Have you been fooled on April Fool’s Day?

Cross-posted from my other blog.

My girls love to be tricked on April Fool’s Day. Every year I try to do something and every year they try to trick Mike and I. I’m always on my guard so I have spoiled it for them more times than I care to remember. That just makes them try harder and look forward to next year. This year I asked them if it’s OK to do something mean. The kids were just so desperate to be fooled that they totally agreed it would be just dandy. I just happened to make a doctor’s appointment for their looooong overdue shots on April 1st and I figured I’ll tell them I’ll take them out for ice-cream but take them to the doctor’s instead. Yeah, I got a strike of mean in me. heeheehee

They failed to fooled me yet again and I did take them out for ice-cream last night - twice as a matter of fact, both times after the shots, though.

A couple of years ago they came up with the best trick and it was probably the only time they had really fooled me. April 1st fell on a weekend and they woke up before us and switched the inside bags of each cereal box we had. Quite a feat considering we had about 17 different ones at the time. So, I was groggy enough when I woke up that I haven’t noticed what was going on until I started eating. Then, I was all, did I get the wrong box? I could’ve swore I got the one I wanted, WTH? They were delighted that it worked and I thought I would be annoyed that I was tricked, but instead I was all proud that they finally ‘got’ me!

St. Patrick’s Day 2008

Sullivan the leprechaun arrived as usual on St. Patrick’s Day with a few tricks up his sleeve. He didn’t turn the whole milk jug green this time. Instead, he dabbed a little green dye on the bottom of the cereal bowls and cups, so the milk did turn green after all. Also, when we flushed, the water in the toilet bowl turned green. Let see, what else did he do… Oh, yeah, he covered Melody’s bed ladder in plastic wrap. Luckily her foot went right through it, so, no accidents. He stayed for a few days and one of the mornings I hear Passion say “I’m gonna kill Sully!” I looked at her sitting on the ground with her jeans pulled half way up, laughing. Turns out that Sully has sown the bottom of her jeans shut.

Another important thing that happened while he was here is the fact that our family will have two spy elves come December. In the after-Christmas sale, Passion found this doll that she said looks like Seamus and Sullivan, and insisted we buy it. Well, when Sully came over and saw it, he let the girls know that that was ‘old Galahad’s likeness’ from the North Pole. He’s put them in touch with each other and now Galahad has just let Passion know that he will definitely be coming to our house before Christmas.

They’re still welcome in my house…

And that’s because, even though they have done some messy things, they also cleaned up after themselves if we didn’t have time or didn’t feel like it. And they did some sweet things too, like finish decorating the tree when the girls secretly asked them to, since they were too tired. After they told me, I asked them to finish my cleaning to see if it would work, and, guess what. It did! They even cleaned the vacuum (my least favourite thing to do). There was also the time they have used our digital camera to take pictures of themselves, which made us realize that we have this timer feature on the camera we didn’t know about. It came in useful not long after.

Ok, so here are some more photos of Seamus and Sully during their visit:

Having a 'snowball' fight

They took this picture of themselves snooping thru some gifts

They invited some Winx dolls to play monopoly with them

Sitting around a little tree they brought us one night

Another picture they took of themselves

Binging on Halloween candy. Melody was really mad when she saw how much of her loot they ate!

Seamus looks like he’s got a tummy ache

Sullivan having some green candy

When you’re hosting a spy elf…

…you have to know you’re kids behaviour will be at their best. And if they slip up, the elf will be reminding them, either by email or through notes left on the computer. At least that’s what Seamus was doing last December. He arrived on December 1st, and brought snow with him. We live in the Pacific Northwest where we don’t see snow often, so that made it very special. Every morning the girls would look through the whole house searching for Seamus, making sure he was still with us. He was found in the weirdest places. Then, on the 8th, Sullivan the Leprechaun decided to join his cousin Seamus, spending some time with us. His idea of fun is doing as much mischief as he could talk Seamus into doing every night. I shudder to think what he would’ve done if he would have been left on his own. The first morning after he arrived, we found a note from Seamus saying “I told him not to do it!” (written backwards, of course) .

Click on photos to enlarge.

This is what ‘it’ was

Making snow angels on the kitchen counter

Using 25 lbs rice to make a sledding hill

Playing some card game

They dared unwrap one of my gifts, so they could watch the DVD

I’ll add some more photos of their exploits later.     

Leprechauns Antics

To continue the story, while Sullivan was here for the next ten days or so, he would just look like a toy during the day, but at night he would be doing all kind of crazy things. He would use the computer to email the girls, answering any questions they had. I don’t remember every thing he did (can’t blame me for trying to block out some memories) and we didn’t get to take pictures of all of them, but the funniest trick was played on Melody. She woke up one morning to find her underwear box empty, so she just borrowed a pair of panties from Passion and blamed Sully for the disappearance. We should’ve known there was more to it, seeing as we found him sitting on top of Passion’s swing, covering his mouth with one hand. I could swear I heard him snicker when I took the picture!

Right before Melody had to leave for school she remembered something she needed to put in her backpack. Imagine her shock when she found all her underwear stuffed amongst her school books. Let me tell you, she was not happy at all with the leprechaun’s sense of humor! At least she was spared the embarrassment of discovering them  in front of her class!

Well, lets see, what else I remember… Every morning the kids would rush to see if Sully was still with us. One time they couldn’t find him, so they thought that he finally had to leave. Later he was discovered in the box of Lucky Charms, munching on a piece of cereal.

Then, there was the incident with the floss. One morning we woke up to find the bathroom covered in floss and Sully floating in the middle of the web. I have no idea what he was trying to do. I’m pretty sure that if he was flossing, there wouldn’t have been floss wrapped around the lightbulbs, the shower head or door knob. Maybe he was trying to weave a pretty spider web, but failed when his long nose got weaved right in the middle of it. Well, at least he didn’t use my favourite floss, so I didn’t mind much. The thing that I minded was when I was almost late taking the girls to school because I had to clean frost off of my car. We found the garage empty that morning and my Isuzu Rodeo was pulled almost sideways at the bottom of the driveway. And who was hopelessly tangled in the steering wheel? That’s right: good ole’ Sully. Well, let me tell ya, I had no clue what a difference parking in the garage makes! And how the heck did he actually drive that far? There was no key in the ignition…

So, Sully was enjoying himself so much that he decided to invite his cousin Seamus over to show him what a cool place he has landed himself in. Well, no wonder he was having fun. Besides all the tricks and exploring he got to do at night, he was being included in all the fun activities during the day by the girls and Mike. They even played Foosball together: girls vs. boys. The girls won, but barely.

Here is one more picture of Sully after his movie night. We had no popcorn in the house, so I have no clue where he got that from…