April Fool’s!

Don’t forget what today is!  Be smart and on the lookout for your tricky friends!  And you BE a tricky friend!    I love pranks, and I have a few in the works…  It’s an art to balance between the believable and the ridiculous.  You have to have a little of both for the joke to come off.

Last night Jason’s mom came by for a surprise quick visit and since we weren’t going to see her today, I told the kids we could do an April Fool’s joke on her.  This was their first experience with April Fool’s, and I must say they jumped in wholeheartedly!  We are headed to Florida tomorrow for spring break.  When she came in I said, “Well we were debating whether or not to tell you this, but since you are here we thought we would.  While we are in Florida for Spring Break, Jason has an interview at a church there, and it looks pretty promising.”  She was not too thrilled.  (Meanwhile in the background Everett is saying, “We’re going to tell you a joke!  We’re going to tell you a joke!  We’re going to tell you a joke!”  I guess she couldn’t hear him or something.)  I gave her a minute or so to absorb it.  She asked where we were interviewing, and I said Orlando.  We were giggling though so I fessed up.  She said she believed us though! 

This is a believable joke somewhat b’c we’ve moved 10 times in our 11 years of marriage.  Now we’ve only been at three churches once we started ministry – which we’ve now been in for almost 9 years – (WOW?!?!  Are we that old??)  The longest we’ve stayed in one house was three years – our very first condo and pre-full time ministry.  We will have been in this house for three years in November of this year.  So she wouldn’t have been shocked that we were moving, but I think she was very glad we weren’t.  ME TOO!  I’m ready to stay put.

I also called my friend that we are going to Florida with and told her that Nolan’s pink eye was back and rampant (he just got it on Sunday and has been clear for a couple of days now) and that Everett’s eyes were itchy too.  She did believe me, but being the good friend she is didn’t really overreact.  Just said it was fine but that we may not let the kids ride with each other to give us some more healing time.  After I told her I was kidding, she said she was on guard for me and knew I’d do something.  I knew I couldn’t do anything too big to her.

I also told Katie Beth it was snowing outside and school was cancelled for today.  Wow, kids are a whole new fun set of people to play jokes on!  She ran to the window and looked outside and laughed.  But, Jason took her to school, and he said he got pelted in the car.  “Can I have some money?”, “Why do you need money Katie Beth?”  “April Fools!!”  “Look Dad, the sun isn’t shining!!”  “Where?” (playing along like a good Daddy should”  “April Fools, look over there – it IS shining!!”

I remember one year as a kid taking Monopoly money to give the lunch lady at school.  I thought that was hilariously well thought out.

I’ve convinced Jason on a couple of April Fool’s over the years that I was pregnant.  Or in labor.  He’s very trusting.  And I’m very believable!

So, I’m done for the day.    No more jokes.  Ok, well, I may look at Family Fun’s recipe posts for something goofy to make for dinner.  Look here for videos or here for non-videos.  But, that requires a lot more work to do than maybe I want to do… Look here too for their whole list of ideas.

Are you pulling any April Fool’s jokes today?  What are you doing – tell us!  Or wait until tomorrow and come back and tell us what you did!

Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us God gives us times to laugh!  Make sure your jokes aren’t cruel – imagine if they were done to you if you would still laugh.  And some people, no matter what, don’t like pranks pulled on them.  So be sensitive!  But, laugh people – laugh!