Ingredients
- Chicken (either leftover baked chicken or boiled breasts)
- 2-3 cups of chicken broth or stock
- 1/2 one white onion (diced)
- 1/2 one red onion (diced)
- 1 can of diced tomatoes (drained)
- Diced green pepper
- Diced red, orange or yellow pepper (I usually pick 2 or do all 3)
- 1 large jalepeno (diced)
- 1 cup of frozen corn
- 2 cans Great Northern Beans
- 1 can black beans
- 4 gloves of garlic
- Cayenne Pepper (however hot you like it)
- Cumin (to taste)
- Chili powder (to taste)
- Fresh cilantro (chop a few sprigs to cook and a few for garnish)
- 1 tsp. lime juice (or to taste)
- 1 tsp. Garlic Powder
- Salt (to taste)
- Pepper (to taste)

Let’s Get Cookin’
- Boil your chicken in about 1/2 a pot of water until so tender it just falls apart. Remove and shred then add it back to the pot set on medium to medium high heat.
- Add your broth and beans (rinsed thoroughly).
- Let it cook for about 30 minutes and then add the rest of your ingredients.
- Bring to a simmer and cook for another 30 minutes. The key is to not overcook your peppers into mush.
- Garnish your soup with cheese, sour cream, tortilla strips and fresh cilantro. This is key to a delicious soup!
- Enjoy! And don’t forget the Corona!

Does anyone else like soup in the summer? Or ice cream in the winter? Or any other seasonably incorrect meals?

That still leaves me with painting the back porch, finishing up the patio chairs, getting some flowers in around the mailbox, trimming our hedges (again) and general party cleaning and decorations. Decorations are what I’m most excited about because I get to be super crafty and my mom is footing the bill. Don’t worry mom, I’ll keep it cheap. She is renting some more tables and chairs for the yard, so I really want to have a few vases of flowers as centerpieces and hang some tissue paper pom poms in our tree and over the dining table inside. (via)

I also really want to have balloons lining the walkway to the house and the driveway. In addition to the general “Congratulations!” banner, balloons inside and streamers. Since our back yard isn’t very impressive right now, I want to dress it up a lot to make it look better. For more of my party ideas, check out my Party Time board on Pinterest!

But don’t worry this post isn’t all dreaming and pictures of things I didn’t create! I had to wait for all of my family to get their invitations before I could share my pictures! My sister’s name, my address, and phone numbers have all been blocked out so creepers don’t show up to the party.They were super simple, even though it took 2 hours to make 20 of them. I saw the rhyme “The tassle was worth the hassle” on a card at the store and thought it was perfect for fun party invitations. And of course in keeping with the theme my sister requested, there had to be a cat on it. I should probably get some more cat things before next weekend. Put a bird cat on it is going to be my catch phrase for party prep.I cut out the invitation using my super fun craft scissors. I seriously love using those things, even if they gave me a hand cramp within the first 10 minutes. And no project is complete without a little washi tape and stickers. The tape added some visual interest without me having to break out the ribbon and spend even more time on these things. I know they’re super simple, but I kind of love them. And my sister liked them which is what is most important.

What did you do this weekend? Any crafting? Or were you a bum on the couch like me? Anybody have any fun party ideas to add to the mix?

*Linking up at Remodelholic,*

Sorry for being absent for so long! This weekend Jesse and I had a date and saw the Broadway show West Side Story, I ran a 5k (finished in 34 minutes!! Yea!), did some yard work, attended 2 graduation parties, hosted a Mother’s Day brunch, and went to another graduation party. It was absolutely INSANE! And then to top it off, as of Sunday our wireless stopped working so Jesse and I have been Hunger Gamesing it over the Ethernet hook up. I’ll be switching up my usual MWF schedule for WThF this week so I get all 3 of my posts in for the week!

Last weekend, in addition to me doing some hedge trimming, gardening, and tearing up monkey grass, we also painted our front porch. The paint on our railings was starting to peel, but after Jesse power washed the house, and the porch, we were missing HUGE junks of paint everywhere. I woke up early last Saturday morning to Jesse removing the railings on the porch. We knew it would make it way easier to sand and paint without them attached. Removing the rails was way harder to remove than we thought, based on the condition of the bolts it looked like this was the first time they’d ever been removed. Some were so rusty they just broke apart when we tried to unscrew them.After we took down the railings Jesse got to work sanding down all of the columns, but we were still left with a lot of chipping paint and giant gashes in the wood. It just so happens that on that day I read a post over at Karah’s blog about using spackle to smooth the chipping paint and fill in holes or splits in the wood. It worked wonderfully and helped create a smooth service to paint over! So thanks for that Karah!  After I spackled everything, Jesse took the sander back to the columns and then it was time for painting! We used Olympic Exterior paint with Primer in a semi-gloss finish. It was pretty much impossible to wipe down our columns before we repainted them, so I wanted to make sure the new paint was a glossy finish so it would be easy to wipe off if they get dirty. Now the columns are crisp white! So white that they look almost Photoshopped in some of these pictures! I’m in love! Now all the porch needs is a bench, a window box and a few other potted plants to add some more color to the porch! It’s going to be so cozy when I’m done! Now of course those details aren’t on the list for being done before the party, but hopefully they can be on the summer to-do list!

What were you guys up to this weekend? Were you as busy as we were? Do you love the fresh coat of paint like we do?

I’m seriously going crazy without being able to use my computer every night. It’s like the zombie apocalypse at my house.

I was super inspired when I saw Chelsea‘s recent gold dipped vase, plus Carmel at Our Fifth House is constantly incorporating gold into her home’s decor. It’s just gorgeous! So I decided I was going to get my gold on for this Pinterest Challenge. I used some good ole painter’s tape to make my stripes and then spray painted the whole vase in Rustoleum’s Metallic Gold (thanks for that tip Chelsea!). Simplest craft ever.Word to the wise, when working with tape and spray paint, don’t let the paint dry for more than a few minutes. There are a few spots that peeled up on my first try. Also how gorgeous are these flowers?! They are blue and white spider mums that I got for $2 at the grocery store on Sunday. Since doing gold stripes went so well I decided to try my luck with the gold dipped look on my new IKEA lamps. I love the clear glass, but they were so blah. I taped the lamp off using painter’s tape and aluminum foil, then I wrapped the cord in a plastic bag and got to work. The result is awesome. I’m in love! Also it’s hard to take pictures in the middle of a thunderstorm. The lighting is so weird. I ended up going ahead and “dipping” both lamps, which I’ll show you on Friday along with another project I finally did for our nightstands! Look at how motivated a Pinterest Challenge makes me!

Be sure to go check out Sherry, Katie, Emily and Renee‘s projects and thank them for hosting!

Did you participate in the challenge? What did you make? I think I may paint everything in my house gold now…

*In addition to linking up with the Pinterest Challenge hosts, I’ll be linking up with Serenity Now, The Shabby Nest, House of Hepworths, Design Dining + Diapers, Liz Marie Blog, VMG206, If It’s Not Baroque*

How was your weekend? Did anyone celebrate Cinco de Mayo? We went out with some of our friends to our fave Mexican restaurant and drank Dos Equis and tequila.

Jesse and I had a debate about what new refrigerator we should buy, and I won.

After painting the dining room we replaced our old gross wooden electrical socket covers.

Jesse built me a nightstand with a drawer, which I styled and showed off.

I made a cute runner for the dining room table using fabric from the Jo-Ann Fabrics HGTV Home Fabric line.

Jesse and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary with candy, flowers and Ethiopian food.

I went on IKEA shopping spree and bought some fun new curtains for the dining room.

Our plate display wall in the dining room got started and I’m in love!

We volunteered to host my baby sister’s graduation party and I’ve got quite the to-do list to accomplish before then!

Finally, I gave my mantel a splash of spring with some teal accessories and a few azalea blooms.

With all that under my belt, bring on May! I’ve got plans for a few other projects, not to mention party prep. But first I think I’ll welcome in the month with some margaritas for Cinco de Mayo! Any fun plans for this weekend on your end?

Have you started decorating your house for spring yet? Are things starting to warm up and bloom where you are?

This will be the first time that a lot of my family, and immediate and extended, have been to our house, so I’m a little nervous. It’s so strange how I’m totally ok with having friends over in the middle of painting a room or building something, but I want everything to be as perfect as possible for my family. Isn’t that funny? With the dining room going in an excellent direction, and looking pretty good, we need to focus our efforts on the outside of the house.

In addition to this lovely list of things to do outside, I’ve also got to make invitations, go shopping for decorations with my mom, decorate, make a few dishes and just tidy and get things together in general. I’m hoping that I didn’t bite off more than I can chew with hosting this party, but I’m also very excited about throwing a real official occasion based party.

My lovely sister has only made a few requests, that the party involves cats and the colors yellow, orange and pink. I picked up a few things when I went to IKEA a few weeks ago and I’ve been perusing Target whenever I get the chance. I really want to throw my baby sister a great graduation party, because she deserves it. Isn’t she just gorgeous? 

I’ll be sharing all of our party progress every Monday for the next few weeks until the party on June 1st. It doesn’t give us a ton of time, but I think we can pull it off!

Has anyone thrown a large family party like this? Any advice on throwing a family party that’s for a high schooler? 

*For more posts about throwing parties go here, here, here or here.*