April Fools!

I loved April Fools day when I was a kid. I'd go around telling everyone their shoes were untied or their zipper was down. Classy, I know. When I was older I tried other pranks on my family. I remember putting a rubber band around the hand sprayer (to hold down the handle) at the sink. Another time I tried putting some Easter egg coloring tablets in the faucet to turn the water colors. (I don't think that one worked.) But probably the worst joke I pulled was putting itching powder in my mom's bed. Itching powder really does work! But it can also get you in a lot of trouble.

Anyway, fast forward to now. I don't want to permanently scar my kids, but I think it's fine to have a little fun with them. (No itching powder, I promise!) Yesterday we were picking out vegetable and flower seeds at the store, so I thought the timing for this was perfect. I found this online last night:


I printed a couple out, filled them with Cheerios, and put them on the counter for breakfast time. It worked great! Emma fell for it pretty quickly, but after we had a little fun with her, she read the back of the "seed packet" which explained that it was an April Fools joke. Then we let her have some fun with her sister when she came to the table. Ashlyn was pretty excited about getting to grow her own doughnuts until she found out it was a joke.

But the fun didn't stop there. At the end of breakfast, even though Emma knew it had been a joke, she told us she still thought it would be possible to grow doughnuts somehow. She also told us that we should get more of those doughnut seed packs, because she liked the Cheerios in them better than the Cheerios from the box. (Where did she think the Cheerios in the seed packets came from?) :)

After breakfast, I asked Emma if she had her verses memorized for church this morning. She looked at me confused. I "reminded" her that her class was going around to all the adult classes this morning sharing a long verse, and each child was supposed to have his/her part memorized. She looked a little concerned. Dakota said he wasn't aware that the kids had to memorize anything, and asked which verse it was. I told him it was Hezekiah 12:13. Quickly realizing that's not a real book of the Bible, he understood what I was doing. When Emma asked what the verse said, I replied, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and don't believe anything your mom and dad say on April 1st." :D

Anyway it's all fun and games until someone pulls a prank on me. I really dislike having jokes pulled on me. But Emma's "pranks" were kind of funny today. First, she cut out a big paper circle, made it look like one of our dishes, and put it in the sink on top of the other dirty dishes. Then she cut out a small circle, wrote the word "bug" on it, and put it on the counter top. Finally, she wrote a note for us to find, telling Dakota he needed to do the dishes in the sink, and that there was a bug on the counter. I played up the bug when she came in, shrieking a bit and squashing it with my hand. She got a great laugh out of that.

And in closing, I would like to say that the "for sale" sign is up in front of the house, and if all goes according to plan, we'll be spending next April Fools day in the sunny southwest! Adios!