For the love of April 1st

I have always loved April Fools Day. Growing up, actually, I hated it. My dad would tell us we had a cockroach on us, which was totally possible, and we'd break out into hysteria only to realized that he was playing a joke on us...and he'd do that same thing all day long, and we'd fall for it every time. But, as I'm now the parent of gullible little humans, it's way more fun. Actually since two of my kids were due in early April, I always wished so bad that I could have had them on April 1st. I remember crying when April 2nd came along and still no Elle. Anyway, last year was epic and began what I hope is a long tradition of attempting to fool my kids with some sort of food. So, the set up is this. Ava and I were going to make cupcakes together today, just because.

They turned out so pretty and for extra yum, I poked a hole in the middle of them and poured cherry juice in before icing them.

Then while Shawn had the girls upstairs this afternoon, I made identical meatloaf cupcakes with tinted mashed potato icing.

Here I am being sneaky and "icing" the cupcakes.

Identical looks....very different flavors!

Believe it or not, this is the meatloaf/mashed potato cupcakes!

When everything was set up, I called them all down and said that life was short, so we were eating dessert first!

"Oh darling children!!! Come to the table. Mommy has decided that you are right! You should get to eat dessert first! Absolutely!"

Their eyes just lit up. They just couldn't believe that I was actually going to let them eat cupcakes for dinner!!!!

Elle was so excited for this "special day."

Ava was beside herself :)

First, they tried to drink there drink but something was amiss! I made red jello and poured it into their drinking cups and added a straw so when they tried to drink, it was solid. I think this was their favorite part!

Next came the eating of the cupcake.

Um, this does not taste like icing!

At this point, she began spitting her icing out and was getting very upset. She pushed her plate far away and declared in a very upset voice that the cupcakes tasted horrible!

This is Ava believing that she is witnessing her sister losing her mind. I can just imagine her thinking "What has happened to her? She thinks cupcakes are gross. She has officially lost it."

Then Ava tasted the "icing."

In true Ava form, she said they tasted great! Ha! She could tell something was off, but I think she wanted cupcakes so bad that she didn't want to say they didn't taste good! Well, we finally let them in on the joke and I'll have to say, this year it was Elle who we got good! She wasn't too happy about it, but we did promise that if they ate this cupcake, she'd be rewarded with a better one after! They both thought it was pretty funny!

As my final act of fooling tonite, I took an empty Coke bottle, filled it with water, added a ridiculous amount of red, green, blue, and yellow food coloring and came up with the EXACT color of Coke. I then screwed the top on and put it in the fridge for Shawn and waited. About 9 tonite, he strolled in the kitchen for a swig of his Coke and his face was PRICELESS! What was even better was that he couldn't even figure out what in the world was wrong with his Coke until when we went to spit it out, and it was a greenish color. It was wonderful!!! Shawn is very hard to trick and this was just amazingness. I would have gotten a picture, but he would have been suspicious if I had had my camera out. Anyway, it was the best part of the whole day because FINALLY I got him!!!

Happy April Fool's Day! Now to start planning for next year. I've started a file--seriously.