McFarren Milestones

Hi all. I realize it's been a few weeks since our last post - sorry about that! The last few weeks have been pretty major in the McFarren house. On July 22 Kris and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. We took a road trip up to the central coast and stayed with my parents. They provided free babysitting while Kris and I took day trips on both Friday and Saturday. On Friday we headed up to tour Hearst Castle and then had a beautiful lunch near the ocean before heading back down to Avila Beach. On Saturday we had a gorgeous day of wine tasting (something we used to enjoy often before the kiddos came along!). It was a beautiful weekend get away, but of course my one mishap was that I forgot to charge our camera batteries and as soon as I pulled my camera out to take our first picture, it died on me. So there aren't any photos of our fun, and you'll just have to take my word for it that we had a great time!

Once we were home, we spent the week getting the kids back into their routines and enjoyed some relaxing hot summer days.

We also felt as though it was time to take the plunge and start potty training Sophie. She'd been showing a lot of interest in the potty and her "big girl underwear" and even said on a few occasions she didn't want to wear diapers anymore! So we held our breath, and with a lot of advice and book reading, we decided it was best to just go "cold turkey" and put her straight in underwear, no pull ups, diapers, etc. Of course the first day was filled with accidents, but each day got better and better. By the 4th morning she woke up with dry sheets (though we've had a few random bed wettings since). We are now at day 10 and she seems to be getting the hang of it. We even had a house full of visitors over the weekend and we only had 1 accident the entire time. Once everyone left today we had a couple of accidents but I'm pretty sure it was because she was exhausted and one of them was my fault because I was nursing Jack and couldn't get her on the potty in time. This has been a very challenging task and we've had to struggle to stay patient and positive at times, but Sophie really has been a champ and I know she is getting it down!

Speaking of our house full of visitors -- Aunt Jen, Tia, Tio and Grandma Suzie came down for a long weekend visit. We even had a few of the cousins over to see everyone -- again I wasn't great about taking pictures, but here are a few I did take...

Sophie showing off in her pool:

Sophie and Tia playing with her new play doh set (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!). Tia trained Sophie to say "We just smell the play doh -- we don't EAT it." (Yes, this was after she taste-tested it).
Tio playing bubbles with Sophie:

Cousin Karla bonding with Jack:

Tomorrow Jack is officially 4 months old! We go in for his check up on Friday -- fingers crossed we get a clean bill of health. He's such a happy baby and seems to be growing and changing a ton. We're still having quite a bit of spit up issues, so we'll mention that to the doc, but otherwise things are great!

Here he is after Sophie put Papa's hat on his head:
He's already rolling all over the place -- his new trick is rolling from his back to his tummy -- this is where I found him after I walked away thinking he would stay put in the center of his playmat! Think again mama!
Some bumbo time:
We've introduced the excersaucer to him -- he's fascinated by it!
That's all for now. Check back again soon!