Bugs/critters--my kryptonite (sp?)

It is an absolutely gorgeous day, today, and Olivia, Benjamin and I were enjoying a jaunt on the swingset in our palatial backyard earlier today. Olivia likes to sit atop the slide and wait for me to say the following in a British accent, "Ladies and gentlement, please feast your eyes on the blonde daredevil, Miss Olivia, as she slides while..." and I'll usually say something like "while making a scary face" or "with her eyes closed" or "on her tummy", etc. You get the idea. She performs in her little one ring circus while Benjamin and I applaud rapturously as she descends the slide with pizzazz. As she was about to climb up the slide ladder for about the 10th time (and by the way, even the most creative person can run out of ..as she slides with her tongue out... etc. after a few rounds of sliding) she jumped off of the slide ladder and gasped with her hands cupped over her little mouth, and then she screamed, "It's a giant grasshopper!!" What is it about this sort of thing that transforms me from SuperMom into ScaredyMom??? Seriously gals, bugs are my kryptonite (sorry if I misspelled that Mr. Reeve). I get weak in the knees and feel all squeemish. I absolutely detest them! The weirder the bug, the worse it is. Olivia, however, is curious and probably would be more bold were there not a mother screaming in the background as if she were about to try to pet a Cobra. My sister, CB, tells me not to worry about this, that it will kind of take care of itself, but I hope I can let Benjamin be a boy about these sorts of things. So this incident only ranks as a 4/10 on the gross-out scale--primarily because it was outside and not within the walls of my home. I give this bug an 8/10 on creepiness, though. I don't know what you call this thing--is it a stick bug? Is it a preying mantis? Anybody got the 411 on this guy? I've included a picture as proof that I was bold enough to get close enough to get a picture, and yes, my camera does have zoom, but I still had to get fairly close to get this shot. He did not want to vacate the premises, and I wasn't about to feel the need to assist him in moving, so we decided we would go inside--where most bugs and critters can't be found. I say "most" because as of late, we've had a disturbing number of visits from several critters. I should explain, however, that a "disturbing number" is one or more--do you hear me, ladies? But seriously, I had a visit from a frog that likely shaved some years off of my life. Olivia, Benjamin and I were home alone when Olivia spotted a frog hopping under our dining room table towards the kitchen. I quickly tried to gather my wits and do that self-talk thing--you know what I'm talking about, girls? Stuff like, "OK, Adrienne, you can do this. You've birthed two children, one naturally without an ounce of pain meds, the other by c-section. You can catch this dumb frog!" Olivia is cheering me on, all the while. I tell her to run get a shoe box from her room. She returns to find me screaming desperately, "No! No! No!" just as the frog hopped under the refrigerator. This is bad. This is very bad. After a few minutes of despair, I decide to try to roll the refrigerator forward to try to let the frog get out so that I can attempt to catch him. As I begin pulling the frig, I hear something crunch beneath the wheels of the appliance. "Oh, dear Lord," I begin to pray aloud, "please tell me I didn't just roll over the frog. Please!" Olivia immediately begins whaling and mourning the death of the "poor little froggie!" Benjamin soon follows his sister's example, so I am swirling in a sea of pandamonium with two screaming children, and at one point I scream out something like, "I'm the one who should be screaming! I'm the one who's going to have to clean up the frog guts!" I finally regain my courage and as I begin to get down on my knees to assess the damage, the crazy amphibian leaps out from beneath the refrigerator! Olivia screams, "He's alive, Momma! He's alive! He came back to life!!" All I can think about is how to get that rascal trapped in this shoe box I'm wielding in the air as I dance around from foot to foot. After a fair amount of chasing, I cornered that critter and trapped him inside the box. Folks, squeals of the purest thanksgiving and praise emitted from my mouth at amazing speed and volume! "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!" Olivia requested the job of releasing him back into the yard, so I handed the box over to her joyfully. Bless her heart, Olivia didn't know that she was going to be getting a hard lesson on that whole Lion King "Circle of Life" thing, and just as she let that frog out, the neighbor's cat came bounding into our yard. Just as my heart rate had finally slowed a bit, I ran to get her to try to spare her the National Geographic moment. Let's just say that we all had to have a little chill time after that whole incident. Since that incident, I've had to capture two tree frogs and one lizard to release outside. What is this, Wild Kingdom? I have to sing a little children's song based on the scripture that we're all so familiar with "He gives me strength, he gives me strength. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength..." Dear Lord, I'm sorry I'm such a wimp about this, but thank you for strengthening me for even critter-capture-n-releasing.