Chicken Tortilla Soup

I thought about going ahead and posting the recipe for the Chicken Tortilla soup I was talking about in my previous post and then it slipped my mind. Since the first commenter on my last post asked for the recipe, I decided I'd post it for everyone. She also mentioned she tried a recipe from a magazine and it wasn't so great. Well, I actually spent alot of time researching a recipe for this particular soup and everything I found had SO many ingredients and required too much time. With a 17 month old, I don't have alot of time to be spending in the kitchen. Anyways, here is the recipe for the soup I made. Which turned out great for me! :)

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts

1 onion - chopped

½ small can jalapeño peppers - chopped

2 cans petite diced tomatoes

1 bag frozen corn

2 cans white kidney beans - drained

2 packages fajita seasoning (next to the taco seasoning packets)

chicken broth

Boil chicken breast and shred. Keep broth from chicken to the side. In a seperate pan, sauté the chopped onions with about 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil until translucent. Add the chopped jalapeño peppers and fajita seasoning. Stir until seasoning is evenly distributed over onions and peppers. Add to crockpot with shredded chicken, tomatoes, corn, kidney beans and chicken broth. I didn't use a specific amount of chicken broth. I just added until I thought it was soup-y enough. We like our soup more juicy than thick. Lastly, salt and pepper to your liking. Cook on high in crockpot for 4 or 5 hours.

Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips.

Hope this was helpful for anyone else looking for a simple, but great recipe! Let me know how it turns out for any of you who decide to make it!!!

The Alford's

Weekend Fun

The weekend went by way to quickly, as usual. :( We had a pretty busy but fun weekend. Me, Mom and Tuff started Friday night by hitting the town for some last minute Christmas gifts, dinner, and groceries. We were home by 8:30 so I thought it went pretty smoothly. Mom made a comment while we were leaving Walmart when she saw several front parking spots, "Man the economy is bad!" Ha. Thankfully, we have all of our Christmas shopping done.

Saturday I made a big pot of tortilla soup for lunch. Man was it yumm-o. A girl I work with made it for us at work one day and I got the recipe from her Friday. I have to admit though, mine turned out better! Good thing she doesn't read my blog. Haha. After lunch and naps, we got up and ready to go visit one of my best friends Kel, her husband and their little girl. I made brownies and sweet tea. Kel made the lasagna. It was nice to get to spend some time with them because I hadn't seen or loved on little Miss in tooooo long! :) Kelly and Justin adopted Little Miss in July and since the adoption isn't completely finalized yet, we can't share her real name or pictures. :( Hopefully soon though. Here are a few shots of Little Miss and Tuff hangin out. Tuff just loved her. But I knew he would!

Hangin out and eating snacks

Tuff giving her kisses ;)

We had a wonderful time with them and enjoyed dinner too. Thanks for having us Kel!!!! Next time we'll cook for ya'll!

Kelly and Justin invited us to visit their church on Sunday morning so we got up early and went. Tuff looked so cute in his new outfit that he's just now fitting into. I got a picture but it's not too good because I took it with my phone.

Sweet boy is getting so big.

He spent some more time lovin' on Little Miss at church.

Sweet Boy.

After we got home, ate lunch and had naps, we headed to Aunt April's for Harrison's 2nd birthday party. Tuff was such a good boy and seemed to have a blast. Here are some pictures from the big monkey themed party!

Sweet Ada in her Christmas dress

Gettin ready to party

The Banana Toss 

Birthday Boy

Tuff's favorite part, the balloons

Birthday boy with mommy

Presents!!!

Busted in the snack table.

Sweet boy lovin his mama :)

All the kiddos at the end of the party.

As you can see, Tuff was having no part of the picture taking. I think he'd had enough!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We are getting closer to Christmas and we are ready for the family festivities at our house!!!

The Alford's

Blessed

I'm feeling pretty blessed this morning.

This is why.

Baby boy was 17 months old this past Tuesday. He is growing up so fast. I find myself constantly thanking God for blessing with me with such a sweet and fun-loving baby boy!!! I couldn't imagine life without him!

I'm so glad it's Friday. I hope everyone enjoy's their weekend.

The Alford's

On the road to recovery :)

I was so relieved to see MY primary nurse practitioner yesterday. I just loooove her. The last 8 days have been pretty miserable for me and I'm sure alot of that has to do with my stupidity of going to see anyone other than my very own NP. Lesson learned for SURE! Next time I will drop everything and schedule around whatever needs to be scheduled around to see her. As soon as she saw me, she was coming up with a fix. I got a nice little shot of steroid and a brand new antibiotic. As little as 2 hours later, I was feeling better! Woo hoo! Might I add that I slept like a brand spankin newborn baby last night. :) I'm so relieved. I'm sure everyone around me is feeling the same way. Haha.

The wintery mix they were making a big fuss about last night ended up passing us bye. Thank goodness. I could definitely live without wintery mixes. :)

It's Thursday and all I have to say about that is HALLELUJAH! Since my whole weekend last weekend consisted of my butt being on the couch, I'm looking foward to this one. We have a few things going on. Pictures for the babies, Christmas with friends, and possibly trying a new church on Sunday! :) I also want to take Tuff to see Santa this weekend. I'm sure he will be devastated when we try to get him up there on Santa's lap but an attempt has to be made. :) I can't believe Christmas is so close. Right around the corner. I got one of my gifts in the mail yesterday. A new purse. And yes, I'm already carrying it. I'd been wanting one pretty badly so I finally broke down and ordered myself one while I was online doing Christmas shopping for others.

Dalton has been playing basketball for about a month now and his schedules have been crazy! Almost all of his games are scheduled during my working hours. He finally has a game tonight at home that we will be able to make it too. I'm excited about finally getting to see him play. As for Courtland, everytime I get to make it to one of his games, he doesn't get any playing time. It's irritating actually. One, because I hardly ever get to go and Two, because every time I don't go he gets playing time. I was blessed with the luck of a Taylor (my maiden name). Taylor's never have had good luck. None of them. Ha.

Make sure ya'll check out the giveaway over at Babbling Abby's blog. I posted about it below. Have a good Thursday!!!

The Alford's

GIVEAWAY

I don't usually participate in these but I ran across Babbling Abby through my friend Lana's blog and just fell in love with the headbands she's featuring in her giveaway. So click here and hop on over to check them out. Maybe you can win one for yourself!!!! Good Luck! :)

The Alford's

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Back to the Doctor I go!!!

I am now going on 7 days of being miserable and I can't take it anymore. Along with the pink eye, throat issues, congestion, and lack of sleep I have a 17 month old to take care of. I can't do it another day. I'm hoping and praying she will just give me a steroid shot and let it be over with. Please say a prayer for me cause I could really use them. I look foward to being able to enjoy a cold drink again. Anything other than hot chocolate and apple cider. Even though I am pretty fond of both :) (A really nice lady I work with has been making me apple cider the past few days.)

It's been a long week (yes I know, it's only Wednesday). It could be because I'm not feeling good. The weather is still throwing us all kinds of crazy curve balls. We are expecting a "wintery mix" this afternoon. I guess this is what they call snow/sleet/ice/rain mixture. All I can think is "Fabulous!" It's fun when you're younger and you get out of school but when you grow up and you have responsibilities (like work), it's not so fun anymore. I am something crazy while trying to drive on bad road conditions. It definitely isn't one of my favorite things to do.

We have plans to get the babies pictures taken in their Christmas attire Friday night after everyone gets off work. I am excited to see how they turn out! Mrs. Patty has been working hard to get the boys jumpers done in time. Hopefully they all cooperate for us. I guess we'll be seeing how that goes. (We could use some prayers for this too. hehe.) I can't wait to share pictures with ya'll. :)

We also have plans to do a little gift swap with my dear friend Kelly and her sweet little Miss Saturday afternoon. Kelly has been one of my best friends since High School. Her husband is the brother to one of my childhood (and current) friends, Lana. So we all go way back. Kelly and Justin adopted their first sweet miracle baby this past July and she couldn't be anymore PRECIOUS!!! I haven't been able to just sit and hold her and spend alot of time with her since July so I'm excited to get some down time with them. Hopefully we will have pictures to share.... although I won't be able to show little Miss' face because everything isn't completely finalized just yet.

I'll leave ya'll with a picture of our sweet boy eating a sucker at the ball game this past Saturday....

Hope everyone is enjoying their Wednesday!!!!

The Alford's

A very sickly, very snowy, and very cold kind of weekend...

Our normal 2 day weekend turned into a 3 day weekend because of this....

SNOW!!!!! :)

Our road Monday morning

The yard and porch

Chopper doesn't seem to be too concerned about staying warm..

And this is what Tuff thought about the snow...

Poor buddy.

 He started screaming as soon as his feet hit the ground and he heard that loud "cruuuunch!"

With baby boy not being at ALL interested and mama being sick, we didn't get out in the snow too much. It was pretty but it was bitterly COLD too. I was pretty surprised to see snow this early in December though. It's the first time in a LONG for us Woodburians. :) Praying we get to see it again for Christmas. Now that would be ideal.

Anyways, it was a rough weekend for me. Along with trying to get rid of the pink eye, I developed what I thought was strep, but later found out was a viral infection in my throat. Ewwww weeeeee is all I have to say about this. Today is the first time I got off the couch since Saturday afternoon. Along with the fungus in my throat, I woke up yesterday with ulsers to go along with. Fun stuff. I also have SO much drainage going on that I can't get rid of because my throat is toooo sore to cough it up. I have to add this to the top 3 most miserbale & uncomfortable moments/sicknesses of my entire life. Ugh. Bless my heart is all I have to say! Haha. :) Honestly though, I would never wish this upon anyone.

Not much else going on around our household. Just resting and trying to get rid of all the sickies before Santa comes to visit our house next week!!! :) I'm so excited for Tuff this year. Can't wait to see him open his presents from Santa. Speaking of which, we only have one gift left to buy. Woo Hoo!

And since I'm just now getting around to uploading the parade pictures from last weekend, I'll leave ya'll with a few! (Remember Tuff was sick last weekend so that's why he was being held the whole time and looking "not so pleased." ha)

cheeeeessseee... Haha

Sittin with mama waiting for parade to start

Thomas the Train

Watching Santa come with Daddy

Smokey the Bear

Beautiful!!!!

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!!!!

The Alford's