April Fools Day Fun

My hooligans anticipate April Fools Day for months. I kid you not. They love all holidays, and with Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and sometimes Easter in February and March, you’d think that I could slide by on April Fools. But no.

And they remember what I’ve done in the past…that’s the hard part.  Last year I surprised them with these “grilled cheese” sandwiches for a snack.  They’re just toasted poundcake (I bought it frozen) with orange buttercream frosting between two slices.  Then I squished them a little to make the “melted cheese” ooze a bit.

And here are 10 more ideas I’ve done in the past (very few were original…most I found at Family Fun, but I honestly can’t remember all the sources to credit).

1. Paint gel food coloring inside their bathroom faucets so the water is colored when they turn it on. Last year, April Fools was during spring break, and no one found this trick until two days later. Really?  No tooth brushing or hand washing for two days?

2. Jello in a juice glass with a straw, so it looks like real juice.

3. Meatloaf made in muffin cups and iced with tinted mashed potatoes, so they appear to be cupcakes.

4. A spaghetti and meatball cake…the spaghetti was strands of buttercream frosting, the meatballs were homemade truffles, and the sauce was seedless raspberry jam. Yeah, that was a lot of work. But I made it for a wives’ coffee back before I had kids.

5. If your kids sleep soundly, switch them around in each other’s beds during the night.

6. Freeze balloons filled with colored water (if it’s cold outside, too) and place them outside like a giant marble game. Yep, this one worked better when we lived in Wisconsin than Washington.

7. Put cereal and milk in bowls the night before and freeze them. Their little faces are priceless as they try to scoop up a bite with their spoon!

8. The classic shortsheeting is fun, but my kids don’t use top sheets, just comforters, so that won’t work for us.

9. Put googly eyes on all the fruit in the fruit bowl.

10. Add a few drops of food coloring to the milk jug (blue or green work best). We don’t do this because the leprechaun always turns our milk green, so I don’t want the hooligans thinking I know how to do it, too, to prank them.