pint sized pranksters

I don't like April Fools surprises at all. In fact Emma was due on April 8th, and that year all day on April 1st, I felt like I was having contractions. I resolved that I would NOT be having an April Fools baby ~ and I didn't. She was born April 12th!

Anyway, earlier this week, some prankster recipes for kids were forwarded to me, and they were too cute to not give them a try. I think all these ideas came from Family Fun. We had a lot of laughs starting with breakfast:
 I dropped food coloring {in their favorite colors} into the girls' cereal bowls. When we added the milk a colorful surprise ensued. Alyssa's was orange.


 Emma had to do the trusty "one lick test" that she does whenever she is unsure of a new food. If she isn't immediately impressed, she won't even take a bite. Once she was confident that the food coloring hadn't compromised the cereal, she ate it all. Hers was yellow, which in this multi-colored cereal didn't even show up that much.


 I think Rebekah was more impressed with her blue milk than the older girls. In hindsight, I should have used a more plain looking cereal, the colored milk would have been a more dramatic surprise.


 A little gross, right!?


On to our big plans for dinner...
 Our first job was getting the dessert in order. My plans for dinner were meatloaf cupcakes frosted in mashed potatoes. Anyone who knows Emma, knows she would never dream of eating meatloaf! I figured I better have the real thing after trying to pull a stunt like that :-)


 Here, Kamele is helping me mix the meatloaf batter for the "main course cupcakes." She usually eats meatloaf, but had never helped me prepare it before. She looked down into the bowl as we mixed it up and told me, "I'm not eating this." I asked her why. "Because this is going to be very disgusting." I had never heard her use the word disgusting before, good to know it's in her vocabulary. And that she uses it to describe my cooking.


 Alyssa walked up to the table very inquisitively. It was our first time eating outside this Spring which was also a special surprise.


 The very colorful spread. Real cupcakes in the back frosted pink, meatloaf cupcakes up front in yellow.


 The girls didn't know quite what to think, but they seemed to enjoy the fun...at least before I asked them to dig in.


 The kool-aid was a trick too. Jello poured into drinking glasses with a straw stuck inside.


 Here Ka'iulani is figuring out her drink isn't so drinkable.


 Poor thing kept trying and trying to drink the jello through the straw. She had even helped me make them earlier in the day, so she should have guessed a spoon would be in order.


 About to trick Emma...


 Got her!


 Not as amused as I had hoped. In fact moments later I brought the girls actual root beer and Alyssa told her to smell it before drinking. You know mom might have put some April fools in there.


 
The Jello cups were a big hit though, so much so that we made more the next day to play the joke on two of her friends that were visiting.


 Em spitting out the meatloaf cupcake, big surprise!


 Who would have guessed that food she doesn't eat is still food she doesn't eat no matter how cute you cook it up?


 Examining the cupcake for any further surprises. She was the best eater of the night.


 The real cupcake she had been waiting for all along. Apparently, the joke's on me!