What in the WORLD?

Okay, the photo is a little close, but I did it that way on purpose - to show the detail. What are those little round things? They are tiny little suction cups, about the size of a dime. They were on a ball the kids had. You take the ball, which was the size of a tennis ball, throw it at a wall or window, and it sticks. Nice concept. Doesn't actually promote "don't play ball in the house", but the boys liked it. Last THURSDAY evening, we find this strange looking thing in the living room on the floor. It looked like....well...it looked like the suction cup ball without any of the suction cups - they were all gone. We looked at the three culprits. Jonathan? Probably not. He hates it when his toys get broken. He's pretty careful with stuff and is not deliberately destructive. Matthew? Hmmmmm....definitely a better candidate, but where were the suction cups? They were nowhere to be found. And as far as Mark could tell, there were about 2 dozen or so, and we couldn't find one. Bella? Now we're talking. At Christmas, we found that a little rubber snowman had been chewed to pieces, with most of the pieces gone. A few DAYS later, Bella threw them up on the carpet. Which was intriguing, because during those few days, she was eating and drinking and pooping normally - so in the meantime, where had those snowman pieces been? But I digress....back to suction cups. Assuming that Bella was responsible, I figured I had a few days before she started yakking up suction cups all over my floor. Sure enough, Saturday morning, oh, about 20 minutes before we needed to be somewhere and about 2 hours before my family was due to arrive, the first of the suction cups made an appearance on the living room carpet. I made Mark clean and count. First pile - 9. Second pile - 4. That left...a lot more. We locked her in the laundry room, and went about our business. Family came, Easter came, Easter bunny came, then, yesterday morning, the inevitable. First pile - 3 1/2. By this time, they're starting to break down a little. Second pile - nothing! Third pile, thankfully on the stone floor in the den - 10! The mother load! And then, yesterday afternoon, the 2 1/2 pictured above. Total count - 29. Hmmmm - maybe we miscounted, maybe it was actually 29, but 30 seems like such a nice round number.....ANYWAY - at least it seems to be over with. It's still a mystery to me where they were all that time. Maybe it's better that way!

On a lighter note, Easter went well! Here's everyone, except Matthew, dyeing eggs - Matthew was asleep at the time, and although he probably would've liked it, I imagine my kitchen table, chairs and floor would've been irreparably discolored had he been awake.....

And here's the kids with their Easter baskets - they also hunted eggs, although I think only Jonathan had any concept of what that was about! Sandwiched in the weekend somewhere was also my birthday - it was actually Saturday, but we celebrated on Sunday - it was nice that my family was here for it, but with all the other distractions, it was a little lost in the shuffle! But all in all, it was a tremendously happy and fun weekend and although we now have entirely too much chocolate and candy in the house, I can think of worse things to complain about!