Weekly Recipe: Chicken Tortilla Soup

So I have decided to start posting a weekly recipe!

I know I shared a bit ago how mealtime is sacred to me, and I love the process of making that happen!

Even though cooking is something that I love, my time for it is limited!!  So I am always looking for quick, easy, (and affordable!) recipes to have ready when my hubby comes home from dinner so we can enjoy the dinner hour together as a family.  Seriously...I LOVE easy when it comes to the kitchen.

For my first recipe, I would like to share the BEST and EASIEST recipe...a true, weeknight go-to meal that can literally be thrown together in five minutes.  Can't beat that.

PLUS, it is gluten-free and dairy-free...and delicious!

CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

In a crockpot, combine the following ingredients...

4 chicken breast halves (they can even be frozen)
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can (14 oz.) black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can corn (drained and rinsed)
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 cup salsa
Crushed red pepper

Stir up ingredients and cook 8 hours on low (or 4 hours on high).
Before serving, take out the chicken breasts, cut or shred, and put back in the soup.
Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and corn chips (or tortilla chips)!

That's literally it!
So for all you busy mamas out there, throw these ingredients together after breakfast (and even let your toddler "help" by dumping in all the cans!) and your dinner is done for the day!  Such a great Suzy-Homemaker-feeling!!

Enjoy!

(Thanks to Amy Cook for sharing this recipe with me a few years ago!)

Summer Endings

This weekend marked for the Schmidt Family the end of summer.

Tomorrow officially starts FALL in our house.

Because tomorrow marks our first day of homeschooling!!  Micah will start first grade and Sammy, preschool.

We are all very excited.

But we all also loved the weekend, full of plans and fun and family time, soaking up the last summer moments  together.

Friday night, Zach and I went out on a real date to celebrate our anniversary, like a nice-restaurant-dinner and movie theater kind of date (thanks to generous gift cards!!!).          

And we loved every minute of it.  We ate a fabulous dinner at Cooper's Hawk (every single bite was delicious!), picked up yummy Starbucks drinks, and smuggled them into the movie theater in my purse.  We laughed and talked and cuddled, and I loved putting on high heels and lipstick, drinking wine, and having uninterrupted conversations.  I felt like such a grown up.

(wine and cheese tasting at the table)

Saturday morning we did a walk for the American Heart Association with my in-laws, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Micah and I went out for a date to buy school supplies and have lunch together (at our favorite place, Noodles and Company).  He also got to spend a Target card he got for his birthday...a monumental moment for him, a test of my patience for me.

We watched my nephews for a couple of hours, and Micah truly took off on his bike, all around the neighborhood!!  Zach and I took turns riding with him.  What a fun, yet surreal, experience...to take a bike ride with my son for the first time!

(Sophia and Luke)

We also had a great time at our dear friend, Lydia's, sixth birthday party that evening.

After church Sunday, we spontaneously decided to drive out to Ikea to look for a new shelf we need in our living room, and walked out of the store (alive!) after four and a half hours.  Yes, you heard me right.  FOUR and a HALF HOURS.  with FOUR kids.  It was a little nutty.  But surprisingly, fun.  Since we didn't leave the store til way after dinnertime (and since it's our last day of summer!), we decided to splurge on dinner out (a rare treat for us).  With overtired, hungry, and antsy children, again, a little nutty, but still managed to leave there laughing.  To top off an already great weekend, we drove a little out of the way to our favorite ice cream shop, Capannari (BEST. ice cream. EVER!) and enjoyed summer-evening ice cream while our littles all slept in the van.  Super fun.

And now, we are anxiously setting up for homeschooling, printing out sheets and gathering curriculum and books, preparing for our big day tomorrow.

It has been the most wonderful of summers, and now, we launch full swing into fall.

Summer was glorious, but it is time to say goodbye.

And now, we welcome, with great joy!...FALL.

Stay tuned to hear how our homeschooling experience starts off!

Nine Years

Tonight my husband and I are celebrating NINE years of marriage.

Our anniversary was actually on August 3rd, but tonight is our (rescheduled because of sickness) date!

In our nine years, we have lived in three states and four different homes, have had four children, and many different jobs.  We have had ups and downs and laughter and tears.

But I can honestly say that as of today, through all the life we have lived together, I love my husband more than ever.  I am beyond thankful for the man I have been blessed to call my husband, my soul mate, and my other half (every year we are married feels more and more like Zach is my other half...I feel much more complete when we are together).

We are starting to be feel more seasoned in our marriage, finishing each other's sentences, understanding a paragraph of thoughts from one look, and being a true team when it comes to parenting and life, even in spite of our differences.  And we are very, very different.  Zach is an intravert; I am an extravert.  He is a morning person; I am a night person.  He prefers books; I prefer movies.  He is laid back and slow-paced; I am high energy.  He is a thinker; I am a feeler.  But we get each other, and we have learned to embrace, and even celebrate, our differences.  We are a team, and I wouldn't want to do this life with anyone else.

We are not perfect, but we do love each other so very much, and I cannot even begin to imagine my life without you, Zachary Douglas Schmidt!

Happy Anniversary, Love!

p.s. Can't wait for our Date Night!!!  WooHoo!!

From First Dating

To Now

Thankful Thursday

Sammy's Gifts...

• bubble gum
• Mommy, Daddy, Micah, Sophia, and Ella
• Thing and Hulk and all the other superheroes (except Satan)
• Chutes and Ladders and Candyland
• the computer
• God
• the strongest guy that's stronger than Hulk

Hulk's Gifts...

(Micah and Sammy are in a HUGE superhero stage, and everyone in the family has a superhero name...Micah is Hulk.  It is pretty serious business...I have even had to say "Love you, Hulk, Ni-Night, Hulk" at bedtime, and the boys regularly refer to each other as "Hulk" and "Thing" without flinching.  Hilarious.)

• Spidergirl (Mommy), Thing (Sammy), Long Hair (Sophia), Good Girl (Ella), Cyborg (Daddy)
• food
• that God told Spidergirl (Mommy) to get Hulk (Micah) a Perplexus ball for his birthday
• Flash (that's Chuck)
• that I got to go to t-ball
• that I learned two new super fun games (a dragon game and a teenager game)
• Ninjago Legos - and I'm thankful I started building them
• that I'm going to get strong from drinking milk
• that I like my potatoes because Mommy made them for me

My Gifts

• Watching my boys work together to build a new Lego set
• Ella's bedtime snuggles and giggles
• Sophia's adorable toothless grin, in spite of her sad cold
• A day to be home and catch up on laundry and piles and chores
• Homemade banana bread
• Laundry clean, folded, and put away (which will last for about 12 hours until everyone is awake tomorrow!!)
• Micah's excitement to be in Spotlight (a children's musical theater group)
• The anticipation and excitement of preparing for our first homeschooling year!
• That our God is a God of miracles and redemption and healing!

What are you thankful for today?

Green Lake

Every year, our whole church does a weekend trip together to Green Lake, Wisconsin.  Families stay in tents, cabins, houses, or hotels, and we gather together for a pancake breakfast, church, baptism at the lake, and a couple of evening activities.  It is such a blast to look around your campsite and see people you know all around you.  The kids get to play with friends for four days straight, and the adults chat and laugh and relax and cook.  It is always such a sweet time for fellowship and community, and this year was no exception.  

We camped with friends, and it was super fun to do meals together and share supplies and food.  Hours were spent around the campfire late at night, hours were spent sitting around and catching up, and I was blessed to connect with many different people from our church, some old, some new.  The weather could not have been better, and the grounds where we stayed were beautiful.  

This was truly one of those, "it takes a village" type of weekends.  People watch each other's kids, hold each other's babies, share food and drinks and blankets and cups and tables.  It is truly awesome.

One of my favorite moments was a dinner where four families joined together to eat.  There were two pots of chili to share, someone held a baby, someone else grilled some burgers, everyone put their stuff on the tables and shared it, and someone did dishes.  The kids were coming and going, eating and playing, and the adults all worked together to enjoy dinner and clean up for an event that was starting soon after dinner.  It was a really neat picture of community, and I treasured that moment.

I love, love, love our church family.  We have the coolest people there, and it is an honor to do life together. It is such a safe place to share joys and struggles, laughter and tears, celebrations and sadnesses.  I am feeling very thankful to have found our church home.

(And if you are ever looking for a church home where you can be yourself and learn about God's love for you and do life with other people, please, let me know!!  We'd love for you to join us!)

Some highlights for me that I want to capture...

• Micah running around at night with his glowstick around his neck (so we always knew where he was by looking for his green light)
• talking theology around the campfire
• a family walk to breakfast on some beautiful roads and trails
• sitting in camping chairs in the middle of the day, with nowhere to be and nothing to do, catching up with friends
• playing frisbee with my hubby
• cooking dinner on the fire
• hearing testimonies of God's work in people's lives over the past year
• getting pulled up on stage for an Improv game (very intimidating and out of my comfort zone, but fun, nonetheless)
• watching the children play in the sand and the dirt and the bounce house, sword fighting and playing hide and seek
• eggs and bacon for breakfast, chili for dinner, and smores for dessert!
• watching Micah and Sammy dance in the children's song at the beginning of our evening show (Sammy's first time on a stage!!)...Video at the end of the post, if you'd like to see!  (Disclaimer: awful videotaping as I was trying to watch my children dance and record at the same time...not an easy task for me...)

Here are some pictures from the weekend...I guess we were too busy having fun because I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do.  Here's a glimpse...

And here's the video of the boys...

Angry Birds and Happy Ladybugs

Micah and Ella's birthdays are only four days apart, so we have planned a joint party the past two years.  This year, since Micah was really into Angry Birds, we wanted to make that the party's theme, so in order to make it unique to a boy/girl party, we decided to combine it with the Happy Ladybugs, too.  Everything worked out great, and we even had Angry Birds fruit snacks, graham crackers, disc shooters, and Angry Bird "eggs and beaks" (i.e., circles and triangles) for PBJ's.  It was a blast.

Micah and Sammy with their buds, Logan and Gavin

 Nana, Auntie Julie, and the babies, Luke and Sophia

We covered the garage door with Micah's Angry Birds artwork

And we made masks...Angry Birds...

...and the Happy Ladybugs!

The kids built Angry Birds "scenes" and knocked them down with a stuffed Angry Bird.

All the kids together!

Micah's not super into cake, so he requested a cookie pie.

Ella's cake

Happy Birthday, dear Ella!

Happy Birthday, dear Micah!

Present time!

Micah's new shirt

Every year, Auntie Julie brings the kids a Halloween costume as her gift, so we are always anxious to see what it will be...this year, appropriately, the Red Angry Bird for Micah!!!!

And the cutest bumblebee costume for Ella that I have EVER seen...

Uncle Mike, Micah, and Sammy

We had a blast celebrating my TWO and SIX year olds!  Lots of happy chaos with twenty kids running around, yummy food, talking, laughing, and activities.  Thanks, Papapa and Grandma Debbie, for letting us use your house as our backup since it rained.  What a fun day!  So blessed with close family and great friends to celebrate with.

Thankful Thursday

This is one of those taking-it-a-day-at-a-time weeks (or possibly taking-it-an-hour-at-a-time).

We got home from vacation, hit the ground running, and haven't stopped since.

Two birthdays in our family, a big birthday party, an amazing wedding, in-laws visiting for the weekend, doctor appointments, a family photo shoot, errands, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, a cousin sleepover, playgroup at the park, and more have happened in the last week, and today, we are packing for our annual church camping trip.  Therefore, my mind is spinning just a bit and body is soooo tired.

I am thankful for all that has happened and all that is to happen as our lives are full, full, FULL!

But for now, I must continue packing for our trip.  I have hours ahead of me and my littles are all finally tucked in beds.

So this shall be brief...I am thankful for tomatoes from the garden, cousins here from Michigan, early morning errands, homemade muffins, Army Wives, Micah's first theater class, Sophia sitting up, a new haircut, beautiful summer evenings, and my hubby home from work.

Thankful for a camping weekend ahead with our dear church family, and thankful that it has been an incredible summer!!

What are you thankful for today?