Monday Meal Plan Culbertson Style

Monday: Cheeseburger Mac'n'cheese

Tuesday: Peanut Noodles & Chicken (repeat from last week had plans change and didn't make dinner!)

Wednesday: Crispy Baked Pork Chops & Potatoes w/veggies

Thursday: Pork Enchilada's w/red rice

Friday: Date Night!

Saturday: Stuffed Chicken Rolls & Rice Souffle (once again change of plans from last week...it's a new recipe and I really want to try it!)

Sunday: In-Laws :)

Monday Meal Plan Culbertson Style

I've seen quite a few people who post their meal plans. I've been tyring to be a better planner to help with the craziness of life and my budget. So I'll be joining Frugal and Provident Living (run by a Sister I go to church with) posting my Monday Meal Plan I'm a day late, but I'm hoping it will become a habit quick !

Monday: Snacks! (had a family over for FHE)
Tuesday: Skillet Chopped Steak w/gravy, mashed potatoes, Green Beans
Wednesday: Chili over Spaghetti Noodles, broccoli, corn bread
Thursday: Chicken Taco Mac'n'Cheese
Friday: Peanut noodles & Chicken, Asian Veggies
Saturday: Stuffed Chicken Rolls, Rice Souffle, Broccoli, Garlic Cheese Bread
Sunday: @ In-Laws! Love having someone else cook for me :)

Going Private

I will be making my blog private in the near future (was going to do it a week ago, but with family in town for the baby blessing on the 24th it was a crazy week!) Please get me an email address if you would like an invite to view our family blog.
Thanks!

Aspen turns 5!

This was Aspen's off year (no big party) so we had cake and ice cream at Grandma and Grandpa Culbertson's house the Sunday after her birthday. She had requested a heart cake (thanks for taking it easy on a new mom of three Aspen!) I'll have more birthday photos up later. Sadly her actual birthday was a little of a let down. After school she spent most the day with Grandma Culbertson because I was sick at home with an infection and a fever of 100.3! I'm so grateful that she is such a sweet little girl and was just as happy as could be with her birthday even though it wasn't everything I wanted it to be for her.

We love our Aspen so much and can't believe she's been in our family for 5 years (I've been a mom for 1/2 a decade!!!) She continues to grow and learn every day.

Here are some of Aspen's favorites

• Anything Pink
• Anything Princess
• Rice, Pepperoni Pizza, Tacos
• Playing Games
• School (Recess is already a favorite)
• Her little sisters
• Primary
• singing and dancing

Aspen is aprox 39 lbs and 41 in tall

Some of her dislikes are

• mushrooms, peas, onions
• getting water in her eyes
• getting up in the morning
• cleaning up her toys
  
  We love you so much Aspen and are looking forward to another 5 years to love you and watch you grown (not so sure how I feel about the years after 10 though...)

Aspen's First Day

My baby has gone and grown up enough to start Kindergarten! She is so excited about school and loves her teacher Mrs. Gascon.The first day I walked her to her classroom. She said hi to her teacher, paid her lunch money, and sat down and started her very first assignment. After I took this picture she looked up at me like 'your still here??' No tears or fears from my school loving social butterfly!

Big Sisters

Our first full day home from the hospital the big sisters got another surprise. New Princess dresses! Aspen got Snow White and Ella a Cinderella dress. They loved their 'new big sister' gifts.

Adelene Rae

The Story

The morning of Aug 12th I went into my DR office because I had been having contractions through out the night. I was only 36 weeks along so they wanted to check me out and see what was happening. I was starting to dialte and efface earlier that week and had made a little more progress that morning, but on my Non-stress test they saw that I was contracting every 2-3 minutes even though they weren't very uncomfortable yet. My blood pressure was up too, so they sent me home on bed rest (but my Dr thought I would probably go into labor soon with in 48 hrs). That afternoon while trying to be on bed rest-so hard with 2 kids, good thing Brent can work from home!-my contractions almost completely stopped. So here I was trying to figure out how I was going to work bed rest for the next week with Aspen's first day of school coming up and the normal demands of having a almost 5 and almost 3 yr old! I got up around 6:30 and had dinner with the family and shortly after my contractions REALLY came back. By 7:30 Brent was online looking up "When to go to the Hospital" and we decided to pack up and go around 8ish (the girls were in bed and stayed the night with Dane and a good friend of mine came and got them that morning till my in-laws got back form Orlando that afternoon) We got into the Hospital OB Triage at 8:30 and hooked me up to the monitors, my blood pressure was getting high, it topped out at 169/96 which is quite high since my normal is 120/60! My dr took about 1-1/2 HOURS to get there to check me. I was about 5cm dilated but definalty in active labor (I could have told him that an hour earlier) I finally got to a room around 10:30ish and they started my IV, broke my water, and gave me some Stadol (sp?) I went from almost 6 to fully dilated in less then 20 min and then had to WAIT AGAIN because my Dr had left the hospital. After pushing for another 15 min or so I delivered Adelene Rae at 11:33 pm (just 27 minutes shy of her Great Grandpa Grassman's bday and the day after her Great Grandpa Smith's bday!) She was 6lbs 8 oz and 19 3/4 in long making her my biggest baby. Because she was 36 weeks-or late preterm they said they would have to keep her in the NICU over night for observation. Well....they DIDN'T, she did so well and even ate within 1 hr of birth that they didn't feel the need to take her to the NICU. We ran into some other issuse with her being 'preterm' that all had to do with Hospital/Doctor bureaucratics-they wouldn't discharge the baby till 48 hrs so we didn't get home from the hospital till 12 AM that day-but she is a completely healthy normal new born.

The Photos

Just after delivery (I was still very loopy since I'd had Stadol less then 45 min earlier!)

About 12 hrs old

Meeting the Big Sisters

Our first full day home.

Ella loves her Baby Addy and always wants to be holding/loving on her.

Morning awake time.

I will have more pictures from her 1st week when I get them from my parents. They were on my moms camera and I forgot to download them before she left!

We are doing great now, I can't believe it has been 4 weeks today! Addy is a very good baby that has already started settling into a good routine. She usually (there have been a few off nights) gets up between 1:30am-2:30 am and then again 5:30-6:00am. She is then up (and cranky) for about an hr then sleeps most of the afternoon eating every 2-3 hrs. She is up again at about 6pm (dinner time of course) and has a cranky time from about 6:30-9:00pm then it's off to bed at 10 pm! When we took her in to the Dr at 1 week old she was already back up to her birth weight of 6lbs 8 oz which is REALLY good for a breast fed baby. She is continuing to eat well and grow. We go in for her 1 month check up on Monday so I'll have some more 'stats' to share then.