April Fools!

Caleb turns eight on April 4th. He was so excited to get to have a "friends" birthday party this year. We decided to have the party at Super Franks on Saturday, April 4th. He was excited about having a party on his ACTUAL birthday. Little did he know, we were planning a little April Fool's prank for him this year. When he got home from school on April 1st, I explained that Lauren and Andrew were at Natalie's house, so we needed to go pick them up. He reluctantly got in the car, and brought a book along after I told him we were going to make a couple of stops. We went to Michaels for a minute and then I drove to Super Franks. He was still reading, and completely oblivious to anything. When I told him we needed to run in there for just a minute, he got out of the car, not even realizing where we were. When we got to the door, he asked, "why are we at Super Franks?" I told him we needed to check on our reservation for Saturday's party (we didn't even make reservations for Wednesday's party, but he seemed to buy it). As we walked in and started looking around, I walked towards the arcade and saw the party set up, but no one was there. Then we got closer, and his friends and Dad jumped out from behind the table shouting "April Fool's!" "Surprise!" "Happy Birthday!" They were perfect! I wish we could have captured Caleb's expression. His face went white, he looked weak, and he seemed just shocked and confused. Then he asked, "My party's today?" and I joined in the chorus of "April Fools" and "Surprise!"

The boys went nuts, running around and jumping on Caleb. At last we got them to join us at the table, telling them they had to play a game in order to earn tokens. The game was "Fool or Fact", which was a little quiz about Caleb and his favorite things. Caleb read the questions and the kids held up cards that said "FOOL" or "FACT" depending on their guesses. They took this very seriously and Caleb was a strict enforcer of the rules.
Here a sampling from the quiz...I thought I would stump them, but they actually got most of them right.

April Fool or Fact?

• The first rank in boy scouts is BOBCAT (Fact)
• “Be prepared” is the scout oath. (Fool)
• I don’t like ice cream. (fact)
• The Pokemon “Horsea” can use its black ink to draw pictures or issue warnings (Fact)
• Mace Windu’s lightsaber is purple (fact)
• In the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a robin leads the children to the beavers. (fact)
• This party is the best April Fool’s joke anyone has ever done on me! (fact)

There were about twenty of these. Caleb did not like the last one! When the game was over, I pretended to tally the scores, and then said, "April Fool's, you all get 25 tokens!" We doled them out to help them stretch out the fun, but one boy burned through the first allotment in about 45 seconds flat.

The boys played lots of games, and we basically had the place to ourselves, which made it easy to keep track of everyone. They golfed in the neon jungle mini golf course (lit by black light so everything glows). Since they were the only ones there, they got to play each hole a few times and didn't care much about playing the right way or keeping score. Once the balls started flying through the air, I could tell it was time to move on to the next activity, so we went downstairs for food. They gobbled up the pizzas and then played more games until it was time for presents and cake. One boy tricked Caleb by wrapping a rock. The look on Caleb's face when he opened it was priceless. He also got a present wrapped in toilet paper!

For the final April fool's gag, we had hot dog and pizza cakes--I thought they turned out pretty realistic, even though they were made with twinkies, frosting and candy. Caleb tried to blow out his candles on the hot dog cake, but of course they were "trick" candles--haha. Before I knew it, the boys got into their goodie bags and started playing tricks on one another with squirt rings, chewed up "gum", fake bugs, etc. They are at the perfect age for this kind of stuff. I was so happy we pulled off a fun April Fool's party for our Caleb, who loves to play jokes and tell jokes. Happy April Fool's Birthday, buddy!