I put snakes in their beds...

One of my favorite days of the year is April 1st.  I've been known to play a prank or two in my day.  It started back in college when my friend Mandi would pull pranks on me.  One year she taped up saran wrap over my bedroom door in such a way it was invisible after I had gone to sleep.  And in the middle of the night when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was scared out of my mind when I walked into something I couldn't see, but could definitely feel.

Then after Jarrett and I got married we started pulling innocent pranks on each other.  And then when we moved to Arizona we pulled a prank on our family the first year, and pretended Jarrett was attacked by aggressive Arizona moles that lived in the backyard of my grandparents home where we were living.  We scratched up Jarrett's legs (we were serious about our pranks) and wrapped his legs in bandages and called my parents back in Iowa to tell them we were headed to urgent care as Jarrett had been injured.  The prank worked perfectly and we had many people believing us, that indeed there were moles that lived in the desert and indeed they were very dangerous.  Our family totally fell for it and as we peeled back Jarrett's bandages to show them his perfectly preserved legs, they realized the date and we shouted, "April Fools!"

I've pulled a few pranks on the boys to the point that they are now suspicious when the date comes around. Here's a video from two years ago when I told the boys I broke my leg after I was in a bicycle accident on my way home from work...

This year, when the calendar turned to April 1st, they were on their game ready for any possible prank I was about to pull.  To their luck, I wasn't feeling very well that day, to the point where I decided my pranks were gonna have to wait.

That is until last night....earlier in the week I had to run to the candy store to pick up a special treat Jarrett asked me to get and when I walked in the door of the candy place, I immediately saw these...

Yes, those are 3 foot long gummy snakes.  And they look pretty real (even with the plastic wrap on them).  The minute I saw them, I had an idea and decided I just HAD to buy them.  So I did.

I then came home, removed the packaging as much as I could without opening them and then I carefully placed them in the boys' bed...

After placing them in a way where I knew the boys would definitely feel them the minute they climbed under the covers, I then carefully placed their top blankets over top...

 See can't tell... and I was even purposeful in making sure I didn't make their bed "too" good or they would know something was up.

Then I waited all afternoon, and evening until the boys came home.  We ate dinner, got ready for bed and I grew more and more excited for bedtime.  Jarrett and the boys disappeared into their room to read The Hobbit as they do most nights and I went into Isabelle's room to read to her before bed.  As I read to her, I listened with one ear waiting for them next door to get to the point when it was time to crawl under their covers.

A few pages before the end of Isabelle's book, I heard Gabriel scream in a voice about 3 octaves higher than Isabelle's highest voice, and then I smiled.  I knew exactly what had just happened.
About 30 seconds later, both boys appeared outside of Isabelle's room with their snakes hanging from their arms... "Thanks Mom for the candy snake." they said.  Followed by "You scared the freak out of me."  I started laughing and said, "You're welcome.  Now its time for bed.  They both went back to their room with their snakes and laughed for a few more minutes.

While it was April 14, I felt I had continued my tradition of pulling an innocent prank on them.
Today when I picked up the boys they said, "Mom, we told all our friends, you put snakes in our bed."  Oh what their friends must think...

Until next time,
Angie