One year there was the Oreo cookie with a toothpaste center.

Another time, a sponge cake was made out of real sponge.

Then there was the underwear — about a dozen sewn together, making it impossible to dress in the morning.

For the Leonardi family of Kapolei, April Fools' Day pranks center mainly on one innocent victim.

"My husband was born on April Fools' Day, so, needless to say, my three children and I love to pull pranks on him," said Regina Leonardi.

Her husband, Attilio Leonardi Jr. — son of former Honolulu Fire Chief Attilio Leonardi — takes all the harmless jokes in stride.

"It's nothing mean-spirited and the kids get a kick out of it," said Leonardi Jr., 41, a real estate agent. "I just play along while they watch me, giggling."

Today is April Fools' Day, the one day each year when pranksters try to come up with — and can get away with — their trickiest tricks ever. We asked readers to share memorable practical jokes and April Fools' traditions with family or friends.

Stay-at-home mom Regina Leonardi, 40, and her children have made it a tradition to come up with tricks to play on dad each year on his birthday.

"My children and I also created a phony tipped-over Jamba Juice spill on his car seat, and made a long roll of Silly Putty coming out of a tube of toothpaste to look like a bathroom counter toothpaste squirt disaster," Regina Leonardi said. "We generally like to do a 'big spill' trick because he's a very neat, clean and tidy guy."

Attilio Leonardi Jr. looks forward to what they try to come up with each year, and this year's no exception.

"When you're born on April 1st, I guess it just comes with the birth date," Leonardi Jr. said and laughed. "It's helped me have a sense of humor."

The Holck household in Kailua has its own beloved April Fools' Day tradition.

"Every April Fools' morning for the last 20 years, my children would put a rubber band around the sprayer in the kitchen sink so that when I come down to make my coffee and turn on the water, they would have it aimed just right and it would soak me," e-mailed Steve Holck, 53.

It's been a favorite prank of his three children. Now his three grandchildren like to get in on the fun.

"You'd think I'd learn," he quipped. "All right, sometimes I notice the rubber band, but I let them have their laugh. Then I turn the kitchen sprayer on them. It makes a great mess in the kitchen, but it is worth it."

Then there are those one-time jokes that become instant family classics.

Virginia Hollingsworth of Waipi'o Gentry still remembers a prank her father tried to play on her mother some 40 years ago — but it didn't quite go as planned.

"The furniture store told my parents that they would call to advise when the newly purchased dining room set would be delivered," e-mailed Hollingsworth, 63, a retired underwriting assistant. "On April Fools' Day, my father had a secretary call (my mother) to say the furniture would be delivered that day. When my father called to say 'April Fool,' the line was busy."

Every time Hollingsworth's father tried to call her mother, there was no answer.

"My mother had called my grandfather to help her move the old dining room set to the garage. She emptied the old buffet while grandfather took out the chairs, then together they wrestled the buffet and table down the driveway and into the garage. My father finally got his chance to say 'April Fool' when he got home from work. We had to eat dinner in the kitchen until the new furniture arrived the following week."

For Hollingsworth's mother, the joke wasn't exactly a funny one.

"My mother learned to laugh about this — years later," Hollingsworth said with a chuckle.

IN THE OFFICE

Island pranksters don't prey only on family members. Co-workers and close friends are often favorite targets of April Fools' antics.

Just ask Lance Wong, 49, who twice tricked a couple of unassuming colleagues.

"I raised a co-worker's desk by placing phone books under it," e-mailed Wong, a computer operations specialist from 'Aiea. "He didn't notice it. So I added more when he left his desk. Somehow he still didn't notice it. He finally (did) after I lowered his chair."

The second prank was much easier to pull off, Wong said.

"Another co-worker had a wireless mouse. I disconnected it and plugged my wired mouse into his terminal. I followed his moves as close as possible with some strays. He took apart his mouse and cleaned the ball so many times. (He) finally gave up and brought out his wired mouse. Gig was up when I clicked on an icon that brought up an April Fools' Web site."

Hollingsworth recalls two of her favorite office practical jokes: The best was to fill someone's umbrella with the contents of paper punches, so when they opened it, they would be covered in confetti.

"A second was to slide out a middle desk drawer, put cardboard over its contents, turn it upside down, slide it back in the desk and remove the cardboard," Hollingsworth e-mailed. "When the desk drawer was opened, all the contents would fall in their laps."

As students living in the dorms at Hawai'i Pacific University several years ago, Shawn Lathrop and his roommate were quite the sneaky jokesters. Lathrop has always been proud of one particular prank, which was pulled on April Fools' Day in 1995.

"We had been in the midst of a 'prank war' with the girls who lived below us, and decided to deal the final blow," e-mailed Lathrop, 34, of Waikoloa. "We snuck into their dorm room from the adjacent joining room and pushed every piece of furniture up against their door. Then we took a jar of Vicks VapoRub and smeared it on every conceivable surface they might touch, including the buttons on their phone, the handles on their desk drawers, door knobs, the toilet seat, the toilet handle, faucet handles, etc."

The beauty of the prank was its longevity, said Lathrop, a probation officer.

"For at least a week, they were finding the VapoRub in one place or another and we would hear their cries of disgust from our room above," Lathrop said. "They finally surrendered and we were proclaimed the prank champions. Good times. Good times."