Dec. 30, 2015

You know I love to write down the hilarious quotes and things that happen in Birdeye so here's this year's list...prepare to pee your pants...

Last January-while shopping at the Tractor Supply Store in Wynne for Memaw and Grandad's birthday gifts, Jackie said at least 15 times, "I'm not..." referring to the fact that Chloe and I were shopping for his chickens some special scratch and other avian items...I had to turn around with Chloe and just laugh out loud because it was so obnoxious!  We bring up "I'm not..." all the time to him...

Later in January, I sent Jackie with our broken down wheel barrel to Graham to get the wheel fixed, "Don't do that to me again, that was something you needed to handle".  I did pick it up and it was something I should've handled.  Hilarious!

In NYC this summer with Stella and Chloe tons of quotes came from that long weekend: hahahahaha as I type these....
   -"My friend speaks Mexican," Stella referring to her Spanish speaking classmate
   -"Medium Rare" Kara to the waiter ordering Stella's filet, "Are you serious?", he asked, and the answer was yes!
   -"Ever since my hair went 80's style, she's not allowed to touch it," Emmy Burton said to Stella
   -"We look like we belong in the trunk," Tara Burton said when we walked up to the Soho Trump Hotel and asked the doorman to hail a cab but he offered their personal driver instead.  Vladamir was fancy in his Prada Sunglasses and 3 piece suit as he drove us 8 blocks to Battery Park to catch the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty in Trumps shiny black extra long Cadillac Escalade
  -"Let's get the shopping over with," Chloe said to Audrey and I when we were fired up about shopping on 5th avenue
  -"Kara, do you have a foam hand," I asked her at LaGuardia after watching Jimmy Fallon's Slap Jack game on YouTube.  I said it across the table and a pilot nearby looked at me like I was crazy because I couldn't stop laughing and getting excited about playing that game with Whit and Stella


 Other quotes from this year:

"Birdeye is a dog park, who would you need a fence?" Martin said to Chloe and I's idea of putting in a dog park for Cross County at Birdeye

"Dad needs to be on a leash," Chloe said after dinner at Charlie Gitto's in St Louis after a cardinals game.  He blessed a horse and buggy on the way back to the hotel....

"That's the reason to have fenders," Kyle Killough pointing to my backside at our Kentucky Bourbon Trail bike ride....it was rainy and I had a muddy skid mark up my back...hahahahahaha!

"This will be a real test, see if a paying customer can get kicked out of a restaurant," Kyle referring to how loud our table was after the races at Keeneland

"HERE IT IS!," my mother said when she found Chloe's IPAD in the floor board of our car after we left for home and drove back to her house to find it and it was in our car the whole time.  Somehow I still got blamed for her not finding the IPAD!

"You feel that?  It smells like a bunch of hot sauce in here..." Jackie referring to the Zaxby's chicken we picked up in Van Buren on our way back home....He did say feel not smell!

"She's homely, you know, kinda looks Pentecostal," Kara during a summer bike ride...I cracked up!

"I couldn't train the Great Pyrenees, Granddad's too soft," Chloe wanted to train the two new pups that Granddad and memaw got this summer

"Who's going to watch them?" Jackie referring to me wanting to buy fireworks and shoot them off...hahahaha

"Your mom's deciding how many apple fritters she's going to get..." Jackie to me in the line at Daylight Donuts on Father's Day before church with cousin Cooper Stovall in the car...

"Why'd you buy this rice (Jasmine)?  We've got rice all around us..." Jackie referring to the rice I make Chloe all the time....it does come from Vietnam

"There's an OLD MAN with a dog," Kenny Whorley, the Midsouth Marathon finish line announcer referring to Jackie and Buddy out on the course of the kids marathon on the loud speaker! hahahaha!

Rotary Toy Drive wrapping at EACC, Josie Westmoreland was helping Chloe and I wrap a big box and she said, "it smells like the bathroom over here" (at our table). It was Chloe passing gas, we laughed all night long....

Chloe's Cookie Tea...we haven't missed one, this started in Kindergarten.  Thankfully all we do now is exchange an ornament.
Back row: Kelly Glover, Levia Taegtmeyer, Tess Boone, Chloe Thornhill, Sophia Ladd and Anna Claire Dallas
Front row: Maggie Miller, Addie Thornhill, Emily Hirons and our Chloe

The Birdeye Christmas Party was Saturday, Dec. 12.  The girls stayed at our house, the boys at Whit's....
Sophia Weeks, Anna Claire Burrow, Chloe, Stella and Clarah Creighton
I took a ton of photos at the party but every stinking one is blurry, I may have to replace it...

Jackie, Chloe and I started a Birdeye Thanksgiving Day Bike Ride, similar to the Edmond Turkey Trot 5K we always do when there during that week.  This year we all met at Kara's and road up to Bay Village and back about 12 miles.
Left: Kyle Gaines, Jasen Dobson, Mel Harvey, Whit, Stella and Chloe, middle row Jerry Harvey, August, Kara Jeanie,
Lisa Blanton, me and Martin....standing in the back is Bob Hardin (Poor thing, he couldn't make the ride because of a bad
fall a few months ago that landed him in surgery) and Jackie and Chuck Blanton

Christmas Salad, Birdeye

Dec. 26, 2015

I've really slacked on blogging restaurants and recipes due to the bad internet at home.  Since I've found an absolute delicious, easy salad I'm going to take the time to share the recipe.  I found this in my December Southern Living Magazine.  I served it for Christmas Eve supper with mom and Gary and then again on Christmas Day.  I love, love it!  When finding the recipe, it actually came from www.myrecipes.com

Christmas Salad by My Recipes.com

8 ounces thick bacon, coarsely chopped

1 cup sliced red onion

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

1 bunch Lacinato kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped (about 7 cups loosely packed) (I USED MIXED GREENS INSTEAD AND IT WAS PERFECTO!!)

1 bunch red Swiss chard, stemmed and coarsely chopped (about 8 cups loosely packed) (MIXED GREENS)

2 small beets, thinly sliced (Didn't have)

1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup dried cherries (didn't have)

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

1. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 6 to 8 minutes or until crisp; remove bacon, using a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towels. Reserve 6 Tbsp. drippings in skillet. Add onion, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper, and sauté 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Add red wine vinegar to skillet, and stir to loosen browned bits from bottom of skillet. Whisk in honey.

3. Toss together chopped kale, Swiss chard, onion mixture, and remaining 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. black pepper in a large bowl. Transfer to a serving platter. Top with cooked bacon, beet slices, pumpkin seeds, dried cherries, and feta cheese. Serve immediately.

Christmas 2015, Birdeye

Buddy and Chloe had matching pj's from mom and Gary

Biscuit was so fired up about his Christmas raw hide bone...look at his face, lol!

The hit of Chloe's Christmas was the dog cart she got for Buddy and a drone for her Go Pro camera

The dogs were pumped!

Christmas at Memaw's

This photo cracked me up

Chloe got August a Harry Potter wand

Not sure what August is doing here...

Memaw's game

Chloe was the happy winner of the cash

Stella is hilarious

Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015

Merry Christmas!  We had one of the best Christmas' of all time, I think due to the fact that I paced myself and did things ahead of time.  We had our Christmas with Harmon and Jeanie the Sunday before.  We had a great lunch with tenderloin, potatoes and salad.  Kara made a cheesecake and I brought the kids an Oreo ice cream cake.  We had fun with memaw's secret gift game where we all had to wear gloves and open boxes inside of boxes to get the $100 cash.  Chloe was the proud winner of that game.  Christmas Eve, mom and Gary arrived around dinner time and we had tenderloin with creole mustard, Southern Living's Christmas Salad and ciabatta bread.  We watched half of Christmas Vacation, what a funny movie!  Christmas morning we had waffles on my new waffle iron.  I found a great recipe from Food and Wine called Cornmeal and Ricotta Waffles....they were easy and AWESOME!!  Here's the recipe:


Cornmeal and Ricotta Waffles

• 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese (12 ounces)
• 2 cups milk
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1/2 cup fine yellow cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for serving
• Pure maple syrup, for serving
• Crisp bacon strips, for serving (My key to crisp bacon is to bake in a 375 oven on aluminum foil in jelly roll pans about 25 minutes and drain on paper towels)

1. Heat an 8-inch square waffle iron and preheat the oven to 200°. In a large bowl, whisk the ricotta with the milk, egg yolks and sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Whisk the dry ingredients into the ricotta mixture until combined. Stir in the melted butter.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until firm peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the waffle batter until no streaks remain.
3. Coat the waffle iron with vegetable-oil spray and spoon about 1 1/2 cups of the batter onto the waffle iron. Close and cook until the waffles are golden and crisp. Serve the waffles immediately or transfer them to a rack in the oven to keep warm. Serve the cornmeal waffles with melted butter, maple syrup and crisp bacon.

6th Annual Midsouth Kids Marathon and more photos....

This is the start of the 5th and 6th graders.....

Notice the tall 9th grader Kyra Dobson, in the front, doing the "Whip and the Nae Nae" dance....so cute!  She and Chloe, Mackenzie Paul and Emily Roberts all relayed the mile for us helping keep up with the kids, they were fast!

Here are the 2nd and 3rd graders!! We had 102 sign up this year which is pretty close to last year.  Our best year
three years ago, I think we had close to 175

Chloe's handy work at the final home game of the Wynne Yellow Jackets

PTSA Chili supper, Chloe got this shot of volunteers and me and Amy Hood

Pep rally...photo by Chloe

Photo by Chloe

Dang blogger and Stella (with her eyes shut)...I don't know why Google doesn't fix the order of the photos.... Here's
Birdeye's representatives in the kids marathon...Linton, Whit, Stella, Katie and August (Chloe out on the course)

Chloe babysits dogs for $10/day...here's the Bradshaw's mixed brother and sister, Chip and Lucy
(we had them last week)

A hilarious shot of Buddy.  Chloe takes all the dogs over to the barns behind the Birdeye Store for fun on the
weekends....The dogs love going

A selfie with one of granddad's Great Pyranees dogs

By Chloe

Add caption

Kara and I helped with a baby shower a few Sundays ago and we sent the kids over to Memaw and
Granddad's for a game of badminton ...Chloe got a ton of photos of the game

One of Chloe's classes this year is EAST Lab, a class that does projects to better our community.  She met a sophomore
named Courtney Hill and started the K9 and Kitty Carnival to raise money for low cost spay neuter in Cross County.
This is Opossum, a 2year old tom cat that lives with Donna Leonard, life long resident of Cross County.  Donna
is finishing up chemo for lung cancer and was extremely thankful to Chloe and Courtney for helping her get her
tom neutered.  (Donna is also the lady we hired almost 10 years ago to sweep for us)  Chloe and Courtney have
raised about $800 so far...both girls are thinking veterinary school (at this point :))

I got this great photo of Chloe and Gumball last week

The last shots of are goofy Buddy and Chloe clowning around....lol