Day 347 | Cardboard Choo Choo

Another birthday party craft for our little train enthusiast: a giant cardboard train engine.

We used three boxes, one oatmeal canister, lots of tape, and paint. Ta-da! 

So far our testers have offered rave reviews. Hopefully it survives until the weekend. 

Day 346 | Birthday Prep: Take Four

We've moved onto the fourth and final birthday celebration. Next weekend is Chase's birthday party and boy oh boy is he excited!

The theme? Trains, obviously. 

Here's the first train-themed craft: a train track birthday banner. I'll take a photo of the final hanging version. It's really cute. 

Day 345 | Adulthood

You know you're an adult when...

A new garden shed is about the most exciting purchase ever! Our stroller has a new home (as does a bunch of other random stuff). I've been schlepping the double stroller up flights of stairs for over a year now and our single stroller before that for two years wasn't a picnic either. It now has a happy parking spot behind our house. Woohoo!

Special shoutouts:

-Chris for mastering the assembly. This thing was no joke. 

-Brian, a true friend, for offering up his vehicle and muscles for the pick up and delivery of the giant box. 

-Chase for offering quality control and supervisory assistance throughout the day. And for being the first item to happily reside in the new shed (for at least a few seconds). 

Day 344 | Spring Surrounds Us

Look at all these beautiful signs of spring in the block surrounding our house.

Today's warm temps and sunshine + spring blooms = farewell winter (finally)!

Day 343 | Cherry Blossoms

There are a large contingency of DC residents that strongly *strongly* dislike Cherry Blossom time in the District. True, traffic is a terror, the metro gets just a wee bit congested, and the Mall area (including the Tidal Basin) can be unnavigable at times.

Somehow all that disappears when you see the blossoms, though. They're just so pretty.

I won't say this year was an ideal cherry blossom visit, however. We were gone for a total of three hours and spent maybe 30 minutes on the Tidal Basin. The weather was a bit chilly and overcast. Chase, although super excited to go, was less-than-thrilled with the actual outing when we got down there. And Robbe, who still takes a morning nap, decided not to sleep in the stroller (not surprising since he's only done it once). He did sleep in the carrier, though, so it wasn't all bad. 

After all that, Chris and I still considered it a success. We made it down for the Cherry Blossoms! And they continue to be worth all the trouble.

Day 342 | The Great Snack Search

I'm always on the lookout for delicious, healthy, fairly-substantial, sugar-free snacks for my wee ones. The task is harder than it should be, in my opinion. And forget about finding something that fits the bill straight out of a box. 

I just remembered this yummy muffin recipe that I used to make for Chase when he was Robbe's age. These apple-banana-blueberry muffins check every box!

I had some big helpers for the baking adventure this morning. Chase continues to love to "dump" the ingredients and Robbe loves to "help" by emptying our cupboards.

Here's the recipe. For the record, I used whole wheat flour and water instead of apple juice, only because I didn't have any on hand. The muffins aren't all that sweet (even with all the fruit) but they are perfect for my little guys (and I think they're pretty satisfying, too).

Day 341 | Virgie's Chicken

One of my favorite comfort food recipes is, hands-down, Virgie's Chicken. My family has been making this chicken dish for as long as I can remember. I'm excited to report that my boys (all three of them) love this dish as much as I do. Chase even eats his stuffing before he finishes his fruit. That never happens.

Virgie's Chicken

• 6-8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I prefer the thinner cutlets or smaller chicken breasts or will cut larger ones in half)
• Swiss cheese
• 1 can cream of chicken soup (I actually use cream of mushroom because the bits of chicken creep me out)
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 package seasoned croutons 
• 1 stick margarine (I use butter...never have margarine on hand)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease bottom of 9x13 baking dish
• Place croutons on bottom of pan
• Mix milk, soup and margarine together and pour over croutons in pan. Stir to coat croutons.
• Lay chicken breasts on top of croutons and cover chicken with slices of cheese
• Bake one hour, cover during first half of baking

*Bonus: this dish takes fifteen minutes to prep and you can make the dish early and delay start the oven. My favorite types of recipes.