April Fools!!!

I come from a family that is really big on April Fools. I mean REALLY big on it. They've gone so far as to take out adds in local papers to sell off newly beloved vehicles of other family members, and used police tape and body chalk outlines on driveways, and filled cars with balloons... there is nothing they would not do. After 18 years together, I have finally gotten my husband, an April Fool virgin, to join in the festivities with me and target our kids for some good wholesome family bonding trickery.
So last night we yahoo'd back and forth all the ideas we thought were great that we found on the internet and compiled a list of our favorites.
We'd planned to start the night out by sneaking into Jacob's room while he slept and drawing on his face with black eyeliner, then in the morning taking him to early morning seminary, only to have his friends at seminary let him in on the joke... but alas, when I broke into his room (after his father assured me he'd just heard Jake snoring), he sat up and asked me what I was doing. So.... plan B.... Josh's room. He was sound asleep and was very cooperative while I drew dots all over his face, gave him a moustache and goatee, then I wrote "April Fool" on his forehead backwards so he could read it in the mirror in the morning.

Oh what fun we planned to have at his expense!

Well, our plans did not include another one of our children waking up 5 minutes before the seminary alarm went off, to puke all over her floor. So while I cleaned up the mess with the Little Green Machine all of the house was woken up. Nobody noticed Joshua's face, but I noticed that it was a little faded. So after Joel took Jake to seminary and I stayed on the couch with Joy holding a bucket, I went back to bed and slept until Josh went to school. Joel said that nobody noticed his face because we all were thrown off and didn't have breakfast together like we usually do, so when it was time for Josh to catch the bus Joel told him to go look at his face. Josh looked in the mirror and yelled, "DAD! What did you do that for?" Then Joel told him to read his forehead.... "April Fool!" "DAD! You're mean!"

I woke up after this so I have no pictures of it.
Then later in the day we put up signs on the doors. On the front door was "WET PAINT, USE BACK DOOR" and on the back door, "WET PAINT, USE FRONT DOOR". Jake was our first target, but he didn't fall for it. So then we waited for the other two to come home from school. We hid in the front room, listening to them. Jaeden came to the door first, but of course it was locked. So then she started ringing the door bell and knocking. Josh came up behind her and read the sign, "we have to go to the back door". So they marched around the house. Then they saw the sign on the back door, "ARRRRRGH!" Josh yelled. Hahaha. We opened the front door when they came back around and yelled, "April Fools!"

Now, for the fun pictures....
After they got home Joel took them outside to see a crow up in the trees with his binoculars,



they thought that was pretty great, until I showed them the pictures I took of them coming back into the house!



Later after dinner we challenged them to a game, first we showed them how with our own quarter, and then gave them each their own quarter to try. We had them roll the quarter down their noses and try to get it into a cup.



We set them up opposite sides of the island so they could watch each other. They thought this was a great game! Although they didn't notice each other's faces as they played until we pointed it out.

Then Jake came in and Joel somehow tricked him into trying, he must not have noticed the kids faces first, so we got him smudged up too!


I can't believe they didn't catch on that every time the camera came out, they were being April Fooled!
Anyway, Joel and I had great fun and we did try a few tricks that didn't work out, but these did and got a lot of high fives and "APRIL FOOLS!!!" yelled.

I have to throw this picture in here, this is the girls last Sunday wearing their new dresses. Aren't they adorable???