Busy Baking!

This morning has been pretty fun. We started off by hunting down our Easter baskets. I had hidden Jeff's in our cooler, under some plastic bags. I thought it was a good place because his lunch box is actually pretty much a mini cooler - it's plastic inside and everything. He found it eventually. Jeff had my ramekins hidden high in a kitchen cupboard, camouflaged behind all the vitamins and supplements. Zaylee's chalk was in her booster seat under her bib. She was so excited when she saw it. We had taped a chocolate bunny and some plastic easter eggs filled with jelly beans on top of the little bucket, and that just thrilled her.

As for Thomas, we pretty much just gave him the new pacifiers. Bad news with that - he can't stand them. The ones he had (we just threw one away because the rubber nipple was so worn) were Parent's Choice, and we've had them for a while. When we bought the new ones, we realized that Parent's Choice apparently doesn't make the same style anymore, and so we bought some different PC binkies, figuring that since they're the same brand, they'll pretty much be similar enough that Thomas won't mind. Wrong. They are very different. The nipples are much smaller, and apparently quite a bit more slippery, as he can hardly keep them in his mouth. We're debating whether to keep trying to get him accustomed to these, or just go buy some new ones to try and find some he will like.

After our Easter hunt and breakfast, we got busy getting ready for our big family dinner tonight. Jeff and I have been assigned to bring the bread and a pie. Jeff was in charge of the pie crust, while I made the cherry filling (no "open the can, dump in the filling, and bake" for me! I did use canned cherries, but turned them into actual cherry pie filling all on my own). He rolled out the bottom crust and fitted it into the plate, and I did the lattice top. As we baked it, I was extremely grateful that Jeff suggested we bake it set in a large pan lined with foil. The filling was a bit too filling, and spilled profusely out the sides of the pie. That could have been a huge mess! As it is, we have to get the goopy foil unstuck from the bottom of the pan, but at least the oven isn't coated in burnt, gooped-up cherry pie filling.

Oh yeah, the oven. As Jeff opened the oven to take out the little pastry strips he made with the leftover pastry, the handle fell off halfway. It has two places where it's attached to the door, and one of them came unscrewed. The head end of the screw is inside the door, covered with metal, and we can't get to it. Great. But at least the other half was attached, so we could still open the door and get the pie out later. Until Zaylee decided to pull the handle the rest of the way off. Now our oven is inaccessible. That should make it fun to do the dinner rolls later.

We have the dough for the rolls going in the bread machine (yes, I'm a cheater, but at least I shape the dough myself). When the dough is ready, I'll shape it into butterfly shapes. There was a link on Rachel's recipe blog for an article on how to shape dinner rolls. I printed it out and plan to have fun using this guy's tips on making beautiful dinner rolls for tonight. If we can get the oven open.