April Fools!

April Fool's is much anticipated around my house. When the children were young I told them stories of pranks my family would play on each other...like the time we created a web of string over my little sister and brother while they slept, or replacing salt with sugar, or writing "April Fool's" on all the bathroom mirrors in my mother's nice lipstick, or setting clocks to a different time...

We have started a rich tradition in our family of pranks as well. The kids are old enough to get in on the act too, which makes it really fun. All day long I hear random comments followed by shouts of "April Fool's!" and peals of laughter.



This year I procrastinated (forgot) to come up with a prank until April 1. A quick search at Family Fun brought some ideas - this is one of my favorite sources for kid-friendly pranks. Oliver and I went shopping for dinner.

I dished up the kids plates with the following:
fish sticks (sugar creme wafers covered in peanut butter and coated with corn flakes)
mashed potatoes and gravy (ice cream with carmel sauce)
mixed veggies (starburst candy cut in shapes)

The kids were delighted with the concept of eating dessert first! The catch was that they had to eat the real equivalent of their faux dinner. I have not seen the kids eat veggies so readily in a long time. The prank received 4 thumbs up...Abagail gave it a thumbs down that was immediately followed by, "April Fool's!" Simon even licked his plate clean.


Not to be outdone...Abagail and Katrina painted (smeared) football stripes on their faces to surprise me. They were originally going to try to pass them off as bruises but realized I might not buy that...

Gabriel also dabbled in tricks. He tried to hide rubber spiders in his sisters beds - but got caught. Then he attempted to set my clock off an hour - caught. Finally he did set my clock, but it was back an hour. I was surprised to glance at the time before falling asleep and seeing that it was an hour earlier. Glad I caught it though or we would have been late, late, late this morning...