The Mantis has perished.  No, he didn't live very long in our house.  It was our first "pet," so I don't know if we did something wrong or if this is normal.  We were sad to no longer have our cute little friend (yes, I got over the feasting on live crickets...yuck!).  But, alas!  The very next day we happened upon a cute spider walking around in our family room!

     Normally we would squash these eight-legged creatures and flush them down the commode.  But, as interesting as it is, this time I had a change of heart!  My first thought was to get the terrarium and scoop him up so we could have him for observation.  (I know, everything is a he....  I think it is because all we have here are boys.)  This learning at home business has really started to change my perspective on things...lol!

     Anyway, we think it is a nursery spider.   He has made some sort of webbing in the terrarium.  We have not witnessed him doing a capture yet.  We hope to see that today!

     Oh, I almost forgot to add this little tidbit that I found as a cute coincidence.  Each weekend, we have movie night.  And it just happened that our movie for this weekend was "Charlotte's Web!"  As you can imagine, our spider is now named Charlotte.