Faux food

Happy April Fools' Day!  We celebrated this silly, mixed-up holiday at our house today.  Violet celebrated by waking up at 4:30am, but the rest of the kids waited until normal business hours to begin the day.  When they woke up, I gave them some special juice for breakfast (red jello).  Ellie noticed right away that the juice wasn't moving in the cup, but they still both tried to drink it through the straws stuck in the jello. 

I explained to them about April Fools' Day, and they decided they wanted to trick Daddy.  So, we turned his desk chair, laptop tray, and laptop upside down - and he definitely was fooled.  I think he was worried that it had all been knocked down until the kids yelled, "April Fools!" 

We then made some slimey goo that the kids played with while I made lunch for them.  Grilled cheese!  Well, if you can call angel food cake with cream cheese frosting - toasted on the skillet - grilled cheese.  I did :)  I tinted the frosting orange with sweet potato puree, so that means it was healthy enough to serve for lunch, right?  It sure fooled Ellie, because she ate the whole thing before I finally told her it was not grilled cheese.  She just thought it was really good.



The kids also requested their crazy straws to drink from.  And I guess even their real lunch was faux, because it was meatless "chicken" patties.  That wasn't even planned :)

Ellie decided to dress silly for school, which meant lots of layers and some inside-out clothing.  I don't think anyone really noticed her crazy style (maybe it is a little too usual for her?).  She had a classmate come home with her and stay for dinner, and I planned an April Fools' dinner just for him, because he is such a funny guy who loves to laugh.  First, I told them that we would eat backwards and have cupcakes first.

Of course they were not really cupcakes, but meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top.  I tinted the potatoes with beet puree (can you believe that bright scarlet color is from one tablespoon of beets?)  The kids didn't think that joke was so funny, because they really wanted cupcakes.  But I promised them that a treat was in the works.  After they ate their "cupcakes" I brought them some spaghetti and meatballs.  Or was it?

Looks like spaghetti to me!

They were pleased with this look-alike.  It was a small piece of angel food cake with frosting piped into noodle shapes.  The meatballs are whoppers and the sauce is strawberry jam. 

It was a day filled with sugar, but also with lots of laughs.  There were a lot of crazy jokes played on each other, with shouts of "April Fools!"  But the only one who fooled me was Mother Nature - it's not supposed to snow in April!