Chicken Tortilla Soup

The mornings that I get stuff in the crockpot for dinner are always chaotic (especially when it’s also a hair wash day for me, like today), but it’s always worth it come dinner time! This morning, I started everything in the slow-cooker to make chicken tortilla soup.

The girlies were in a slightly different spot for morning pictures today, and they ended up in direct sunlight, so we’ve got some cute, squinty photos this time 🙂

Beautiful cotton candy skies when I picked Emerson up from Gilchrist this evening, after a very annoying, crazy traffic jam all the way from downtown to Timberlane…

Jeff picked up Addie, and then picked up meds from Publix, while I picked up Emmie and then dropped her off at church for another night of musical practice. When I got home, I just had to shred/chop up the chicken, then fix the toppings, and dinner was ready to go! I got this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, and it was sooooo good. I only made three modifications to her recipe, 1 – didn’t use the giant can of diced tomatoes (used Rotel can only), 2 – did not use the chipotle peppers, because I didn’t want it to be too spicy for the fam, and 3 – I added a bunch more seasonings for more flavor (mostly a lot of garlic powder and onion powder). Oh plus, I added a can of corn, too!

So for the past few years, Jeff has said he doesn’t like soup. But I love it, and the girls love it, so every now and then I still make it and he’s a good sport to eat it anyways. But tonight, he actually loved this, and kept telling me how good the flavor was, and how much he liked it. AND he had a second bowl! AND he wanted to take leftovers for lunch tomorrow. So now I know the trick to making him like soup, is just to make it taste like tacos, which we know he loves!

After eating my soup, I ran back up to the church to pick up Emmie. I got there a little early, and they ran a little late, so I got to sit in the back and watch them practice for a little bit. They were so cute, and it’s gonna be so good! The play will be this coming Sunday, 12/14 at 10am at Generations Church, if you want to come view the play live! You can also watch it on the live stream on Facebook or YouTube. This is the first year that Emerson has a speaking part, and she’s got two little solos this year too!

We had packed snacks for Emmie to eat in the car before practice, because she decided she wanted to wait and eat soup afterwards. So even though she had a bag of skinny pop, a fruit by the foot, and one poptart as her appetizer, she was SO pumped for soup & hot tea after rehearsal. She also loved it so much too! And so did I actually. This recipe will definitely be a repeat in the rotation now.

And of course we still had enough for two lunches for tomorrow. I only had one container though that I was positive was leak-proof, so I’m taking the bowl with a lid to work, and Jeff will take the jar and pour it out into a regular bowl.

Emmie and I read Harry Potter for just 5 or 10 minutes, since it was already pretty late, and then Addie came in to join us for the rest of the bedtime routine of prayers and lullabies. I already washed up a big load of dishes earlier right before dinner, so we’re gonna call that good enough for the night, and the rest can wait for another day…