Bo update

So most of you know through my Facebook and Instagram updates that Bo was admitted to Valley Children's Hospital yesterday for RSV. When we got here yesterday he had a high fever which he had for a couple days that would not fully break. His breathing was hard and labored and he was wheezing. He was also very congested and lethargic. They started him on a very high dose of albuterol that was administered through a tube connected to a dome that fit over his head.....kind of looked like a astronauts helmet lol then we moved to his regular room where he was placed into a tent and the medication came through that. He had a chest X-ray that showed beginning stages of pneumonia so he is currently on antibiotics for that. Tonight, he will have his first real feeding I'm 24 hours and I get to hold him and nurse him for the first time in 24 hours as well which has been very hard. There is nothing worse that I have experienced that seeing your kids suffer and not being able to comfort them. This has been so emotionally draining. I keep on going into the restroom in our room to cry so that way I won't distract the nurses. I'm a ugly cryer :) I am so thankful Joe is able to be here and support me and Bo. He is such a sweet man and I am so thankful I married him. Also the messages of encouragement, scriptures and prayer today have been overwhelming in a good way. We have such thoughtful friends & a wonderful church family. God is here watching over my little Bo & He loves him so much. I've been really clinging to philippians 4:6-7 Lamentations 2:19 & especially John 14:27--Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Thank you Aida for sending that to me :)
We have about a week here but I am hoping for sooner. Bo recovered quickly when he was born prematurely and I know he can do it again. I will keep everyone updated on his progress, thanks again for the kind words.
Xoxo
Nichole

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Location:Valley Childrens Pl,Madera,United States

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flu aka the plague

Sickness has filled the Contente home! Betsey was hit first and after 5 days of no relief I took her in to the doctor. Her ears were red so we got some antibiotics and it has helped with the runny nose however the cough is bad and the constant fever really makes her sleepy. Bo has now come down with it. I told the pediatrician he was starting to run a low fever and she said I'm sure ill see you in a few days with him too. London has a cough and is in a pretty bad mood and I have a sore throat. No fun. Please pray for us that this will pass soon and not become a big deal.


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Bo 4months!

Our little sweet Bo Autry is 4 months old!
He has got to be the sweetest, happiest baby. Always full of smiles and rarely ever fusses unless something is wrong. We love him so much.

Bo goes to the doctor next week for his check up so I don't have accurate stats. He is beginning to roll over and gets stuck on his side. He wears 3-6 month sized clothing and a size 2 diaper. He coo's and will talk baby talk back to you when you talk to him, it's super cute. He still struggles with acid reflux so he sleeps in his swing (I don't run it at night) to help keep the acids down. He usually gives me 6 straight hours of sleep and a couple of times 10 hours! I felt like a new woman in the morning. I have been trying to get my milk supply back and have been taking domperidone and pumping like crazy and I am starting to see some results after just a few days! I am giving it a month to see if I can get enough to start feeding him every other feeding or at least twice a day. That would be great.

Here are some photos of our sweet boy:

Bo, Rowan & Mason at 3 months old! definitely look like brothers

Rowan & Mason's birthdays.

January is a BUSY birthday month for our family. We have 5 birthdays: Rowan, Mason, My father in law & mother in law & my husbands!

On the 17th we celebrated Rowan's 4th birthday at home with our family and grandparents. He wanted a teenage mutant ninja turtle party with corn dogs, macaroni & cheese and a chocolate on chocolate cake with Butterfingers ice cream! We also ordered a cheese pizza just in case the adults weren't wanting to eat kid food :) I got this awesome idea from Laura at The Muncks Quiver, on using a birthday tree. I bought a little pre-lit Christmas tree at Rite Aid for $6.71 and I am decorating it for the birthdays, most holidays and maybe to go along with some school themes we are studying. So the tree is not my idea, but I am happy to copy because my kids are loving it!

For Mason's 8th birthday, we had an Angry Birds party for him on his birthday the 25th. His dinner menu was: green chile chicken enchiladas, rice & beans with a chocolate on chocolate cake and orange sherbet. Unfortunately, the babies are sick with ear infections and a yucky respiratory virus so we kept the party to just our family and still had a great time. We will get together with the grandparents next week to celebrate with them.

I am so proud of my sons. They are both such sweet big brothers to their sisters & big helpers to me.
Happy Birthday Mason & Rowan!

I made some TMNT salt ornaments for Rowan's tree

For Mason's 8th birthday, we had an Angry Birds party for him on his birthday the 25th. His dinner menu was: green chile chicken enchiladas, rice & beans with a chocolate on chocolate cake and orange sherbet. Unfortunately, the babies are sick with ear infections and a yucky respiratory virus so we kept the party to just our family and still had a great time. We will get together with the grandparents next week to celebrate with them

I am so thankful to be "mom" to these two boys. I am so proud of my sons. They are both such sweet big brothers to their sisters & big helpers to me.

Happy Birthday Mason & Rowan!

hello!

It has been a long time since I have blogged! With good reason though.
Lets see what has happened since I last blogged & I warn you that this is a LONG post.
Well I took a long break towards the end of my pregnancy because it was just a really hard time for me.
I was diagnosed with a connective tissue disease called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. I have type 2, classical. Growing up, I was insanely limber. It was great for gymnastics and freaking my friends out with the creeping things I could do like hyper extending my knees and doing back bends into chest rolls. In high school, I started dislocating my knees a lot especially while playing volleyball. I even dislocated my shoulder while sleeping once, extremely painful. During my pregnancies I suffered from excruciating back pain. I always thought this was what all women went through, you know the sciatica etc. But this last pregnancy it was different. I couldn't walk and my hips were popping constantly. At first we thought it was just the relaxin hormone that is released to widen your hips and prepare them for child birth. But it was so painful. Then I dislocated my knee three times, twice while holding Betsey....dropping me to the ground and dropping her as well. Also, with each of my pregnancies, I have gone into labor earlier and earlier. During this time, my extended family went through a major diagnosis. My aunt had been struggling with some health issues and was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos (EDS). She suggested my grandma and dad be tested because it is a genetic disease and typically 50% of your family is effected by it. Sure enough, they were positive for it. My Aunt, who is also a physician, told me that I had more than half of the symptoms for it. This was in my third trimester of my pregnancy and after finding out more information I was more than freaked out. Our families genetic strand also has vascular issues, which is very dangerous and can cause ruptures. I was in my 5th pregnancy, facing my 5th cesarean....and put 2 and 2 together, your uterus is the most vascular part of your body outside of the heart. Having repeat cesareans puts you at a risk (low) for uterine ruptures, adding that I had 4 previous and now the EDS significantly raised my risk over the 30% mark. I have a grandfather and uncle who both passed from EDS related myocardial ruptures. I was sent to see a specialist as well as a genetic counselor. We pieced together all of my symptoms, the hyper extensions, the dislocations, the pre-term labor and decided that I could not be allowed to go past 37 weeks gestation due to rupture risk. I never made it that far. 35 weeks. EDS causes pre-term labor through early ruptures of the membranes. If you have a vascular variety, it causes an irritable uterus which is what I have. I have contractions almost the entire pregnancy. I have a severely scarred cervix due to fibroid when I was teenager. Thankful for that scarring because most women with EDS struggle with incompetent cervix because EDS is a connective tissue disorder and our cervix is made 100% of connective tissue, so my contractions never caused a change in my cervix and I am unable to dilate. But the contractions cause major stress to the baby, causing a major drop in heart rate. After laboring for 8 hours with contractions at 2 minutes apart and every medicinal attempt to stop labor,  Bo was born at 6lbs 15 oz and put into a incubator an hour after birth. We did chest to chest almost immediately after my cesarean. This was first for me and so special. But his labored breathing worsened and they needed to get him into Children's Hospital's care immediately. Bo stayed in the neonatal nursery for 6 days. The first 2 days we weren't even allowed to touch him because it caused him anxiety and made his heart race. He had sepsis and jaundice pretty severely. However, after 2 days of immense prayer, it just cleared. Sometime that the nurses said never happens. Bo recovered so quickly that he was able to stay in the NICU at our little hospital and never transferred to the big house in Madera, another thing that never happens. Typically, babies are transferred within 48 hours to the big house. But I believe that the Lord took extra special care of our little boy and helped him heal and get strong quickly. This made it possible for me to see him every day and pump and give him my breast milk. There is nothing harder than seeing your baby hurting and struggling. I still have a hard time looking at the photos of him in there, I cry every time. Im crying while typing this out. But now Bo is doing great and growing fast. When we left the hospital he weighed just a little over 5 lbs, now he weighs 12. He is such a HAPPY baby, always smiling and rarely fussy. I was unable to keep nursing him past 2 months. I didn't make hind milk, so Bo wasn't gaining weight. I pumped and fed him lots of milk.....still lost weight. So we started formula and he has thrived since. I struggled with hind milk issues with Betsey as well. Life is starting to get back to normal. Bo is sleeping through the night, usually giving me at least 6 hours or more of uninterrupted sleep...which is amazing! I am beginning to get into a routine of schoolwork with London, and starting to be able to keep house and cook meals more regularly, husband is thankful for that :)
My recovery has been brutal, my incision is still not healed all the way. I can't wear jeans fastened yet, because it rubs against it and is so painful. But it heal, and all will be ok again. I've been a bit paranoid about leaving the house with the baby because it's winter and RSV is everywhere and the flu. We were treated to a trip to Disneyland for 2 days and kept Bo covered the entire time as well as dousing ourselves and our children in hand sanitizer. It was fun, but completely stressful.....I do not recommend this with a new baby. We haven't gone to church in weeks because there is always a sick kid (sometimes it's mine lol) who infects every one, and Bo is still pretty susceptible to getting sick. He is congested a lot due to an air allergy and premature lung development so we have to be really careful. Well sorry the longest post ever, but alot has happened. We are well, we are loving life and we are blessed :) here are some photos of Bo!

past due.

Wow it's been almost 2 months since I have posted.
Life was been busy, in a good way.
I am almost 22 weeks into my pregnancy, feeling great just ginormous..... 5th pregnancy is no joke on the "I'm showing" meter.
Betsey celebrated her 1st birthday, my sweet girl.
Mason is out of school for the summer & finished baseball.
We officially started a homeschool curricula for London & Rowan, Heart of Dakota so far it's great.
It's 100 degrees already, I plan spending lots of time in the pool.

Well when I have some more time, I'll write about something with some more substance.

xoxo

Nichole

go clean your room!

We live in a 3 bedroom house. Pretty normal.
We have 4 kids, 2 boys, 2 girls. So originally we had girls in one room, boys in the other. But about 4ish months ago we moved all of the kids into one room aka "the sleep room" and moved all of their books, games, puzzles, toys into the other room aka "the play room". This has worked out really great for us. On the weeks that Mason is home from visiting his dad the kids all wanted to sleep on the bunk bed in the boys room at night to chit chat, giggle and hang out anyways and now with London sleeping in there she has her own bed and they still get to be together. Betsey was put into the sleep room a few months ago as well, and it's working out really well because they respect her sleep time and do not wake her up. Also as the younger ones nap it gives space to the older kids to get to play and read together. I am a big fan of children sharing rooms. It teaches them to share and to respect others space and belongings. It also helps the children hold each other accountable. Our children are young enough that having boys and girls in the same room is still appropriate. But the downfall is that there is a lot of stuff in the play room to clean up each day and this has become a huge deal to my kids. It takes them forever every day, lots of crying, whining and discipline involved.
Yesterday was no exception. Finally after the millionth time of disciplining, raising my voice ( fail ) my husband going in and doing the same thing (fail) . I finally just realized that my kids don't know how to organize and put things away the way I would like them. They have never been trained to do it. They have had their own rooms with the things split up so there wasn't as big of a mess to pick up. So I went in there and sat down and showed Mason the proper way to put the books away on the book cases. I showed London how to put the puzzles in their bins, the dolls in the other and her dress up clothes in the right spot in the closet. I showed Rowan where his dinosaurs go, and where the firetrucks go on the shelf. It took 20 minutes.
I realized how many times I get so frustrated with my kids over things that I have not take the time to sit down and properly train them how to do & complete. I just automatically assumed that they would know where everything went and how to put it back where it came from but after 10 hours of playing off and on in a room you forget and they are young. I had to apologize. Today they made a mess before breakfast and I said lets do a quick clean up, it was done.....quickly.
amazing.
I'm sure I will still have to remind them of how to do things, but that's my job...to train my children.

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it"

the 5th means just as much as the 1st

I overheard a conversation of 2 moms at Mason's school on Friday that just really upset me. I just can't get it out of my head. They were really making fun of their sisters and brothers for having big families. They were saying such rude things. I just stood there wondering if people say the same thing about me for being pregnant with my 5th. And then I thought why is the world so against parents having children? Why is that people consider the first and second children such blessings but anything beyond that is just crazy and unwanted and merits rude comments like "don't you know how this happens" "better you than me". 


I was really sick last night. I couldn't keep my dinner down, and I woke up in the middle of the night completely sick again. This pregnancy has been a little hard in the morning sickness department. I feel really tired, a little grumpy and very nauseous. My house is falling apart, I'm going days without doing laundry which is catastrophic for a family of 6. I'm washing clothes then not putting them away and then I can't tell which clothes are clean or dirty and I refuse to do a "sniff" test. This morning around 3 I was sick again and I laid in bed and started crying. I starting telling God that I have no idea what He was thinking letting me get pregnant again. I told Him that there is no way that I can do this, that I can manage my house, that I can give my kids the attention they need and I will have nothing left for my husband. I cried really hard. I felt totally defeated. The comments of the ladies from Friday repeated in my mind. I began to feel that maybe those words were true. I ended up just crying myself to sleep. I woke up feeling the same feelings I had felt earlier. Then while getting ready, I began thinking of how God has a plan for my life. So I opened up my handy YouVerse bible app and searched "God's plan" and this verse popped up:
 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11).


Exactly what I needed to hear and it gave me so much peace. 
And then right now I was reading a blog and the mother who has a large family wrote this and it totally encouraged me:


"God never gives us more than we can bear. And He knows I couldn't handle a large family. Truth is, none of us can really handle anything. Truth is, we are all flawed and it truly is only by His mercy that we move and breathe and have our being. Thus, it follows that if God chooses that you have one, three, seven, ten or *no* children, it will be truly by His grace and mercy and ultimately for YOUR good and HIS glory."


I'm a blessed lady. My children make me so happy and I know that being a mother and wife is a wonderful thing that maybe isn't valued enough by people, but it is valued highly by my God and that is good enough for me. Also.... laundry isn't the biggest deal in life right now and I don't know why I keep complaining of being tired, I've been tired since 2005 and I should be used to that. And I know that when this baby is here, all of these silly non important complaints will be exactly that....not important. My 5th child is just as important to me as my first, not a curse, not an inconvenience, not unwanted, but loved. 

hello insecurity.

I consider myself to be a pretty secure person.
sure I would love to lose weight, and have perfect hair and skin 24/7.....but who doesn't.
but there is one thing that bothers me the most, and eats away at me 2 weeks out of the month.
and that is having to share my son.
Mason spends every other week with his dad. He has been doing this for 3 years now, before that he lived with me and had frequent visitations with is dad, but was never gone for more than one night at a time.
It sucks so bad no having him here those weeks. Literally a person is missing from our family 1/2 of the year. I think about him every day and his brother and sisters miss him so much they both sleep in his bed when he is gone.
I hate sharing him. I hate him leaving. I hate eating dinner with his chair empty at the table, his seat empty in the car, I hate not being able to talk to him every day and wondering what happened at school, I hate missing out on hearing about his dreams when he wakes up,  I hate it all.
sharing Mason makes me feel insecure about my ability to be a great mom to him.
I'm not there for him 50% of the time and then the 50% of that time that i do have him, he is in school for half of the day. then i start to feel guilty about how much more time I spend with London rowan and Betsey and now the new baby too. mason will never get to have that from me and it breaks my heart.
and the devil preys upon this insecurity of mine, pushing it in my mind all the time, letting it linger there when the house is quiet. it makes me feel anger, jealousy towards his dad for getting that time with him that I so desperately want back. it makes me have to check my thoughts constantly when it comes to sharing school events with them, or hearing his step mom refer to my child as her own.
 One morning, I read Galatians 5... "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Galatians 5:16-24.
I wasn't even thinking about this issue when I read that, but the moment I got to the word "jealousy" then fits of anger...rivalries, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I finally just had to let it go. I literally ended up on my knees praying crying for God to help me feel whole in my relationship with Mason and to take  away those insecurities from my heart and mind. I had to repent of my anger and malice thoughts about the situation and those involved in it.
 I feel so free now. Sure they still creep up, but I feel more equipped now to just move past it.
This situation is a consequence of my sin of having a child before I was married. There is a reason why God's plan is so much better than what we decide to do on our own.  I love Mason so much, but having kids when you are not married is not ideal for this very reason.
Because of the situation being in our lives, it has opened up conversations with Mason about marriage and children and God's timing for those things in your life, which has been blessing to be able to show him with our own example of what happens when you go onto your own path and not God's but heart wrenching at the same time. He loves both of his families but he often talks about how he wishes things were the same for him as they are for his siblings. so sad.
I guess the reason for me writing this post is just to remind you that the feelings of inadequacy, anger, jealousy are just emotions. They aren't permanent, you can do something about and control. Repent for the anger and any wrong doings you have done and ask for God's help to lead you to move forward & you can feel a definite sense of peace in the situation.

xoxo
Nichole

my heart is content(e)

barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen...literally.

I realized today that I was pregnant last year on Valentines day, and this year I am pregnant again.
Yes, we are having another one, our 5th baby is due at the end of October.
Yes, this baby was planned.
No, I am not wanting a reality television show.
No, I am not crazy.
No, I do no want to be Michelle Duggar, even though I do like her show.
Yes, my hands are full, and they have been full since 2007.
Is it hard work? of course!
Is it worth it? you bet.
Will we have more kids? I don't know, we are taking it one cesarean at a time.
Oh and the last question that was asked on facebook.... how on earth do you afford it?
We just do. We always seem to manage and I never feel like we go without. Do we go out to dinner every night or drive a mercedes? No. Do I want that? No. I am very content with my life and what we have, and my children are happy. We don't view our kids as a financial burden, or something that we have to deal with. We love them. We are extremely grateful for them, and they bring us an insane amount of joy.
We are extremely excited. Our entire family is very excited for us. Our kids are so stoked. Mason wants another sister, and Rowan wants the baby to be a the pumpkin king (go figure) &  London keeps on saying I am having 3 boys.  It's starting to worry me because she flat out told me I was pregnant 2 weeks ago.

Me, Joe, Rowan & Betsey 2-14-11

be cheerful.

I'm tired, my house is messy, I have a teething very clingy 8 month old, my older children have already misbehaved and our dogs shredded hoses in the back yard. I felt very overwhelmed at 5 am this morning, when Betsey woke up and stayed awake. But, I decided to make the most of it, opened up my Bible did my devotion which was realllllly good on Philippians 2, started a load of laundry, made breakfast, caught up on reading some blogs and one of them stated this verse:


When a man is gloomy, everything seems to go wrong;
when he is cheerful, everything seems right!
~ Proverbs 15:15


How true is it that our attitude can change the entire mood for our household? Sometimes as a stay at home mom, we can feel very undervalued or under appreciated and that we don't make that much of an impact on our family. This is so untrue! Our roles as mothers and wives is a high calling, we are raising children, we are running a household 24/7, we are teachers, we are nurses. Do not undervalue the importance of being home with your children. God calls us to be makers of the home, "...encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home..." Titus 2:4&5. 
Any negativity you have with your attitude affects your entire household. No one enjoys to be around a grumpy person. My children & husband feed off of any negativity I have when I am in a bad mood. After reading that verse it really put some perspective on my feelings of being overwhelmed this morning. Yes, I have a lot to do today but that is ok and there is nothing wrong with that. My advice is when you are in a situation like I am today, put a smile on your face and let the small things be small things. Realize that sleepless nights are just a season in your life that will soon pass, find joy in cleaning your home, even if it is just to get messy again because we clean our homes for others to enjoy too. Remember to be encouraging of right behavior when you discipline your children & have a smile on your face when your husband comes home from work.....it will make a difference. 

my lovie.

(ok totally posted this 55 minutes early)
Today is Mason Alexander Paulo's 7th birthday.
7.
like in 3 more birthdays he will be 10. like in 2 more 7's he will be 21. ok i just need to stop.
these past 7 years have been the best 7 years of my life.
all of my children are such blessings, each one of their birthdays are exciting. there is something a little tad different about the first one and not that he means more to me or that i love him more because that is untrue. but when you start to reminisce about that first born, it hits you a little deeper in your heart.
he made me a mom.
i remember not being able to sleep the night before my cesarean because i was so nervous. i was nervous about the surgery, nervous that i wouldn't know how to be a mom, that i wouldn't feel that connection, that i wasn't going to do a good job. we got to the hospital at 6am, i remember stressing on what to wear and i ended up just wearing a long sleeved white shirt with gray yoga pants. i was scheduled at 8am. however, due to some emergencies i didn't go back to surgery till 12:30. the room was cold, sterile and my hands kept on shaking because i was so nervous.
dr. enloe said ok here he comes and i remember there being what seemed like an eternity before i heard him cry, and when i heard his cry, i began crying. shoot im crying right now just typing it out. they dropped the blue barrier and there he was, HUGE and with a scrunched up face and he still had yucky white stuff and blood on him. his dad had the camera to take pictures but he just stood there in shock staring at him like whoa this is my child, this is all real. Mason Alexander Paulo was born at 12:54pm January 25th 2005 weighing 9 pounds 15 ounces and 23 3/4 inches long.
the nurse brought him to me and I kissed him and he was taken out of the room into recovery. i had to sit in a separate room for over an hour before i could be reunited with him. cesareans really suck sometimes, but none the less he was born and it was still a very amazing experience. i love the early memories with him, our routines we had in the morning, letting him sleep on my chest at night because i was too scared to put him down, learning to nurse him and feeling amazed at how a mother body is and how it worked to provide for my child. i remember the first time he smiled at me, the first time he rolled over, ate rice cereal,  sat up all by himself, the first time he clung to my neck when i held him. I have these wonderful memories that will always be special to me because they were all firsts for me.

Mason grounded me. he helped me change from being a self centered teenager to a woman who had a purpose. it's just so unreal that it has been 7 years. it was just me and him for awhile, figuring life out. it's surreal to think of how far we have come since then. he is now a big brother to 3 siblings, a first grader who is so brilliant. Mason has this innocence about his personality. he just wants to be everyone's friend. he is such a little boy at heart. he loves being outside, he is full of energy and exuberant about life. he will tell you that his favorite color is blue or red but really it is pink and then he will argue with you that pink is a guy color and that it is totally fine that he loves it.  he loves comic books and gets mad at me when i take a black sharpie pen and color in a modest tube top over cat womans cleavage. he loves to read, he is really into chapter books now and is in the accelerated reading program at school. he loves to ride his scooter, play catch with Joe and look for bugs in the back yard. he is only 7 years old and already has his own personal relationship with Jesus and I love seeing it grow. i have always called mason my lovie. he was such a cuddly baby always wanting to be held, he could only sleep if i would lay down with him. when he got to be a toddler, he would stand there and said "i hold you i hold you" asking me to pick him up. we co-slept till i was pregnant with london. he still will come lay on my lap. each of my kids have a nickname that is exclusive to them, and mason's is lovie which is completely suiting to him.  i made up a song to sing to Mason when he was about 2 years old. it's called the Mason Paulo song....... so original, i know. he has now made variations for it for each of his siblings, but even rowan says hey lets sing the mason paulo song and then puts his own name into it. anytime he is in a bad mood or upset ill start singing the song and it almost always puts a smile on his face. mason is a big kid, who am i kidding? he is a giant and looks more like an 11 year old than a 7 year old. he eats like a horse and even loves vegetables like asparagus and brussels sprouts. however he doesn't like anything "spicy" and mild salsa is spicy to this kid. he loves to tell jokes, which most of the time aren't very funny but we still encourage him to try....he really wants to be a funny kid :) I love him, every little thing. he is one of the best things to ever happen to me and I love more than I will ever be able to describe on this blog.
Happy Birthday Mason.

ugh.

yesterday i had a tough day.
i started my you know what, so i felt miserable, achy & incredibly grumpy.
i didn't want to get out of bed, i felt like i had taken a bullet to the uterus and i wanted to die.
my kids watched a lot of movies and played in their play room while i wallowed around the house in my pajamas with leftover mascara under my eyes and whined about how awful it is to be a woman (in my mind because i didn't want to explain what was going on to my 4 year old, too soon...way too soon for that conversation)
the kids were bickering, i was letting it go on way to long without stepping in and being the peacemaker. i was being lazy and yelling from my room "knock it off you two!!" "work it out!!" "quit yelling at your brother London!" as I was yelling at her...go figure. i fed them lunch, put them down for an early nap because i still had to pick up mason from school, take him to basketball practice, make dinner, go to church. my house was covered in unfolded laundry, toys & more laundry.
i was so snappy all day. it was awful.
then i just kind of broke down in my bed and cried a little (50% caused from hormones, 50% my realization of how bad i was sucking that day)
i prayed for God to help me. for Him to give me energy, for me to be a patient mom no matter what is going on with my body....and to quit being such a whiner about something i have dealt with since i was 9.
the day went on, we went to church. seriously the only thing i was honestly looking forward too. i sat in the nursery with betsey and a friend and all of the little kiddos. i began to tell her how i had had a hard day with my kids and she told me has struggled with those days as well and she said it was something she realized she wasn't praying enough about. and that really hit home with me. well i had prayed earlier that day at my breaking point, but in reality patience is something that every single mother struggles with and usually on a daily basis. i should be praying regularly for guidance and help on this topic. prayer life while having 4 young children takes some organization of your time, but if you watch reality tv, facebook, text and post on instagram every hour.......you can have time for prayer and getting your devotion in. God tells us in bible that he will give us the desires of our heart, and in my heart i really do desire to be a patient soft spoken mother. sometimes we focus on the complaining in person of how things are, blaming our children for our aggrevation because they were bickering all day, or wouldn't listen to you. even though those things are going on in my house, i still have control of how i react to them. i rarely sit down and have that conversation with Him, letting him know how we are struggling and thanking him for my circumstances that allow me to see how i need to grow and change as a mother. asking for help with my lack of patience and self control with raising my voice and being lazy with my discipline, even if i am not feeling my best.  some people say, dont pray for patience so God will send you a hard situation to learn it through. i think that's lame.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7)

3 years ago today

Rowan turned 3 years old today.
I still remember the day I found out I was pregnant with him. Feels like yesterday.
London was only 5 months old, Mason was 3. I cried in the exam room when I met with my midwife. She told me to get it together and left the room and when she came back and I had stopped bawling like a baby she said "You'll never be able to imagine your life without this baby so lets move forward and be happy". Babies are blessings, getting pregnant is a joyous thing. But at the time, I felt overwhelmed with my two little ones. We said we were "done" we had one boy and one girl. Joe was really slow with work it was at the peak of the downfall with the economy in construction and money was really tight.  I was stressed about us not being able to make it work. We were living in a tiny little 800 sq ft house and it was crowded with the 4 of us. It was just bad timing to have a baby. It's funny how we have our own time table of how life is supposed to happen. God's plan was different than mine. When I left the office, I felt better than when I had arrived. When I came home and told Joe. He threw up. I giggled. I thought it was funny, shoot I still think it's a little funny when he throws up over silly things like the kids boogers ending up on his face and stuff like that. Sorry babe.
But we soon became super stoked on baby #3. Even more stoked to find out that #3 was a boy!!! I attempted a vbac with Rowan. Attempted is loosely stated. My ob/gyn would not allow me to go past my due date with him. So on my due date, a Friday, I drank a bottle of castor oil. Nothing happened. So I drank another bottle, got violently ill but contractions started. However they were false contractions and I ended up with being dehydrated and a cesarean. During my cesarean, Dr. B said "who has red hair in the family" and I said well my moms is kind of a reddish brown. Next I heard a baby cry and she lifted him up and he had a full head of bright orange red hair!!! I had a blonde, brunette & a red head. He had some difficulty breathing. You see, I was still exclusively nursing London when I got pregnant with Rowan. I hadn't a cycle yet. One day London literally refused to nurse. So I had to buy formula. I ended up feeling super nauseous a few days later and I took a home pregnancy test and it lit up like a Christmas tree. The nurse told me that being pregnant changes breast milk and that's why London wouldn't nurse. So long story short, I didn't have a cycle to go by for a due date. They did an ultrasound and it put me at January 17th. But in reality Rowan was more due around the first week of February. He was completely covered in vernix and was blue. It was scary. I didn't hold him till he was 10 hours old. I cried so much the first time he was in my arms. I pestered the NICU nurses every 30 minutes with my phone calls to see if he was OK. I didn't know how we were going to make it financially, or how I was going to find space in our tiny home for him, or how I was going to handle having 2 infants and a toddler.....but you know what? we did just fine. And I honestly miss that little house and so does Mason because we were always together. One thing about not having a lot of money is that you spend a lot of time home together as a family. Deb was right, I can't imagine my life without Rowan. He makes me smile every single day, and laugh a lot too...especially when he dances to the last scene in Despicable Me. He loves Star Wars, matchbox cars and duplo blocks. He loves to be outside playing in the dirt and eats like a horse and is as skinny as can be. He loves his yellow blankie and never leaves home without it. He is the Contente family Linus. His favorite color is blue. He is very shy but insanely bold when it comes to things like just taking cookies off of the counter when he feels like it. He lives in his rain boots. At every meal he thanks God for "my mommy & my friends" even though he is a total daddy's boy, that kid is thankful for his Mom <3  I love him with every fiber of my being. He was a wonderful surprise and I am glad that I believe in a God who knows whats best for me. He knew that we needed a little guy like Rowan at that exact time in our lives. "Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you..." Jeremiah 1:5. I am so very thankful for Rowan. He makes me happy and brings so much good stuff to our family.
Here are some photos from pregnancy till now:

 I love you Rowan, happy birthday son.

2011

2011 was a good year for my family.

I began attending Calvary Chapel with my children full time in January, my boys celebrated their birthdays the 17th and 25th. My husband the 31st. Joe began coming to church with us in March. We celebrated 5 years of being together on May 18th. Our fourth baby, Betsey Jane, was born in May 23rd. Joe became a Christian in June.  London accepted Christ at VBS in July. Mason also accepted Christ into his heart a few days later via London sharing her sweet little testimony with her big brother in the back seat of the car. London turned 4 in September. I weaned Betsey from nursing in October. We went to Disneyland. I celebrated my 26th birthday in November. We had a wonderful Christmas and celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on the 29th of December. 

I don't know what can get better than celebrating the birth of another child, seeing the work of God in your lives as your spouse and 2 oldest children get saved, having a marriage that gets to celebrate another anniversary and watching your children grow older. oh and Disneyland.

We have been truly undeniably blessed, I can't imagine how 2012 can top that. 

One income & a family of six, please.

I love looking at bloggers weekly menus and budget tips, I like to know how other big families make it work. My husband is our sole provider, and is on a weekly pay schedule. I grocery shop every week because of that pay schedule so a budget is crucial.

In the past 4 months I have cut our grocery budget down by $50 a week, which is $200 a month and that's big savings. I do this by shopping from the local grocery store ads each week, stocking up on 2 weeks worth of those items and then menu planning from that. Last week for example, Best Buy had chicken thighs and drumsticks on sale for .99 lb, pork shoulder roast on sale for $1.59lb, sandwich rolls 4 for $1, neufchatel cheese and Parmesan cheese on sale as well. I spent $32.50 on my grocery trip there. Those 2 packages of chicken I broke down into freezer bags of 5 pieces each (Mason was at his dads so 5 pieces is perfect for us), which landed me 4 bags of chicken in my freezer. I made a chicken casserole with one bag of the chicken thighs, the other 3 are still in my freezer. The pork shoulder made 4 meals, the pulled pork sandwiches I made the first night I made it, the carnitas tacos we ate with the leftovers and the huge bag of the remainder in my freezer which is enough for 2 meals. The neufchatel cheese and parm I used to make a low fat alfredo sauce which we served over whole wheat linguine that was on sale at Walmart for $1 and I served it with steamed veggies and whole wheat bread.  From that $32.50 grocery bill, I still have 3 bags of chicken in my freezer as well as a big bag of "The Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork". By shopping the sales ad, I saved money, plus was able to push into my next weeks budget and making this week very easy shopping because I only have 2 nights I need to buy for and we are doing spaghetti and beef stroganoff, which are inexpensive very kid friendly meals. Also I go through my pantry to see what I have in there to make sure I am utilizing what I already have purchased. Right now have lots of oatmeal in my pantry, as well as multi-grain pancake mix (F&E) lots of peanut butter, black beans green beans, quinoa, soup and cold cereal & baking items.


Breakfasts: (for the kids, I usually eat an egg with piece of toast for breakfast and sometimes oatmeal)
eggs & toast (mother in law has laying hens so free eggs)
multi-grain pancakes with honey (F&E has their pancake mix on sale every other week)
cold cereal with milk (Frosted Mini Wheats are our fav)
oatmeal with Raisins
and then I do a repeat of one of the above for 2 days

Lunches: (this is for the kids, I usually eat soup or a tuna sandwich for lunch)
peanut butter & jelly with apple slices (F&E strawberry jam is HFCS free and kids love it)
cheese quesadillas with carrot slices (I use whole wheat tortillas for them)
whole wheat pitas & hummus  with carrots & broccoli for dipping
stella pastina (star pasta soup, broth, carrots, star shaped pasta with mozz cheese on top)
and then I repeat these throughout the week
after church lunch- PW's Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Dinner:
wednesday- baked panko chicken drumsticks with garlic red potatoes and green beans
thursday- carnitas tacos (PW's Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork)
friday- cream of mushroom chicken bake with brown rice
saturday- spaghetti with garlic bread and salad
sunday- beef stroganoff with green beans & whole wheat rolls
monday-buttermilk fried chicken drumsticks with mashed potatoes & corn <-----Joe's request
tuesday- quinoa & black beans (recipe found here...need something light after the previous meal lol)

I have about $70 in grocery items I need, and about $30 in household items needed.
I plan to get as much of this at fresh & easy because I have a $10 off of $50 coupon. I know most of these items maybe cheaper at Walmart but I drive a suburban so with a $10 off coupon I will use twice so $20 off in coupons and the gas I would be saving from not making an extra trip to Hanford, it's a better deal. So if I buy everything but the stroganoff meat at F&E that is an estimated $100, minus the $20 off in coupons, and the 5 bucks at savemart (F&E doesn't sell it), I will have purchased everything we need for a week for $85. Next week I will need diapers, wipes, cleaning supplies so my budget will be closer to $100. So figure every other week at $85 and every other week at $100, I am spending around $425 a month for our family of 6 for groceries and household supplies and my goal is to be under $450. I think that is pretty awesome. I know I could tighten it even more but we are good where it is right now.

Another way I save money is that we use cloth diapers for Betsey. Rowan is in disposables but I buy Walmart's brand and they work fine for him and are incredibly cheap like $3 for 18. I also buy a lot of our toiletry items at CVS or Walgreens and use their savings card program, but since I have the coupon at F&E this week, I'll probably just get my items there. I haven't gotten the ad for Best Buy yet, so if they have a good deal on something I might go there and stock up for next weeks groceries plus I am looking for things on sale for my Christmas Eve dinner.

People always ask me how do you handle and afford 4 kids. I honestly really enjoy my big family, my kids are fun and they bring me so much joy and love. I would probably have 6 if it wasn't for the cesareans. Do I have bad days where I am easily frustrated, tired and spent? you bet! But the good days outweigh the bad days hands down.  Expenses? We budget everything. Groceries, bills, fun money, everything. Every dollar has it's place. For the kids clothes, I shop mostly at Target. Their mix & match tables are awesome. Mason is on the other side of the aisle now, but he likes the Shawn White stuff there. Also, me and my girlfriends with children of similar ages clothes swap when our kids grow out of things. Rowan just scored 3 bags of cute winter clothes so we do a mix of new and free thrifting :)  and I always get compliments on how cute my kids are dressed so don't knock second hand clothing, its great. We normally buy Van's for the kids. They last awhile, my husband is a big fan of them and they are worth the $35 a pair. Most importantly, a major change in attitude and prioritizing what is of value in your life makes a huge difference. My focus isn't keeping up with the Jones', it's on raising my family & providing for them in a way that pleases my Lord. My attitude used to not be that way, and I have struggled with being grateful with what I have in the past. I am in a place of contentment right now with what God has provided for us and I try to do my best to stretch it, save it & have fun with it.

winter!

This cold weather is wonderful. It was 26 degrees last night! ahh love it.

We even let the doggies all sleep in the house, had to lock up our chocolate lab Coffee....she chews, but she didn't mind.

I have almost all of the Christmas decorations up! We are going to get a tree this week, then I will do the tree. We have a vintage tinsel tree and a small tree in the den that has all of Joe's baseball ornaments on it but I want a real one this year. My grandma gave me all of her ornaments, so I have some from when she was little, my dad and aunt renee's homemade ornaments and then some from when I was a child. I love unthemed trees. I think that they should be a story of your life, your first ornament for your first home, a child first christmas, a place that you visited, ornaments your children make with you or in Sunday school. I even have my great grandmother June's handmade quilted tree skirt.  Those are my favorite types of trees. I do have new ornaments as well, for my birthday last year Joe gifted me with lots of pretty ones from Anthro, plus some filler bulbs I got at target. We went to our little towns Christmas Parade last night. Super cute, the kids loved it. We were given a box of gingerbread cookies by a local grocer and the kids had fun with that. It was super super cold, like 30 degrees. I froze, the kids were dressed super warm. We came home and made hot chocolate while I whipped up some Pioneer Woman fried pork chops with mashed potatoes. What? they were low fat......I swear :)

We are sitting this Sunday inside, with football on the tv and a fire going. I made linguica and eggs with toast this morning before we were getting ready for church and as I looked across the table at my two middle children I noticed how RED their eyes were. pink eye. 

We have been plagued with sickness this winter, from a vicious cold cycle that hit everyone twice, to the flu, to a stomach virus and now this. 

my poor kiddos.

and I miss the outside world, I miss going to church, I miss my kids getting to play with other kids.

Hopefully this is it.
Here are some photos from yesterday, decor & the parade. sorry for the blurry photos, I was shivering when I took them.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

gifts.

It's going to be December 1st tomorrow!
I have put a little decor up, if you follow me on IG you have seen the photos of it, I will start with more tomorrow. We have the lights up outside, first year doing color and I am liking it! its fun.
I have always done very muted colors for christmas, lots of dark golds and silvers, burlap and lace with just a little touch of color. But this year I was gifted a fabulous vintage tinsel tree so I am going to play up the vintage pastels and teals along with the gold and silver so lots of color in our home.
We got an head start on our gift buying as well. The kids toys are purchased, we are pretty simple with gifts. And I am making a quilt for Betsey out of some fabrics, new and vintage I have been collecting via crafts stores and thrift/antique stores. The boys we will be making a chalkboard wall in their room framed with molding and I am going to be making London a felt board! I am so excited for her to have one, I had one as a child and had lots of fun with it plus I think it would be useful for homeschool as well for story telling.
Here are some ideas that I have pulled via pinterest (of course )

Source: livingcrafts.com via Nichole on Pinterest

Source: birchandbird.com via Katie on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Alisa on Pinterest

I am going to be doing a lot of crafting this upcoming weekend, hopefully no sick kids so I can get some work done. Making some pom and paper garland, some felt ornaments, a tree skirt and hopefully painting my dreadful kitchen! I hope you guys are getting into the Christmas spirit, 25 days!!

Nichole who?

I'm going to start rambling so please be patient with me and all of my grammatical errors.

I have been dealing with a major personal crisis.
Major to me anyways.
For the past couple of years I have felt super lost.
That was majorly due to the fact that I was living in the world 100% and not walking with God like I should have been.
So I rededicated my life to Christ.
The mean, lying, selfish, cheating, heart breaking, stealing, angry, self absorbed, vain, ignorant, pathetic ( the list seriously goes on and on)......The old me died when I accepted Christ into my heart and asked him for forgiveness for my sins.
But now that I am on this new journey of trying to live the life of a Christian, what exactly is that life supposed to look like?
For the last 24 years of my life I have found my identity in worldly things.
I seriously have been going through a major identity crisis, it's not even funny in fact it's been pretty depressing. All of who I was before is done, so who I am now? It is affecting every part of my life. From how I feel about myself, what type of mother I am, my role as a wife, how I dress, even how I want to decorate my house, seriously everything. The old me used to dress to attract people. I mean of course I want to look nice, I love when my husband likes what I am wearing or how I have my hair fixed etc. But I mean dressing with lower cut shirts, more provocatively, wanting to wear $200 Joe's jeans, having obnoxious purses that blast the name brand all over them so everyone and their mom can see what money I spend on my things. That desire to do those things was definitely a refection and an issue of what was going on in my heart. As if I needed those people's approval through possession of these "things". And lately I have been struggling with wanting to have those things as my desires again and throwing myself a major pity party. I've started to feel ungrateful for the life I have been blessed with and have been having that hunger to want more materialistic things. The feeling of ungratefulness seriously taints all that you see with a color of ugliness that everything you own and have is just not good enough. I just want contentment again. After all contente is my last name...laugh? ok no laugh.
 Then yesterday while I was driving through Hanford, I saw my dream car.....(totally not going to tell you what it is because it's obnoxiously gaudy and embarrassing) and then the Lord totally spoke to me....."Nichole you need your identity to be in Me, and not in things like that". Whoa.
I felt it so heavy in my heart.
My eyes shouldn't be on that car, or those jeans, or that house or any of those things, my eyes need to be on my Savior who died and suffered for me. I don't need any of that for Christ's approval of me, his approval is based on his undying love for me.

"Who are you? You’re His, He is yours, and you’ve been cleansed from sin. And that’s all the identity any of us need."--Elyse Fitzpatrick


 I seriously feel so disgusted by my worldly desires, literally and totally disgusted. I hate sin nature, I hate that it is a natural thing for me to covet what others have and that I feel that my value and worth is held in  material posessions  in the self centered world of Nichole.

 True transformation and freedom of our self-focused perspective can only come as we meditate and claim God’s love for us. When we cling to Him, lift our eyes off ourselves and simply have faith in that love, our thoughts, mindset, and feelings will be transformed. Let’s not loose sight of the gospel!--Lindsey Edmonds of Passionate Homemaking.


I read this today during my quiet time, and found it to be very edifying especially with what I am struggling with.
Romans 6:1-11

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 


What a relief that is. I feel like my "ungrateful" glasses are off, and I can see how wonderful and amazing my life really is.