Pot of Enchilada Soup

Hello there my bloggy friends! Today, I'm sharing with you a super duper easy soup recipe. I mean super easy people, so get ready to pull out your crock-pot, and reap yummy rewards, without much effort.

Slow-Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup

Ingredients
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can diced tomatoes (I did the ones with green chiles for some extra pizzaz)
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
2 cans enchilada sauce (in the Ethnic food aisle)
1 diced green or red pepper
1/2 diced onion
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cans cooked chicken (if you want to put in a tad more effort, cook 2 chicken breasts, and shred them yourself)
Shredded pepper jack cheese & sour cream for topping

Directions
Throw it all in your crock pot, and cook on low all day, or approximately 8-9 hours! (Or if you want it for lunch, cook it on high.) And man this baby is so yummy. And hello? Easiest soup recipe, maybe ever. The "hardest" part is just some simple dicing of peppers and onions!

Then when you serve it, top it with pepper jack cheese if you like spice, or the Mexican blend cheese to tone it down a bit. And of course some sour cream on top doesn't hurt anything either :)

So there you have it! A quick and easy soup recipe, for anyone who is a Mexican/Tex-Mex fan! I personally loved the stuff, and my boyfriend and family happen to love it too, which is definitely a plus :) And I have already made this soup a couple of times since that first time. So give this baby a try on a cold day, and let me know how it turns out, and if you like it just as much as well!

Perch From the Top

So first up, I got 11 new followers over the weekend, which I was seriously shocked about when I opened up Blogger this morning! What an unexpected excitement! So welcome to all of you who just joined the last few days, I'm so glad to have you here. Pull up a chair, get cozy and stay a while :)

Now, moving on to my usual weekend recap post!!

Friday
Lunch time sushi date with my sweet man, which was super delish
Had some afternoon tea and a cookie at work
Finished the day at my Grandparent's house with the fam, for a joint birthday party for my sister, uncle and step-bro

A bit of delicious lunch time sushi. I'm ready for more again already! I'm becoming obsessed I believe...

I had the chai, and it was sooo good. And this tin was only $4 at Ross!

Grandparents said they needed this Snoopy to go with the Charlie Brown tree :)

Cute little sister

Peach cobbler for birthday party dessert

Saturday
Went to pick out our family Christmas tree in the morning
Finally cleaned my super crazy messy room, and it feels sooo much better in there now :)
Hung out at Jeff's house for just a tiny bit
Went downtown to meet Lacey for a late lunch at Po'Boys
Walked around downtown waiting on the parade to start, then watched the parade
Finished up the day at Lacey's house playing an intense game of boys vs. girls Pictionary

We got the one on the right, although I voted for the taller one on the left. But it looks good in our house still :)

Festival of Lights celebration downtown

He thought his card said "killer waffle" -- it didn't. Any guesses what it actually said?!

Sunday
Started off the morning with my family and coffee from Dunkin Donuts before church
Watched some super precious children's choirs sing during "big church"
Celebrated my sister's birthday with family lunch and presents at our house
Put up our Christmas tree and decorated the rest of our house
Went to Singing Christmas Tree rehearsal at church, and found out I'm on row 11 of 12, which is super high up
Then went to the ugly sweater Christmas party for the youth! (There were some really ugly sweaters by the way...)
Finished up the day hanging out at Jeff's house, watching re-runs of one of our favorites, "How I Met Your Mother"

One of four of our bins of ornaments!

First on the tree this year! "I" made this in pre-school, back in 1991, when I was three!

My view of the sanctuary in my Perch From the Top of the Singing Christmas Tree! So high up!

The youth that wore their ugly sweaters for our party. 

I'm sorry for another week of only iPhone pictures. I never realize how crappy some of them are until I put them in my blog, and then I'm mad that's all I've got. Maybe one day I'll learn... But anyways, it was a good weekend, and as usual I'm not super stoked to be back at work this Monday morning. Here in Florida, today is supposed to be a record high of 81, so that should be lovely in December... oh well! I'd rather have that than a foot or two of snow! So I guess I can't complain :)

Hope your week is off to a good start! And I look forward to reading/hearing about y'alls weekends as well!

{And today I'm linking up with Covered in Grace, Sami's Shananigans and Synfully Delicious.}

Parade, Penguins & Parties

Dear Penguins: Thanks for coming to my office and decorating for Christmas. I love seeing all of your cute faces, and you did such a great job! Feel free to invite a few more of your friends to come before the season is over. We always welcome more penguins around these parts.

Dear December: I'm so glad you'll be here tomorrow! I'm already in the Christmas spirit, but you really kick it off for everyone else who's been waiting around  for an engraved invitation. And tomorrow we're going to the Festival of Lights downtown, so that will make two lighting festivals for us this year! But this one has a parade!

Also, I've made an awesome activity calendar for Jeff and I for the month, and I can't wait to do some of these fun Christmas activities with him! And I wrote them all down on this little calendar that I picked because I knew how much he would like the cute little robots :) (You can find more cute stuff on their website.) Even if we aren't able to do every single thing, every single day, at least we have plenty of options to choose from on the days where we do want a Christmas activity!

Dear Fingernails: I'm sorry I've neglected you and you've been completely naked basically all week. I promise we'll make up for it and do something cute this weekend. And if I do something "fancy" enough, that will make nail art design #10 of 10 before my 25th birthday! And then that will be another goal I get to cross off :) Maybe a Christmas theme to kick off December? As if I'm not already Christmasy enough right now...

Dear Family: I'm so excited to decorate the Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon! And put up the rest of our decorations all around the house as well, of course. Get ready for my peppy spirit and some Christmas tunes while we do everything, because you can bet I'll be all over that.

Dear Boyfriend: Thanks for taking me to Japanica, where our chef was talented enough to breath fire out of his mouth after cooking our meal for us. Awesomeness I tell you. And the food wasn't so bad either.

Dear BFBC Youth: We're having another ugly sweater Christmas party on Sunday night, and I'm sooo looking forward to it! Last year's was so much fun, and we saw some truly ugly sweaters. So make plans to attend again, and please show up in the most hideous Christmas sweater you can get your little hands on! I'm going to be wearing one myself, and I promise we'll have a great time!

Sooo does anyone else notice how much I mentioned Christmas in all these letters? I'd say I'm a tad bit excited, but that's probably a huge understatement. I'm thrilled!

Powderpuff Days

Here are a few pictures from homecoming week my senior year of high school. From dress-up days, to spirit day on Friday, and then a few from the football game with friends. Our tiny little Christian school didn't have a dance then, so that's really all there is. I did however get to go to a homecoming dance with a friend from church at another school, and that was a lot of fun!

And this is installment number six of all my high school posts. In case you'd like to look at those if you missed them, here are all the other links! One, Two, Three, Four and Five.

Wacky tacky day year year homecoming week. Not sure why I thought that pose was cute or necessary.

Proper Place

Here is my next set of 25 random lists I'm writing before my 25th birthday. These two are my Favorite Albums & CD's and 5 Reasons to Stop NOT Cleaning My Room... And back HERE is the first two lists from a few weeks ago. I've had fun with this so far, and I'm looking forward to writing more of these lists in the next couple of months! Tomorrow marks exactly two months until my 25th birthday, by the way :)