April Trick

Back in college Cody and his roommates played a prank on my roommates and me.  Some of his roommates climbed in the attic above our apartment and pretended to be an animal by making animal noises.   The others lured us unsuspecting young females to climb up there and check it out.  I caught on before we actually peered into the attic, but the boys gave a couple of my roommates a real good fright!  After that, it was all out war!! 

We pulled a prank on them; they responded with a prank on us.  I don’t remember all the pranks, but I do remember us roommates being vigilant about locking up the apartment.  We even went so far as to put all our VHS tapes in the window tracks to keep the boys from breaking in through the windows.  Somehow they still got into our apartment one night and stole ALL our make-up, shower items, toiletries, etc.  It was a good one!  Our new roommate who didn’t know any of us very well was not amused in the least.  But the mother of all pranks that ended the war was when we girls snuck into their apartment and dumped glitter all over their beds, shirts, and towels.  Those boys were never seen without a little sparkle on their face for the rest of the semester!  Even a year later, when I was at the end of my graduate program, I could still see glitter in our regular study spot in the library.  It was completely hilarious.

Long, long before Cody and my prank war, I was always up for a good trick.  I remember pulling pranks on April Fool’s Day as a kid and making my dad really mad when he figured out I had saran wrapped the toilet…

This year for April Fool’s Day, I wanted to play some harmless tricks on my kids.  Turning to the ultimate source for all things clever and fun: Pinterest, I found a few super easy, cute tricks I knew the kids would laugh about. 

First, we woke up to a trick Mother Nature pulled on all of us.  Snow.  More. Snow. 

That morning I told Jade I poured her cereal and milk for her.  She was grateful for the kind gesture until she tried to take a bite and found that it was frozen!  She kind of had a mad face until I enthusiastically exclaimed, “April Fool’s!”  Then she thought it was pretty funny and tried to trick Ridge.  He doesn’t like milk in his cereal though, so he wouldn’t even attempt a bite.  Once Jade explained it to him, he thought it was pretty funny! 

After school I told the kids I made brownies for snack.  They were pretty excited until they pulled back the tinfoil to find brown E’s.  Again I said, “April Fool’s!”  Jade still thought it was pretty clever and funny even though she wasn’t really going to get a brownie.  Lucky for them though, we had gone to playgroup that morning and the hostess had sent us home with some real mint brownies they got to eat. 

At dinner I pulled out the soda Cody had brought home from his trip to Switzerland.  Jade loves soda.  It is a very rare thing in our house though.  She was eager to take a sip, but when she did the drink was “stuck” and wouldn’t come up the straw!  It was actually orange jello I had prepared earlier in the day.  Again, I said “April Fool’s!” The kids started giggling and had fun trying to eat their jello with a straw.  By this time, Ridge was finally catching on and started doing silly things, followed by him exclaiming, “April Trick!” 

  

Finally, after dinner I brought out some "cupcakes."  Apparently, my kids are a little slow because they totally fell for it again.  When they tried to take a bite, they realized it was just a plastic Easter egg!  They still liked licking off the cool whip and sprinkles!  April Fool's is such a silly holiday, but with minimal effort we had some extra fun and giggles that day!