I tried

I'm going to blame the movers. The Friday before our move, they were coming to pack our garage and attic...or so they said. When they arrived, they took over the whole house packing every thing under the roof. I wasn't prepared for the house to be packed, and inevitably, some things were packed by the movers that shouldn't have been... for instance, the cocoons. Ooops.

When we unpacked them at our new home, we got quite a surprise...

We had butterflies!!!

Okay, so after a few days as cocoons, they were supposed to have been transferred to a large mesh container, where they would have plenty of room to spread their wings when they emerged as butterflies. The transfer never happened and our poor helpless bugs hatched into this...

There are five butterflies in this little cup... no room for flapping, much less flying.

They didn't immediately fly off, Grace was able to really check them out!

We quickly released them into our new backyard. They flew off one by one and Grace was thrilled! Maybe next year we'll try again and we will take a little better care of them!