April Fooled!

In the past I have wanted to do April Fool's pranks but couldn't think of anything. And I'm not very good at lying. Well, last night I heard this great idea from a neighbor, decided to do it, and had a lot of fun! I make dinner for everyone (my in-laws, their two daughters, my daughter and me) every Wednesday night anyway, so this was perfect. I had them stay away from the kitchen because dinner was going to be a surprise. I made meatloaf with ground turkey, baked it in a metal cupcake pan, and made instant mashed potatoes. Before serving the "cupcakes" (meatloaf) I put the mashed potatoes into bowls and added food coloring so we had what looked like pink frosting and blue frosting. When we were ready to eat I said, "Because it's April Fool's Day we're having dessert first. Take a bite and tell me what kind of cupcake you think this is." Nobody tried to guess, but it was obvious they were eating real food and I could tell they liked it. I said, "April Fool's!" and told them what the meal was. Since I doubled the recipe we ended up with leftovers; it made about 20 cupcakes. (Our side dishes were thawed mixed berries and romaine lettuce with snap peas.)

Then I called my mom. Before telling her about the funny dinner I fooled her; she was completely convinced. :) I said I was calling about this weekend, which is when she is going to watch Shboogoo while I get to go see my husband for three days. (The Army is paying for both the soldiers and their spouses to fly to another state. Part of the time we have to listen to deployment info that we probably already know, but the rest of the time will be fun.) She had a question about when I was going to be leaving, and I said -- trying to sound sad -- that actually the Army cancelled the whole thing. I said I didn't really understand it, but they needed the time for their unit's training. My mom said something like, "That's terrible!" I let her go on feeling sorry for us for a minute, and then told her, "April Fool's!"