Metamorphosis Up Close, The Amphibian Kind

Little tadpole in a big tank!

Can you find the tadpole?  

"Where's Felicia (Waldo)?"

Felicia is what my 3 year decided to name our tadpole, after mommy provided some "F" name suggestions.  Mommy was shooting for Philipe or Fred the Frog!  

Hopefully Felicaia turns out to be a female frog!

Felicia is very very small!  

"She" is only approximently a half inch long from nose to tail.

If I can get some video clips to upload to youtube I'll be adding them to this post.  

You can actually see the tadpoles heartbeat!  

Very cool!

~Laura


March 29th 2012
Felicia is Growing!

It's probably not easy to see from the picture, but she has definitely gotten a little chubbier and I think her tail has grown some too!  I haven't figured out how to upload some of my video clips yet, but I'll keep trying!!

Got one to work!  You can see the tadpole's heartbeat!

~

Added on April 11th 2012

Felicia is getting bigger!

I will hopefully have another video to add that shows you that Felica got a few more tankmates.  On Easter Sunday my father~in~law sent us home with several tadpoles that he had captured for us. Along with the additional tadpoles also came some planaria (I think?), a strange water bug and some mosquito nymphs.  I've tried to remove any mosquito nymphs that I've seen.  I'm not really interested in participating in a live presentation of their life cycle.  I'm sure that there is much more life in that water than I can see.  

Do You See What I See?

Look closer!

That darker line coming out from behind the tadpole's body and just below the tail is a teeny tiny leg forming!

We have had Felicia for approximately 4 weeks now!

May 3th 2012

It looks like a few of my tadpoles have sprouted their front legs!

Not all of the tadpoles have sprouted their front legs yet.  

I'm probably going to need to let the frogs go soon after their tail disappear.  They are so small that I have no idea what I could capture insect/wormwise that they would be able to fit into their very tiny mouths.  Does anyone have any meal suggestions for these tiny little guys?

Felicia is one of them.  

She actually is appearing a little deformed.  I'm not sure if the curve of her tail will affect her metamorphosis into a frog.

The picture below is a picture of Felicia from above.  You can see the curvature of her tail.  That is the position that her tail stays in.

May 4th 2012

Felicia sprouted her front legs today!!!

Just another picture of our little guys.  

Some sad news one of my tiny tadpoles that had sprouted its front legs also died today and I don't know why :(

May 6th 2012

More sad news: we have now lost a total of 3 froglets.

We still have several living and a few that still have not sprouted their front legs.  One of them is so cute and is just about 100% frog or toad from all outward appearances.  In the top picture you can see just a stub of a tail remaining.  The bottom one shows how small he is in comparison to my thumb.

~

Felicia is looking more and more like a Leopard frog.  My Husband thinks she looks like and alligator when she's peeking up above the water.  What do you think?

May 8th 2012

Just wanted to share a few more pictures of our froglets.

Aren't they cute!

May 15th 2012

I've been eager to update this post with the great news that Felicia is eating very well!  My little guys have eaten some as well.  They Still worry me because I don't see them eat all that often and it is really tough to find food that is really small.  I purchased a tube of flightless fruit flies that so far have only provide me with two flies the rest remains in the larval or pupa states.  Wishing that the pupa would hurry up and produce me some more flies to feed the little guys!

I like to take and share pictures of our amphibian friends so here are a few more!

 The little guys seem to think that they are tree frogs.  Notice the one in the back trying to climb the wall of the tank!

Dinner time!

So far Felicia has not attempted to eat the little guys, which is of some concern.  It is so much fun to watch her take notice of a cricket and watch it closely and then lunge for it when the time feels right.

Just finished taking the time to figure out what kind of frogs our little guys are... North American Wood Frogs!  Wood frogs have a rage that spans way up into the northern parts of Canada and Alaska.  They have this really cool feature that allows them to become frozen in winter which means no heartbeat!  Then when spring arrives they warm up and their heart starts beating again!  How cool is that!

A Visit From Lucky the Leprechaun

Setting the traps.  Finishing touches of gold foil covered chocolate coins.

The traps are all set!!

I see Leprechaun footprints!!!

Letter from Lucky Leprechaun left on our new Chalkboard.

Lucky even left his footprints all over daddy's computer!

I wonder what I (I mean He, Lucky) would have done to daddy's computer if I (I mean He) knew some computer tricks??

"Mom, Look at the mess that the Leprechaun made!"

He even messed with our waffle batter and made our waffles green!!!

Hope you all had a Happy St. Patricks Day!

~Laura

Cake Pops I Made Last Night!

This is my 2nd time making cake pops.  I wanted to do something special for a young lady that attends our church whose birthday was on Saturday.  She enjoys training dogs and does very well at it!  So since she does seem to enjoy working with dogs I decided to make a few that looked like dogs.  

 Then since seeing Bakerella's Lorax themed cake pops I decided to make a few Truffula Trees.

 Then I got the idea to make a few Mike Wazkowski's from Monsters Inc. He (Mike Wazkowski) seemed like the perfect shape for a cake pop!

I then thought about another young lady who attends our church who likes Pokemon characters and decided to try to make a few Pikachus.  

The one in the picture below came out the best, I think!

And finally I made some with crushed peanuts and some with crushed toffee bits.

And in the end you have a small army of cake pops!!

Do you know how long it takes me to make a small and diverse army of cake pops?  Till 3 am this morning~ugh, of course I did start rather late~LOL!

I'm not needing toothpicks for the eyelids yet!  

It will probably won't hit me until tomorrow!

I was unable to attend church this morning so my husband and my oldest brought the cake pops to church with them. I guess they were well liked since none came back home with them!!

~Laura

Spaghetti Octopuses

I had seen this idea at Organizing Homelife's blog post "Fun Foods for Kids to Make {and Eat!}" and made a mental note on this idea. Today we made them for lunch and the girls enjoyed eating them!  There are several other ideas that Ginny has listed under her post that we will also have to give a try! 

Bon Appetit!

~Laura

Gearing up for St. Patrick's Day!

We started out with reading the 2 books in the picture below.  

The Night Before St. Patrick's Day was fun to read.  

The brother & sister make traps in hopes to catch a Leprechaun.

We then decided to put our Fruit Loop cereal to good use once again and make rainbows with a pot of gold at the end.  

My youngest would much prefer to just eat them.  

She likes to find excuses to eat them like when 2 are stuck together.

Lastly we put together a Leprechaun trap.  It's not complete yet we still need to build a ladder for the Leprechaun to climb to the top where he will fall through our grassy covered hole.  

We hope to catch one this year!! 

Last year he left us a note and some M&M's and green smudges on our cheeks!!  

I got my original idea from a Family Fun magazine.
You can check it out here at Family Fun Leprechaun trap

not martha has a yummy Leprechaun trap that you should check out!

Are you and your families going to set traps for St. Patricks Day in hopes of catching yourselves a Leprechaun and getting him to tell you where he has hidden his pot of gold.  

Make sure he doesn't trick you!

~Laura