The Mooney Clan

So - I have potty trained or helped to potty train what seems like a zillion kids. I start at 18 months and within a few months they are trained. Caden was a little longer since we moved and had three babies in that period for him. Not to mention it is tougher with your own than with someone elses, BUT, even with daycare - I have never potty trained 3 at once. I am mentally working up to this next project but it seems a little daunting, not to mention time consuming and patience challenging. One day at a time right? Wish me luck!

We have a new nephew! He was born last night and James and Nic are sharing their news and some pictures on their blog if want to take a gander at the cute little guy. Congratulations to you guys!

What a week! Starting last friday - we had a chili supper party for the Riders/Stampeders game. Justin and Caden wore their red but as it turns out, Justin appears to be our good luck charm. He says he's never gone to a rider game or watched one with other people where they didn't win. It was an 'almost' loss but luckily we had people over so Justin's curse held true and the Riders won! I got to go out saturday afternoon and have lunch and do a little shopping with a girlfriend - had a kid break. It was nice. Since my days sort of run together I'll just say that we had my parents down for a night and got to go out for supper with them (thanks to Andrea for watching all 4 boys and at the last minute too!). We had a good showing out at Mom's and Tots this week. We had a soup potluck - YUMMY - and lots of fun to see everyone. I had a coffee night out with some girlfriends - good conversation (oh - how I crave good conversation these days - and no, "

I'd like to treat the kids the same as I would if there was only one almost 2 year old, instead of three. In the world of crafts (especially painting ) I haven't done that. I'm kinda scared to bring out all that crazy mess making stuff with them but we did it at daycare! So - I am trying to do it more. Coloring with crayons is nice and safe and we decided to do that on one of our many rainy days last week. Dylan was pretty into it and I ended up with a few pictures to put up on the fridge. Evan had more fun playing with and sorting the pencil crayons. Caden has started showing more interest in crafts lately. I'm glad. He was never really into it before but now he wants to make stuff and try things. Liam just played with the crayons for a while and then started chucking them around. If only it would have lasted for more than 10 minutes!

The little kids are so adorable at this age (22 months). Oh my goodness. I can't stop hugging them and I just want to squish them, they are so sweet. Liam dances around all the time. He works out with me in the mornings and does the moves pretty well actually! Evan is so observant. When we sweep he waits and then runs to open the garbage can for us to dump the dust pan. He also gets upset when things aren't the way they should be. He'll stand and point until we respond by putting something where it was supposed to go or other things like that. Dylan seems to be getting bigger faster these days. He's up to Caden's chin already. He's very logical and I can already sort of explain things to him and he seems to get it or to listen. He's also very stubborn and hard headed so there are times when he doesn't want to listen and fights me on something. They love to run and watch their dad come home at the end of the day. He gets quite a greeting fro

Sweet Potato Soup is Delicious. I got around to making some today and all I can say is YUM!. I can't eat with the kids - it's still too crazy and so I usually eat after but this time I couldn't wait and just ate it early. I savoured every warm comforting bite while standing at the window watching the kids play in the backyard, dressed in their jeans and hoodies and having lots of fun. Fall has its perks. Caden and I also made Zucchini Cake and Zucchini bread today together while the little kids napped. It's been a really nice day. Oh - and it started pretty good too. Last night at 12:30 Caden came into our room and said "I love you guys!" and then just went back to bed. Huh.

Here's a couple pictures of the little boys from this week. The kids watching daddy come into the house... and then running to the door. This isn't what these are for! Evan has this happy look on his face most of the time (when he's not mad about something). People always comment on how happy he seems.

Caden sort of started preschool today. It was an orientation day. We went together and met the new teacher. She is fabulous!! I still love the stations and beginning of the new year in an early childhood setting; All the little tables and craft boards, waiting for paintings and stuff. She already had fun things set up to do and I really think Caden is absolutely going to love it. I'm quite excited for him! Not to mention myself. He is in the afternoon class which means that twice a week Caden will be at school at the same time that the little boys are napping. I'm giddy with glee about that one!

I wasn't really ready for fall to come yet - summer seemed even shorter than usual. I'm settling into it though and trying to enjoy it. I do like this time of getting into routines and starting up new activities. Caden starts preschool today. I think he'll really enjoy that. We'll be registering him for skating lessons tonight. It's nice to have things going on, to some degree. At the same time - I don't want to overdo it. I was realizing that in a couple more years, I will likely have about 16 years of running kids to activities. So - no rush!! The kids look cute in their sweats and warmer clothes. Went through everything last week and put away summer stuff, got rid of pants and shirts that had grown too small over the past couple of months. Pulled out the bigger stuff (Because of some of you wonderful people out there, I get to shop at home. We have been given so much - I can't say enough how much we appreciate it!) and found that we have boo

For the second year in a row we headed out to Clearview Camp for our church retreat. This was just this past weekend and it was really fun. I never know how things are going to go with all these little kids and can't help but be a little nervous but at the same time, I'm determined to do as much with them as I can and to not limit their life experiences because it's harder with 3 the same age. So - we went out there and had a really good time. It's nice to get to spend bigger chunks of time with our church family and for the kids to get to know everyone better. It was so nice to see them hanging out with all of these people and having so much fun. Nights were a lot better than last year. They woke up early still but at least they slept through the night. Last year we were still giving them the occasional bottle at night and I had to bring all our formula and stuff. Yikes. This year they could run around so we brought our play yard but we didn't end up nee

I'm quickly going to write down a couple of funny things that Caden has said the last couple of days. 1. Caden, after doing a #2 in the bathroom, "Hey mom, did you know that poop can be cool?" 2. Caden, after hearing about a couple of bikes being stolen out of our friends' garage "who would do that?, that's terrible" and then after thinking for a couple of minutes... "maybe it was the guys that killed Jesus on the cross...." oh -there was another one and I lost it already. If I think of it, I'll come back.