Easter and April Fools

A couple days before Easter I set up my letterboard in preparation for the big holiday.

It was so fun having Easter and April fools day wrapped up all in one this year.  There were just so many prank options!  I started out with some yummy orange juice made out of water and a macaroni and cheese packet.

I thought it looked pretty good, just like OJ.  Unfortunately the kids were ready for me to pull some pranks and they already knew not to trust anything I gave them to eat or drink.  Leon was brave enough to try it for everyone.  He took a couple of drinks and announced "It's ok guys, its just milk!"  haha I thought it was hilarious.  It looked so good I think I'll try this again another day when they aren't expecting it.

The kids, all dressed and ready for church.

We didn't have time to take our picture in the mirror before church so we did it outside afterwards with the timer.

When I tried to go into my room later the door handle was off.  I think Bob was helping the kids attempt to prank me.  I didn't get a picture of it, but Penelope also drew spiders on the toilet paper and offered me a drink of "water" aka straight vinegar that I had to drink to pretend to be fooled.  She loved it and was so happy with her tricks.

We made resurrection rolls, that weren't a trick.  For those not familiar they are rolls that you put a marshmallow in the center of, then after backing the marshmallow is gone leaving an empty roll symbolizing the empty tomb.  If you are really good you make them three days ahead of time, but I forgot about that part until the morning of.

I think our best pranks came during the Easter egg hunt.  We threatened all the eggs were going to be empty but that would be way too easy.  Instead we hid a couple eggs out front and told them to start searching.

After a few minutes when they were really begging for hints I told them that the eggs were really inside!  APRIL FOOLS!

And off they ran in the house looking for eggs.

We gave them each a color to look for and told them to leave the other colors alone, but there were two very special eggs one gold and one silver.  We only had two of those so whoever found them got more than the other kids.  They really wanted these eggs.  After a while Scarlett and Tucker found them and Penelope was devastated.  I let Scarlett open her special egg up to lessen the blow for Penelope.

Carrots!  A rabbit's favorite!

Scarlett was so happy to get these sour patch candies as well, until they were opened.

Rocks.  Yep, bob sliced them open, filled them with rocks and taped them back up.

Don't worry, we gave the kids plenty of real candy to go with the tricks.  I think that helped them not be too mad at all the fake outs.

These grape candies worked pretty well also.  They looked like chocolates but I had bob unwrap the chocolates and put grapes inside then rewrap them up.  The kids were like, "huh??? I thought this was chocolate.  Oh well, a grape!"

Talitha made a yummy Easter dessert with the kids.

I hope you all had a great Easter!

April Fools Pranks

I love April fools day!  Some years I have more time to plan it out than others.  This year was very last minute.  My kids have come to expect me to do something to their food so it is getting harder to come up with new ideas.  The night before April Fools day I got their cereal ready and put it in the freezer!  It worked really well.  After pulling it out of the freezer I added a little bit of milk on top so it looked fresh.  The kids were expecting me to do something silly but when they saw their cereal they thought it was regular cereal and that I wasn't doing something... until they tried to eat it.

Penelope and Tucker weren't happy when they found out.  Leon and Scarlett were diligent about eating it anyways.

That was probably the best trick of the day.  I also switched them in their beds again.  I did it last year with just the girls and Tucker complained that I didn't switch him and Leon.  But when I went in the night before to get him out of bed and put him in Leon's bed he was not happy with me.  In fact, my kids act like they want me to play tricks but every time I do they get mad.  The only one that Tucker and Penelope were happy about was when I told them I was going to give them dirt for dessert but it was really an pudding oreo dessert with candy worms.

I had another trick that didn't go very well but I think would be great if I tried it again.  I filled up a helium balloon and wrote April Fools on it.  Then I stuck it in the toilet and closed the lid.  It was supposed to pop up and fly out when they opened the lid.  Instead it got all wet and just stayed in the toilet.  I think I'll try it again next year with either a smaller balloon so it doesn't get wet, or a bigger balloon so it is strong enough to fly up even when wet.

Kid April Fools Pranks

I love celebrating the holidays with kids and April fools day is no exception.  This year I tried to find pranks to play on the kids that were easy to plan, didn't take a lot of time or effort, and were harmless.  Some of these I've done before but I tried to change them up a bit just to keep the kids on their toes.

The first thing I did was dye the milk yellow.  It looked just like orange juice!  I didn't expect that to happen but most of the kids thought they were getting orange juice instead of milk for breakfast.  Tucker refused it all together and age dry cereal.

The milk was actually the second prank because I did one prank in the middle of the night.  Right before I went to bed I snuck into the girls room and moved them into each other's beds.  Even though I didn't see their reaction when they woke up I'm sure it was funny for them to be in the wrong bed.  By the way, these girls can be heavy when sleeping and it wasn't easy to lift Scarlett to the top bunk.

I thought this shoe prank was going to be so funny.  I shoved toilet paper in the toes of their shoes with the idea that they would put them on and think their feet grew.  I did it to each kids shoes, except for Leon.  And in the morning without the others hearing I one at a time told each of them that their feet looked big and that I think they grew while sleeping.  I have to admit that Penelope put her shoes on first and knew something was in it then pulled it out.  Then all the kids checked their shoes.  So it didn't really work.  But Penelope and Scarlett were talking about how big they are for the whole day.  They didn't really get that I was trying to trick them.

Then for dinner bob made donuts!  Ok, it was meatloaf with mashed potatoe frosting.  When the kids found out some refused to eat even though the really did taste good.

Then I gave them juice/jello for their drink.  It was funny watching them trying to suck it up the straw.  Leon was especially adamant about trying to "drink" the juice.

Before bed we told them they could have some brownies for dessert.  Everyone thought it was funny except for Tucker who was pretty grumpy by this point of the day.  Leon even insisted on taking his brown E to bed.  Most of them weren't even upset that they didn't actually get brownies.

I know that these tricks are silly, but I like to create traditions with the kids.  And I really think that this is the sort of thing that they will remember when they are older.  I'm sure when they are teenagers they will think their mom is so weird but hopefully they will at least remember that we had fun and played together when they were younger.

April Fools Day

I didn't put much thought beforehand into April fools day this year.  I like to prank the kids and bob...anyone really, but honestly I forgot about it until it was too late.  So instead I just lied to the kids all day and then shouted April fools afterwards.  Example, "What are you guys doing out of bed? it isn't time to get up?" (Penelope makes a confused face and Scarlett starts crying)  "APRIL FOOLS!"  Then everyone laughs.  They quickly learned not to believe me all day.  And they got the hang of making up their own stuff too.

My real trick was actually on a friend.  I'm dog sitting her puppy this week while she is out of town.  So I text her that the dog got out and I can't find her.  I thought she would just call me and ask questions so when she called I said April fools! She was like "are you serious? I just called my husband and he is on his way over from work."  It was pretty funny.  And she was able to call him back before he got to his car.

For dinner I made the kids grilled cheese and for dessert cupcakes.

The grilled cheese turned out great.  The bread is actually a sliced and toasted angle food cake and the cheese is frosting.  I thought it looked good.  But it didn't fool the kids.

My meatloaf cupcakes were rushed and didn't look that amazing.  The frosting is mashed potatoes.  I was surprised because Scarlett and Penelope ate their cupcakes without complaining that they didn't taste like cupcakes.  And Tucker refused to eat his saying it was gross even though last time I made meatloaf he kept talking about how good it was.

Maybe next year I will put more effort into my pranks.

April Fools Pranks

It was fun to have my parents and Caleb over on April Fools day because that way I got more people to try my pranks on.

The first one was balloons in the door.  We blew them up, twisted up the end, and stuck them in the door. They were supposed to blow everywhere when the door opened.  It didn't work at all because Bob and I put them up the night before so the ends were stuck together and the just stayed full of air.

Next was the fake Bob we set up in the kitchen.  Tucker totally thought it was Bob.  When he saw him he ran up and pulled the news paper down so he could talk to him.  We had to re set it up before my parents came over, it only tricked them for a second.

We had little notes for everyone in the toilet.  We also attempted to turn the faucet water a different color but it didn't really work.

This next one was probably the best trick.  It was hilarious to watch and it really worked.  I printed up a matches/memory game for my mom to play with the kids.  The funny part was that there were no matches in the game.  They played it for a few  minutes and my mom kept saying things like, "wow, this is a hard one."  Meanwhile I had to leave the room because I couldn't stop laughing.

We had a few food pranks.  For breakfast I dyed the kids cereal milk red.  They knew it was a trick and drank it just fine.  Then we had ice cream and I sneakily cut open the bottom of the ice cream and scooped it all out.  I filled up the container with mashed potatoes.  The important part for this trick was to make sure the ice cream container had the plastic seal around the lid.  Then I asked my mom to open up the ice cream and scoop it out.  Unfortunately when mashed potatoes are frozen they get hard as ice and it was impossible to scoop.  To do this again I would just put the potatoes in an hour before instead of the night before.  Then we once again had cupcakes (meatloaf with mashed potato frosting) for dinner.

And for desert we had a cheeseburger.  I love how this turned out!  It was easy and aside form it being rather large it looked like a burger.

I love April Fools Day!  Even though most of my tricks don't really trick people everyone still has fun, especially me and the kids.  Ok, I probably have the most fun.  By the end of the day Tucker was pretty into it and he was asking people to  help him do pranks.  He would do things like ring the doorbell and then hide, or tell you that there is something on your shirt and then shout APRIL FOOLS!  Penelope had no idea what was going on.  She was even happy to eat her meatloaf cupcake and didn't seem at all disappointed when she bit into it.  Since I didn't do anything to Bob I am going to have to come up with and extra special trick for him next year.