Foolish Fun

After all the Leprechaun mischief it would be impossible to allow April fool’s day to go by without a little trickery.

For the past few years, I have been playing food games with the kiddos. Now we are to the point where they are looking forward to Mommy’s antics.

So far my April fool pranks have been a twist on what they are giving at meal time.

This year they started their day off with a fried egg…

That’s an egg, right?

 

Well, since they are not really fond of fried eggs, I gave them yogurt and half of an apricot. (Healthier than the white chocolate eggs they got last year.) Being that they were not sure what it was at first, there was some hesitation for the first few bites but then they caught on.

Ops, Mommy forgot to pour your milk. Here ya go… What the????

A drop of food color in the glass before they came down to the table and I was prepped for trick number 2.

Off to school after a few; “Your sock is untied” and “There’s a bug on your nose” and then I was busy plotting my dinner plans.

 

 

Jell-o in a drinking glass with a straw makes for some “hard to drink” juice. (I’ve done this one before but they love it)

For the entrée I made “pasta” I put some off-white icing in a piping bag. I chilled the bowl first so the icing would hold shape nicely. Then I filled the dish with “squiggles” (that’s a technical term).

 

Now for the meatballs and sauce I used Ferrero Rocher Chocolates and seedless red raspberry jam.

 

The only thing missing was a veggie. Oh but wait…I have the perfect fix.

Broccoli!!

 

I grabbed a handful of green tootsie rolls from the “pick your own” candy bin, borrowed a tablespoon of icing from the “pasta” (added a few drops of food color) and then finished the look with some dark green jimmies.

 

I popped the unwrapped tootsies rolls in the microwave for 5 seconds to soften them up slightly. Then I sliced halfway down each one and pulled the side out like tiny tree branches. Dip the cut ends into colored icing then into the jimmies and you have...

 

broccoli tops!!

 

 

The kids were thrilled with the not so healthy dinner. But what kind of Mom would I be if that is all I had them eat??? They had to have dessert too!! What better dessert than meatloaf cupcakes?

Sounds gross right?

I make a meatloaf but shaped it into cupcake sized balls and baked. Then when they were ready, I put them into a cupcake paper and cover them with (blue) mashed potato icing.

I did manage to get the “pasta” away from them while we ate our “cupcakes”. After dinner, we used Nilla wafers to scoop the pasta up for a tasty treat.

The effort is well worth it to see those smiling faces and hear them laugh and joke with each other. They have been warned that next year’s tricks will be slightly more devilish… Mwahh ha ha haaa….

Clever Ideas 2

Way back when…I did a post about some of my clever ideas. It was a fun post and I started jotting down more ideas right away, for a second post. Um, it’s been awhile and I could only come up with a few more ideas. Sadly, I must be all tapped out of “clever ideas”.

Anyway, here are the additional ideas that I came up with.

If you’re having a hard time hiding that extra long electrical cord try coiling the cord. Wrap the cord around a pencil to shape it into a spring. After a minute you can slide the pencil out and the cord will lie down nicely.

This one is to help with those wire rack shelves. I have them in my pantry and it’s can be hard to get a can to sit right on them without tipping. Cut a sheet of poster board to fit the size of your shelf and then cover that with some contact paper. The contact paper makes the new shelf insert easy to wipe off and keep clean.

Did you ever come up short on silverware? There are times when the dishwasher isn’t full yet but I’m out of spoons. Or when you have extra people in for birthdays or the holidays and you need a few extra sets of silverware to go around. You can get some nice silverware at most discount stores and hold onto them for times like these. I bought two draw organizers and put the second set in one and then stacked them on top of each other.

This one was on my list but I already did a post about how to flavor popcorn.

Don’t forget about making coffee cubes for you iced coffee too.

Okay, I’m out. Do you have any clever ideas to share???

Clever Ideas

Here are just a few ideas that I thought were clever:

1. Keep a few bungee cords in the trunk of your car. You never know when you might purchase something large and need to strap down the lid. Always be prepared.

2. Keep one or two mini-sized Doodle boards (the kind with the magnet pens) The kids can use them to practice writing letters and numbers or you can do the writing and quiz them (If there is another person driving or you’re stuck waiting in a parking lot or heavy traffic).

3. Want to use some planters on your deck but not sure how to keep them from falling off? Double up. Screw the first one onto the ledge (or strap down with wire) and then set the other one inside. This makes it really easy to bring them in for a late season frost or even a severe thunderstorm. Also, if you plant something that grows towards the sun then you can turn the pot/plant easily.

4. Add a little whimsy to your weekend. Put a smile on your pancake. Add a few drops of water to a little syrup and a drop or two of food color then use a Q-tip to draw on a smile.

5. When I pack snacks or lunch for school, I always put a note on the napkin. It started with a simple picture and then when she could read, I started to use small words now we are up to phrases. It’s my way of letting her know I’m thinking of her while she is away from me. (A friend of mine did this with her kids until they were in high school. Although to save them from humiliation in front of their peers, the notes turned into simple smiley faces and then to two dots just as a subtle reminder.

6. The next time you get something that is in a large box, cut off the side of the box and save it under your bed or behind your dresser. This will come in handy the next time you need it for a craft or to make a painted T-shirt.

7. Get a roll of craft paper to have on hand. You can find it in white or brown. It’s great to have if you need to ship a package, or for a craft. I use the white to make my own wrapping paper when I run out or forget to get some new. You’ll see in an upcoming post that I even used it for a puppet stage.

8. Make a choke-E checker. Cover the cardboard inside a roll of toilet tissue with some contact paper and teach young children to use their new tool to see if items are safe to have around a baby. If it can fit in the tube, they can’t let the baby play with it. (works most of the time)

9. Put a bunch of candles or tea lights and some matches in a cookie tin and place it somewhere easy to get to in the dark. This will come in handy during a power outage.

10. Make your own Popsicles using jell-o they melt much slower…less mess.

What sort of little tricks or clever ideas do you like?