Fiori Pasta and Bunny Garlic Bread (343)

I have vowed to read my camera’s manual this time, but I still wanted to take some pictures anyway, so while I’m still reading, I had read enough to figure out how to snap a picture. I took some of my bento this morning, but much to my utter disappointment, I took the wrong USB cord and my pictures are stuck on my camera. Luckily I’m not completely moronic and took pictures on both cameras!

I had bought materials to make a bigger lightbox, but I’m still stuck on where the heck in Hawaii I can get my hands on some WHITE masking tape. I can find cream and blue, but no white. I’ve been to Home Depot, Lowes, Longs, Walmart, and Target. No white masking tape. I suspect it is hiding in some super secret specialty store along with the fiori pasta that I had to trade with someone on the mainland for.

I’ve used some of that pasta today, since I only took spaghetti sauce from dinner the other night. This pasta is really yummy, I’m a big fan! I put a little piece of broccoli in the middle for better color. In the other layer I have some bunny shaped garlic bread, in celebration of Easter!

Now that I’ve mentioned Easter, I can go into my rant about how much I despise the commercialization of the holiday. We were at Grandma J’s last night when I realized that today is the last day of school before Easter and I had nothing to send. Every year I tell myself I’m going to boycott the stupid goodie basket frenzy, but then I think about all the other parents that do it and I just feel bad. I found myself at Pricebusters 10 minutes later and 20 minutes after that I was forking over $76 in freaking Easter candy for 32 kids.

I didn’t do big baskets this year like I did before, when Baby Girl had a smaller class. Seriously, it’s ridiculous when the classes get this big. I found cute paper bags and filled them with a little white chocolate bunny, Easter gummies, Fun Dip, and a little carton of Easter Whoppers. Thank you, Price Busters for dirt cheap candy, I was able to get all 32 bags done for $2.37 each. I’d have raged otherwise. I suppose I should look at it as payment for the disgusting amounts of candy my children will be bringing home tonight. My hips and thighs are already bracing themselves.

At least this way I can just buy a basket and steal candy from their classmates’ bag and make it look like my own Easter basket. I know this sounds freaking evil, but if you saw the massive amount of floor that the goodie bags took up at Baby Girl’s school (about 8′ x 3′, you would understand that the last thing my kids need is more sweets from Mom and Dad. Their teeth will thank me later. The haul will be massive for her this year.

I used my sandwich cutters to make the bread. I cut the heads out, pressed the faces in, then lightly buttered them with butter spread. After that I sprinkled garlic salt on top and toasted them in my toaster over. I made 8 from 2 slices of bread and tucked in some broccoli and mandarin orange for color. Aren’t they cuuute?

I enjoy decorating eggs, so while I may be Mrs. Grinch with the baskets, I’d decorate 2 dozen eggs if I had the time and patience. I love Easter egg hunts too, mostly because the ones of my childhood at Jenn’s house were so much fun. Expect a blog about Jello eggs over the weekend!

I should note that when it comes to my kids, I love the first 2 or 3 egg hunts. When we start getting into the 10th one, I feel like just eating them or “hiding” them in the garbage can. Eventually I lose it and finally put them away, even with the little kids wailing like I’m the wicked witch. Hopefully this year Buddy will be better at egg hunting. Last year he was too slow, so an adult would point one out to him, which led to Baby Girl or my niece to dash at the egg. At this point, Buddy would go, “Awwwwww!” and make a pout face while they found more and more eggs. Silly boy.