April's Fools (live at my house)

I love to be happy. I love hearing laughter in my house. And at times, I love pulling a good prank. So April Fool's Day is a day filled with fun, good-natured pranks around our house.

Garrett woke up to find that Teagan had tied the sleeves in all his shirts into knots. Owen found Garrett's trick roll of toilet paper during a quick bathroom break in  the middle of General Conference. Teagan went to bed tonight only to find that she had no sheets, no pillows, no stuffed animals on her bed thanks to Owen's prank on her. Our day was filled with excitement, giggles, and a little bit of fear of what form the next prank would appear as.

But the consensus for the best prank of the day was the one I pulled on the whole family at dinner. Everyone gets giddy anticipating how and where mom will strike - will it be sugarless kool-aid? Empty pots in pans instead of brimming full ones with the yummy food that was just cooked? Black food coloring in all the dishes? So many avenues I could take!

Today's prank wasn't on the food itself (although I did serve some lovely stuffed Cornish game hens as a special April Fool's Day dinner) but rather on the utensils. Everyone got a strange dish, drinking vessel, and eating tool. The quizzical looks on everyone's faces when I called them to the dining room was wonderful!

Owen loved drinking kool-aid out of the ketchup squeeze bottle and Garrett loved using tongs instead of a fork.

 Emmett was concerned at why I had given him a lid to eat on, but loved using Duncan's bottle for his own drink tonight!

 Teagan thought it was great fun to have a pot lid for a plate, but thought the wooden spoon was going to make cutting her chicken a bit hard. Apparently she didn't notice that I had given myself a plastic spatula to use!

 The kids all had such fun and said it was the best April Fool's Day we've ever had. The boys said it topped the one where all the boys - including Daddy -woke up to painted toenails.

Scott however, reminded me that he can't stand April Fool's Day because it makes no sense...why dedicate a whole day to acting silly and trying to tease each other? But he also showed his love for me in indulging in my silliness and eating with a baby spoon off of a cutting board and drinking out of a tin can.

Although he did, unknowingly, pull his own prank on us. After the kids had sat still through the first session of General Conference today he took us hiking. We left the sunshine here at the house and went to Lake Twenty Two for our favorite hike only to find it snowing there. So we hiked in the snow, got wet and cold, and then came back home to the sunshine again just in time to sit down for the last session of Conference. We'll pull him around to our side of the crazy train...we've only been doing this for 14 years, there's plenty to time left!

The kids are already formulating next year's pranks on each other; they say it's going to be better than this year by far!