Instead of cooking fancy, time-consuming recipes for an early April Fool’s Day dinner, I decided to create a memory instead, by setting an unusual mood. A unique mood. A mood that would fool us all. Instead of serving dinner inside, where it was warm and cozy, last night we ate OUTSIDE!

I invited our close friends over and when I asked their family to dress warmly - they did! They arrived with coats, hats, boots and all! I wanted to try something different – and different it was, as we ate outside on the patio, trying out our newly purchased (yard-sale) patio heater!

After searching the internet and other blogs for creative April Fool’s dinner ideas, I decided I did not have the time to cook the recipes that I found. What I found was how to turn your dessert into a main dish, or your salad into dessert. I certainly did not have the energy to make a large cake out of meatloaf, frosted with mashed potatoes, mustard and ketchup. Or a dessert that looks and tastes like taco salad! They looked over-the-top, too complicated for me. (Plus, I am very visual, and I rarely find helpful pictures to go along with these crazy ideas).

What I wanted to create was a memory for our families. Something that our families would look back and remember on this cold day, eating outside with a heater, sharing stories and a lot of energetic laughter. But what made the ambience really unique last night is that it started to snow! Big huge flakes were coming down. Although the snow didn’t stick, the temps dropped rapidly.

Mission accomplished! It was such a winner of a dinner, that if you come back for my next post, I will share the EASY recipes that I served, and then what came down during dessert time. Because at dessert time we moved the party inside, snuggled up on the couch together, and created more memories.

As I’ve said throughout many past blog posts, our guests are not going to remember the meals that were served but the mood that was created. Keeping things simple, fun, and creative is what works for me!

And I ain’t fooling ya, either! (It truly did snow!!)

Does your family have friends that you create unique memories with?

(Photos: What started off to be a beautiful, sunny afternoon turned into a very cold evening. Our new commercial patio heater, $125 yard sale special on Friday (regular price, from internet $569), worked fabulously! With warm clothing and our new heater, we didn’t care what the temperature was!)