because they have hatcehd from their shells and were WHITE! Almost translucent. That's something most of us never get to see. By morning they had all of their color, but how neat to know that come out white before they even spread their wings!

This is what they looked like before we released them outside- complete color with freaky red eyes and all!