Tonio's Star Student

            This week, in Mrs. Rienstra's class, Antonio is the 'Star Student'!    He gets to make and 'all about me' poster and share this with the class, so they get to know more about each other this way.  He came home bubbling with excitement and asked if we could run to Fry's right away to pick up a poster board.  Tonio took great pride in scanning through our photos and choosing the perfect ones for his poster.  He printed them, trimmed them down and laid them out the way he wanted to, carefully gluing them down.  He wrote a little about each photo.  When he finished this part of the poster, he decided to go back and draw some colorful pictures of other things he likes.  I was pretty proud of him!

         First of all, in the upper left hand corner, Tonio put a picture of him, Cody and Autumn at Mission Beach.  He said it was his favorite place to be.  In the right corner, there is a picture of Tonio and Bella sitting together on the couch.  He wanted to put his favorite music artists on his poster and decided on Eminem and Bob Marley! Favorite movie?  'Rango'.   Lower left corner, eating pizza, his favorite food, with Cody.  And lower right - his family, at his favorite restaurant, Zona 78.  His drawings: a lizard, frog, puppy and a star above the heads of him, Cody and Autumn at the beach...He was so thoughtful as he chose each 'favorite', and sweet.

        This morning, I started the bambini, including Brendon, off with a big breakfast of hash browns, pancakes and bacon.  They all ate well.  While doing this, I decided to try to make Kim's banana bread, so the kids could eat it for breakfast or an after school snack.

            It actually came out good - the bambini couldn't wait for me to take a photo of it before they tried it!

               Here's how Kimmy did it!

             Ingredients:
             - 1 cup sugar
             - 8 tbsp ( 1 stick ) unsalted butter, room temp
             - 2 large eggs
             - 3 ripe bananas
             - 1 tbsp milk
             - 1 tbsp of cinnamon
             - 2 cups of flour
             - 1 tsp baking powder
             - 1 tsp baking soda
             - 1 tsp salt

        Preheat the oven to 325.  Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
       
        Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well.

        In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.  Mix in milk and cinnamon.  In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

       Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined.  Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

       Pour batter into pan and bake 1 hr, test to see if it is done with a knife or toothpick.  Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes.  Remove bread from pan and put on rack to cool completely.

       Here's something that used to crack me up about Kimmy - as great a cook/baker she was, she would manage to use every available bowl, pan, pot, plate, utensil, you name it!  I'd come in and get to work cleaning up the aftermath and she'd begin apologizing right away, always saying she didn't know how she ended up using so many dishes!  She'd turn the kitchen into a war zone.  I'd clean it up and then she'd detail her stove.  I always told her, I didn't mind how many dishes she used, because everything came out tasting so phenomenal!!  And, I knew she was making more work for herself by cooking everything from scratch for us.  She was so sweet.

         Well, after the bread was done, we went and met Angie, Janene, Kim and all of their kids at the cheap theaters to see Mr. Popper's Penguins (or Mr. Penguins Poppers, as Janene started to call it!).  All of the kids loved it - Autumn brought her big - I don't know what you call it, purse? Bag?  Tote thingy?  We hit Walgreen's on the way down and stocked up on candy, brought in kettle corn and drinks, too!  It was a great time.  Janene took Brendon and Cody skating - they had a lot of fun!
         The little ones helped me make lunches and get clothes ready and then we took Bella for a walk together.  Autumn reflected on the movie - she thought parts of it were pretty sad.  I told her, that I thought the take away was - life sometimes can be sad, but, if we don't try to hide our emotions, there will be people there for us to help us find happiness again.  'You mean like Angie and her family do for us?', she asked, her head tilted up towards me - those bright, blue eyes (Kimmy's eyes) searching mine for the answer...'Yes, honey, exactly!  We can be sad and miss Mama, but we have help through it, right?'  'We do Dad, we sure do.'...

            Love,

                          Dave