The Mooney Clan

Yep - I knew the day would come and boy did it come. Only it was night. You know what I mean. This has not been a 'good week' by most peoples standards. Caden, Dylan, Liam and Justin have all been sick with a cough and runny nose that just won't go away. Dylan, Liam and Justin and I haven't had a good sleep in days. The babies are particularly fussy lately, especially in the evenings. Caden is acting out because he hasn't been out of the house in almost 2 weeks (I am going to remedy that this weekend). The babies were up every 10-20 minutes last night. At about 4, when I could barely function, let alone take care of sick babies, I had this feeling of desperation and fear. It was a feeling of 'We can't do this, what was I thinking to think we can do this? - We need help - we'll never make it'. It was ridiculous and rather pathetic but so real at that moment. Satan has a real advantage with the exhausted. Yikes. I am more grateful than yo...

LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH - that was the theme at this year's ladies retreat. Justin's mom spoke and boy did we ever laugh! It was such a nice time to be with friends and to get to know people better. I'm so glad I was able to go. While I was pregnant I never dreamt that I'd be able to but the babies are so healthy and things are going so well that it was no problem. The only unfortunate thing is that Justin and Caden got sick. They are still getting over it. Justin can't sleep for coughing and Liam and Dylan woke up in the night as well (3 & 430). Evan made it to 630. So, needless to say, I was up a lot too! Somehow, I'm managing to keep this cold at bay - even on little sleep - thank goodness! I was trying to take a moment and think about retreat and what I came away with. Here are a few of my thoughts on that: - I want to laugh more, I want to be silly more and I believe God gifted us with those things for a reason - they make life easier to bear somet...

Wow - life got hectic there all of a sudden. We went to Estevan for the long weekend (had lots of fun) and then I went to Ladies Retreat in Kenosee with Evan and Liam (again - lots of fun!!). Caden was sick the thursday (fever and cough) before I left and both he and Justin were not feeling well all weekend. By Sunday Dylan had a fever and on Monday Liam got one. Today (Tuesday) everyone is crashed around the living room. Evan and I have escaped this so far. We even sent Justin's mom home with chills and a rough throat on sunday night. It's not fun but it could be a lot worse. I could be sick for example!! Or the babies could be old enough to whine like Caden does :). So - we are ok - just working through this cold. We'll stay home for a bit - Caden is not going to gymnastics tonight. We're just laying low and hoping for a better sleep tonight. The triplets slept through the night - til 715 - no problem but Justin and Caden coughed all night. That kept t...

So, I really don't like winter and I HATE being cold. Today, Caden kept asking to go outside and I kept telling him that it was too cold today, we'll go another day. Finally, I figure I might as well just let him go out and then he'll get cold and come in. He'll have had a little fresh air and I'll have said yes for a change. So, we get out there and I keep asking him "are you cold yet?", "Do you want to go in?". Because I am absolutely freezing. He says "no". I keep telling him I'm going to check on the babies so that I have an excuse to go in and warm up a bit. I look at this kid who is bundled up to the point of hardly being able to move and he doesn't want to come in and I think "this is so not my kid". BUT THEN..... he starts yelling at the snow, I mean bending down to its level and yelling "MELT SNOW, MELT" and he says this over and over again. It was so funny. Then he says " I'm tellin...

We were lucky enough to be offered babysitting and a gift card so that we could have a night out!! It was really nice to go out for supper with friends and just have a nice time. It was good! The fun ended there though. One baby was up at 2, the other two were up at 330 for an hour. It was not fun! Grrrr. I'm finding that by the end of Justin's work week I'm just really tired. His 5 day week feels more like 8 days. It's long. The babies are doing ok with the sleep thing but not usually on the same nights! Justin tried to give me a break last friday but all 3 woke up at once and so I felt bad not helping him. So - maybe one night this weekend..... We haven't had a chance to work anymore on our wall. Sometime.... The babies are complaining as I write and Caden is getting into something so this will be this post for now. I likely won't get to it again until next week so have a good weekend and happy valentines day!

Chris and Sherry and their kids came for a visit on saturday. We hadn't seen them since before Christmas so it was nice to catch up. Keiran and Caden had lots of fun together. They are only 3 weeks apart in age and are finally old enough to really enjoy each other. It's neat because they have a mutual love of trains so they kept busy with that most of the day. An added bonus is that they didn't really even scrap much. Pretty good for almost 3 yr old boys! Ah, little girls in the house - what a breath of fresh air :) (Lana and Beth)

Here are a few pictures of our little construction project (or deconstruction I suppose). This is the wall before... (please ignore the mostly naked child! Thanks) And after! This is what I can see from the living room. And the view from the kitchen And from the hallway through to the dining room It is SO much brighter and now I can see what Caden is doing, even if I'm feeding two babies in the living room and he is in the kitchen. Or when I am doing stuff in the kitchen I can be sure he isn't sitting on a baby in the living room or something. It is so nice and I just love it. We are going to put a counter top on it and the cupboard and drawer that you see beside the freezer in this last picture will be on that wall with the counter on it.

I pulled out the exersaucer the other day because Dylan is pretty close to being able to use it but we thought it was only fair to let all the boys try it. They were all a little floppy yet but it was cute anyway. Liam Evan Dylan Also - if anyone has an exersaucer that they aren't using, we could use one more! We are also hoping to find one more baby tub seat (suctions to the tub) and one more bebepod chair or bumbo chair. Bumbo chair Sit-up bath seat

Just wanted to brag about my boys. All 4 of our boys slept from 9pm last night until 730 this morning! I am so proud! And pretty well rested. I won't mention that our dog ate his food at 3 in the morning and then wanted outside at 530. :) This picture got flipped when I put it onto our blog so you'll just have to turn your heads!!

The babies all have their own beds now. We started off having them sleep together. There was a crib in the dining room, our room and their room so we could have them sleep in any of those places. Then we took one baby out and had them spread between two cribs, in the nursery. Finally, this past weekend we put all 3 cribs in the nursery and the boys each have their own space. I am sure that that is helping them sleep longer too. Less disturbance when they are a little more spread out. Liam is in the far corner, in the dark crib Dylan is in the center crib in front of the window Dylan Liam Evan is in this crib, in the other corner, closest to the door, since he is almost always the first one awake (at night and at naptime). Evan

Today, I had a moment that I just needed to capture on film. Thought I'd share it with you. This practically never happens, but, in case you were wondering, here's what 3 babies crying at the same time sounds like:

Dylan rolled over last week. Here he is:

I'm afraid that this is yet another post about sleep. That is the 'top story' of our lives these days. And as the title says, we've had good nights and bad nights. Monday night went like this: Kids to bed by 930. Evan and Dylan took turns waking up at 1230, 130,230,330,4,430,5 and then Caden at 630. It was AWFUL. I was up all night. Oh - and Liam, once again, slept from 930 - 730. Last night, nobody woke up until 510. That was Dylan and Evan. I fed them and they were back asleep by 530. Caden got up at 7 and the babies are all still asleep (8am) - yep - even Liam. He's at a straight 10.5 hrs so far.... I keep checking to see if he is still breathing. He is, apparantly, just a really good sleeper. YAY! So, I feel pretty good today. I went to bed at 10 and therefore had 7 straight hours of sleep plus another 1.5 after that. Not too bad! In other news... - we had a really fun time with Trinda and the Pippus' this past weekend. - triplets clearly ar...