What is 3 will soon be 4!

Bradley and I are thrilled to be adding another child to our family this Fall! Sometime around Thanksgiving our little family of 3 will become a family of 4. We are so, so happy. Yes, we will again be waiting to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl until he or she is born. I know, I know, most of you think we're crazy...but we absolutely loved finding out that way with Claire and are fully on board to do that again. Please join us in rejoicing in this new life and praising God for giving us another child! We fully believe that we would have nothing, including our children, without Him.

The Wilkie's are in Virginia!!

Last week, Steven, Tara and Elliot flew to Virginia from Texas for a little bit of training for their job. (Big sis Adaya stayed in TX with her Mimi and Papa). Fortunately, Bradley, Claire and I were able to drive up and visit. Claire finally got to meet them and we finally got our hands on our newest nephew, Elliot! We had a blast and were so, so thankful for the time we spent up there! We haven't seen Steven in Tara in almost 2 years, but it was like they'd never left. Tara and I were instantly comparing our "mom" notes and Steven and Bradley were joking with each other from the start. Ashley came up one night too and we were all together (minus Christine and Adaya) for a few short hours. Our hearts were just full of joy and it gave us just a taste of what our summer is going to look like when they are all here in NC. Steven and Tara, we LOVE you guys! Thanks for letting us come and visit you during your busy, busy week. We absolutely cannot wait until June!

All of the Wilkie Men...plus one.

Bradley couldn't wait to squeeze this munchkin. Elliot and Claire were fast friends and they're gonna have a blast hanging out this summer!

Claire and I with Tara and Elliot. Claire and Elliot are only 4 1/2 months apart.

Claire quickly bonded with her Uncle Steven...is it because he's a big kid at heart? :) And of course, Uncle Ashley is always fun to play with!

Bradley and I getting some last minute sugar in from Elliot before we had to head back to NC.

Claire is 1!!!!

I know, I know...this blog post is 2 weeks late. Whew, what a 2 weeks we've had!! Claire had her first birthday and a party, lots of family came into town for the celebration, and we went to Virginia to see more family that we hadn't seen in almost 2 years! But, finally, life is calming down again. Well, I don't really want to say "finally" because it was a blast! But, you know what I mean. :) Here are some pics and facts about Claire at 12 months:

*She is now practically running around. We have to keep our eye on her every second or else she'll be down the hallway, in her room, pulling toys and books off of the shelf. :)

*She is saying LOTS of words! When she hears a dog bark, she says, "ruff!". She also says mama, dada, wow, hey, ball and much, much more. In fact, I think she's saying more than I give her credit for.

*She is still sleeping 12 hours at night and taking 2, 2 hour naps during the day. (Praise the Lord!)

*We have started to wean her and she is now drinking cow's milk throughout the day and only nursing morning and bedtime. It took a couple of weeks for her to really like the cows milk, but once she realized that if she was thirsty, that was what she had to drink...she drank it up like a champ! :) I started her on sippy cups with water when she was approx 9 months old, so she already knew how to drink from a sippy.

*She does NOT like to walk on the ground outside. We have worked and worked at getting her to like it and sometimes she will do great, but then the next day will have a fit again. I think it has a lot to do with the uneven ground and also that the ground is "dirty"...(ha ha...she's her mama's girl)....if she falls then she's not to happy about having dirt on her. But, like everything else, we, as her parents, are persistant, and she is slowly getting used to it.

*We haven't made it to the doc for her one year appt yet, but I think she weighs approx 21 1/2 pounds. She hasn't gained much since last month...and may have even lost some...but she's a lot more active and seems to have developed a "pickiness" when eating some of her usually favorite foods.

*She LOVES to play. Everyday, one or both of us sit in the floor with her and wrestle and/or play with her. We take her outside and walk around. We swing her in the swing. We play peek-a-boo with a blanket. We play, "I'm gonna get you..."...athough she doesn't grasp the concept...she always runs into our arms when we say that...ha! We tickle. We search for things like her ball, daddy or other things. We LOVE to play with her and she LOVES to play with us.

*She's eating a wider variety of foods, but has started to not want to eat other foods. For instance, she loves green beans, but at some meals, she wants nothing to do with them. It's not because she doesn't like them...I think she just doesn't want to eat them for that meal. (Again...the girl is just like her mama). Other foods that she likes are: enchiladas, baked pasta, quesadillas, chex cereal, oranges, grapes, cantelope, mexican chicken casserole. She also LOVES to drink out of a cup. I think it's more because it's a fun game than because she's thirsty...but whatever the reason...I'm thankful for it. It'll make for an easier transition when the time comes.


The birthday girl and her mama on her 1st birthday!


Having fun with her daddy on her birthday!


Love this girl's cute faces!


Not a fan of the cupcake. It was her first taste of real sugar.


Playing outside at her birthday party!

Her birthday cake. Mom's first attempt at fondant turned out nicely.

Birthday cake and cupcakes served at her party.


We had a pinata and it took a big kid to bust it open.

Uncle Ashley and soon-to-be Aunt Christine couldn't come to the party, but had dinner with us the night before. Claire was so happy that they came all the way to see her!

The Pipes family all came for Claire's party! We couldn't resist having ice cream at Sunni Sky's one day!

Don, Teresa and Julia at Claire's party.

My mom came from TX and my uncle came from Maine! The only person missing was my dad, who is out of town working right now! We all got to Skype with him though!

Granddaddy and Claire are chatting with Chad and Barrett at her party.

Claire's friend, Lyddie came too.

Barrett had fun on the swing!

James was there for a short while too. He was saying bye-bye to Barrett here...they're the only boys in the midst of all these girls!

Cara and big sis Emma came too. Cara and Claire's birthdays are really close together!

11 Months!!

I absolutely cannot believe that Claire is 11 months old AND that in less than one month she'll be a year old!! What a month we've had too!! Claire grew and matured leaps and bounds this month. First of all she's now walking!! And I don't mean just a step here and there...I mean, this girl is following me around the house. Here's what else she's been up to:

~She now weighs 20 lbs 8 oz. and wearing 12-18 month clothes.
~She's no longer eating any purees! (Yeah!). We're still spoon feeding her yogurt and we're feeding her some of the finger foods when she takes a long time. She's got a great pincer grasp and can easily feed herself, but she's slow and gets bored fast. I know it'll come though. :)
~Some new foods are: meatballs in spaghetti sauce, blueberries, pasta in spaghetti sauce, biscuits from Ma's Grill, bean and cheese quesadillas, chicken enchiladas, roast and potatoes, and more. One thing that she refused to eat was broccoli...I don't blame her...:).
~Her hair is long enough to put up (see TCU pic below) but it's very fine and thin so it's difficult to keep a hair tie in her hair.
~She's now saying "da-deee" when she sees or hears Bradley. She's said "mama" a few times, but she says "da-deee" every day.
~She thinks a lot of things are funny now...she's laughing all of the time. Some things that she laughs at are: the dog and the cat, her toys, mommy and daddy, being tickled, the wind on her face, the leaves blowing in the wind, other children and more.
~She's constantly waving at things too. When we go into the kitchen for breakfast she can see the dog and she'll squeal with delight and start waving at him. She loves her dog. :)
~On that same note, she is also blowing kisses. Melts her mama's heart!!
~She can be a very serious little girl at times. She's very interested in what is going on around her and is definitely an observer.
~When asked "What does a monkey say?" she says "ooh, ooh, ooh"...but keep in mind that when she sees a cow or kitty she also says the same thing...we're working on it. :)
~She's a TALKER. I know I say this every month, but she just keeps on developing in this area. When we pick her up after a nap or first thing in the morning she babbles something and I just know that she's saying "Good Morning, Mama!!" in her own little way. She talks to her food, she talks to her toys, she talks to the cat and the dog. When the babble eventually becomes words, it is going to be amazing. She is such a communicator and I look forward to the challenges and the rewards that I will encounter as her mom in this area!
~She is a relational little girl. She loves to be in the same room with somebody else. She's just great playing by herself, but she loves to know that someone else is in her company.
~I can truly see both Bradley's personality and my personality in her and I love it.




Bradley took this photo...but I can tell by looking at it that she's talking to her sippy cup and/or to Bradley as this photo was being taken.


Well, her mama was experiementing with her hair and the time spilled over into naptime which develped into a full on meltdown. It sure made for a cute picture, though! :) Sorry honey!


Her daddy sure can get a big smile out of her. She L.O.V.E.S. her daddy!!!

10 1/2 months & walking!!

Our Lives Lately...

My Valentine's present to Bradley...heart-shaped pizza.


Yum! It was surprisingly the best tasting homemade pizza I've ever made.


Valentine's Pizza for my Valentine. It doesn't take much to make him happy. :)


Over the last several weeks I've been packing up all of Claire's clothes that are too small for her and hanging up and unpacking all of the new clothes and hand-me-downs that we have that are her size now. It's like she's got a whole new wardrobe. I found this t-shirt in a pile of clothes my sister gave me. Nostalgia took over...I'm not that big of a TCU fan...but I miss Ft. Worth and it reminds me of home.

This weekend I opened up the front door a few times waiting on friends or family to arrive at the house. Claire has jumped on the opportunity to just sit and look outside. Thankfully, I had my camera nearby and was able to snap a few shots.


Gosh, she's adorable...love her to pieces!!


I've been trying to give Claire more and more foods lately. She's about to be 1 year old and I'm so tired of pureed food! We had some meatballs leftover from the Super Bowl Meatball Subs we had last week and so I gave it a shot. She loved them!


At the Kids Exchange (huge consignment sale in Raleigh twice a year) my parents got Claire this ride along toy. She mostly likes to push is around the house herself and walk behind it, but she also has a good time riding and letting someone else push.


Coming down the hall with dad!


This makes me crack up...she looks so studious. Papa (the cat) is so needy lately. When Claire was first starting to get around (rolling over, scooting, crawling and walking) she'd always lunge at him, kiss him, grab his tail. And he loves the attention. Now, she's not as interested but he's still needy. He'll walk over to her and step in her way. She just goes around him though. One time I even saw her crawl right over him.


Another meal...this one I took a pic of because of all the variety. Peas, carrots, cheese and chicken and rice casserole. She loved it all.


During the winter, our house has MAJOR static electricity and Claire's hair is quite the conductor!! She loves this new game where we count, "One, Two, THREE" and then she "falls" onto the bed, couch, chair or our arms. Bradley was playing that with her one day and her hair was standing on it's end from static electricity. It was hilarious so I tried to take pics of it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture the hair...but her faces that she made in these pics are priceless.


"I love to play games with Mom and Dad!"


"Weeeeee"

10 Months!!

It's really hard to believe but our baby girl is 10 months old today!! And what a month we've had!! Right at the new year she began to wake up early. At first I thought it was a fluke, so I rushed into her room, patted her back, laid her back down and she just cried and cried. The next day I thought that maybe it was a diaper thing...so I changed her and put her back down. She cried and cried. Then I thought, maybe she's cold...so we turned up the heat at night. The following day I thought maybe it was a hunger thing...so I nursed her and put her back down. She was quiet for about 15 mins (like she'd gone back to sleep) and then cried and cried. Ugh...at this point I wasn't sure WHAT was going on!! I decided at this point to stop going in to get her. She ended up just playing in her room from the time she woke up (anywhere from 5:15 to 6:00) until the time I went and got her at the normal wake up time (7:30). Finally after 3 weeks, she's settled back down and is sleeping until 7 or 7:30 (at least I think so...if she's awake, she's quiet as a mouse). SO, all that said...THAT was new to us this month! Here are some more things that we've noticed about our little munchkin this month:

~She's standing steadily on her own now. In fact, just this week she took a couple of steps.
~She's FAST at getting around the house. She follows us from the living room down the hall to our bedroom.
~I've said this before but, OH BOY, she's a TALKER!! From the moment she's awake from a nap until the moment she falls asleep again, she's talking.
~Her appetite has increased! She's now eating 8-10 oz of puree every meal. I'm also giving her finger foods at the beginning of each meal. She's now eating cheese, biscuits, pasta, rice, tortillas, crackers, toast, cheerios, peas and diced carrots for finger foods. I'm ready to be at the point where she feeds herself all food at every meal. She's getting better at it.
~She weighs about 19 1/2 pounds. HUGE weight gain this month!
~She associates certain things with different people. For example, she knows that Grandma likes it when she snorts...so when she sees Grandma, she snorts. She knows that Nana likes her to stick her tongue out and go, "ah, ah, ah" so she does that when she sees Nana. She knows that when Mommy sits in the floor with her, she can jump on me and I'll catch her...so she does that with me. It's precious to see that she is playing games but also that she knows people.
~She is a social bug. She loves to be held by people, even total strangers. She loves to watch people talk and kids play.
~She's become an imitator. If I cough, she'll cough. If someone grunts, she'll grunt. If you make any kind of sound, she'll imitate it.

Claire, we love you more than you'll ever know. You've truly been a joy in our lives and we love every day that we have with you.

My New Hobby

A number of years ago I visited a friend of mine that had 2 small children and she introduced me to the world of making your own baby food. I never thought that it was possible before then...but she showed me that a jar of baby food ingredients were just the food itself and water (which is added to thin the food into a puree). I thought to myself...well, I could do that! And years later, I am. :) It's something that I knew that I was going to do from the moment that I got pregnant with Claire. A lot of people like to make their own baby food because they control what goes into their babies tummies (i.e. organic foods, whole foods etc). And yes, that is nice to me...but my main reasons are a little different. For one...I'm saving my family a ton of money!! And the second reason is that Claire is a picky eater and I enjoy that I can control the mixture of the foods that she eats and the texture (thickness) of the purees. I actually make my foods a lot thicker than the purees in the jars and she does great with them! As far as the money is concerned...with some foods, I'm not saving a ton of money. For instance, yesterday I purchased 3 winter squash for $5 which yielded approx 40 oz of baby food. This saved me about $1.50. BUT, I also purchased 7 bananas for just $1.23...this saved me approx $5.50!!

Another reason that I've enjoyed making Claire's baby food is that I've really developed a hobby of cooking. Before I was married I was NOT a cook. Don't get me wrong...I LONGED to be...but I never learned how. I knew how to make a box of Hamburger Helper and heat up a can of veggies but that's about as good as it got. Slowly but surely over the last 5 1/2 years I've learned and last year when I stopped working it became a fun hobby for me. I all of a sudden had time to spend in the kitchen. (And thankfully, I have a husband who will try out anything). Making dinner is no longer a burden...it's fun for me. I love to have a wholesome meal for Bradley when he gets home from work. I love to hear the words "this is delicious" from him. Anyway...I'm going off on a tangent. I mainly just wanted to share that I love making Claire's food. I feel like I'm not only helping her to eat healthy, but I'm also saving my family a lot of money. And it's super easy...if I can do it...you can too!!

Check out this website for more info on making your own baby food.


A can of prunes in the food processor about to be pureed.

Pureed prunes in ice cube trays. You freeze the puree in ice cube trays (each cube is approx 1 oz of food). Once the food is frozen, you pop them out of the trays and put them in a gallon size freezer bag. Then, when you need food for baby...you open up the ziploc, grab however many oz you need and thaw in the microwave.

Winter squash about to go into the oven.

Cooked winter squash cooling before getting pureed.

3 Winter Squash yielded approx 40 oz of puree.

Claire's 1st trip to Boone

This past weekend we were able to visit Jarrett, Lara and Colby in Boone. (Jarrett and Bradley were roommates in college). Bradley and I LOVE to go to Boone. I love to ride around and just look out the window. It is beautiful!! It was COLD this weekend though! The high on Saturday was around 18 degrees and the wind chill was around 0. That's ZERO! This TX girl isn't used to that kind of cold! Claire did really well though. Jarrett and Lara even babysat on Saturday for about an hour while Bradley and I had a "date"...we went to Walmart, the Christian bookstore, Food Lion and Chick-fil-A. :) I've got to tell you about a DEAL I got a Walmart too...let me preface it with saying that for YEARS I've wanted a pre-lit Christmas tree. But, I haven't ever been able to justify buying one just cause I "wanted" it when I knew I had a perfectly good tree. Every year though, Bradley and I hit the after Christmas sales looking for one and every year I talk myself out of a purchase. Even $75 for a tree that I don't "need" is too much for me. :) When we moved into the house that we're in my "needs" kind of became a little more justified because our living room is smaller and I have to SQUEEZE my tree in a corner...but, it still works. Well, last Thursday as I was taking down my tree I broke the base of it. The tree will no longer stand up on its own. So, while we were in Boone, we browsed the Christmas tree section at Walmart. And I found what I was looking for!! A slim, pre-lit, 7 foot tree for (drum roll, please)...$24.50!! It was 75% off!!

Okay, now that I've shared that...here are pics from our weekend. We had a blast hanging out with good friends and comparing notes on raising our first born children. :) (Colby is just 4 months older than Claire)

"Dad, can I check email too?"

Colby had a super-fun Lightening McQueen riding car. She loved it.

Loving to ride.

She snorts when she's happy.

Again, snorting cause she's happy.

Playing with Colby. He has some fun toys!

Colby was supposed to be in his room playing by himself...Claire was having no part of that. :)

They were so cute together. Claire loved playing with Colby (and I think Colby had fun too!)

Riding Lightening McQueen together. I love how Colby's hands are on her shoulders. :)

Ha ha...it looks like she's honking the horn.

All bundled up to go outside.

NOW she smiles...she's all ready to go outside...it's COLD.

We thought we'd get some pics of Claire in the snow...turns out it was pure ice. Boone was so cold that all the snow had a layer of ice over it.

She's not so sure what to think about it. She was slipping and sliding on it. Plus is was unbelievably cold!

Posing for a pic.

Okay, we got a smile out of her...:)

Family pic in the snow/ice.

Claire and Colby were constantly interested in what the other one was doing. Colby is supposed to be eating but Claire had other plans.