19 September 2010

A large pictorial update

Ok, so it's been awhile like usual.

The girls recently had their 9 month check up and all is well. Sam continues to grow and learn and we're all excited about heading to the OBX for a much needed vacation soon! Anywho, how about some new pictures? :)

Here's the girl's July pictures.


And now Sam's 3 year old pics.


And finally, some pictures from this summer and Labor Day.

24 July 2010

The girls June pics

The girls are getting teeth! Ellie already has two teeth thru the gums and Sarah isn't far behind. I suspect that she will have teeth thru this weekend.

Everyone continues to do well. We are counting down the weeks until we get to go on vacation. 9 weeks from today! It's been a long time coming. Since doing the Dave Ramsey plan (see my previous post), we haven't taken a vacation since May 2009. I know it doesn't seem that long, but we're really looking forward to getting down to the OBX for a week!


08 July 2010

FREEDOM!!!!

I am amazingly happy to report that as of today after a year of scrimping and saving and living "like no one else", Crystal and I are DEBT FREE!

Last July we began to live differently and began budgeting our money thanks to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course and it has taken us 1 year to become debt free (except for the house)! We've paid off alot of debt in the last year and the last thing to go was Crystal's Toyota Highlander payment, which she paid in full today, approximately 2.5 years before it was due!

Now we're on to saving up a fully funded "emergency fund" and we have already paid for our upcoming vacation in September. It's gonna be nice to not have our vacation follow us home and be paying for it for months to come!


And now for the fun part. Click to hear a great FREEDOM scream!

29 May 2010

New pics of the twins!

Crystal was able to find time to make some new pictures of the girls. It's hard to believe the girls are 5 months old! Ellie remains "ahead" of Sarah in certain areas such as rolling over. Ellie can pretty much turn over anytime she wishes. However, Sarah seems to be "ahead" of Ellie in other areas like eating. Sarah seems to have grasped the new concept of food better than her sister. They're both doing well and their big brother simply adores them still. Hopefully someday soon Crystal will be able to find the time to get Sam's 3 year old pics made. Until then......

23 May 2010

Birthdays!

So we celebrated 2 birthdays here yesterday at the Duncan house. May 22nd is a big day for us! Samuel turned 3 and Crystal is now...well I know better than that! :)

It's hard to believe that the baby boy is 3 already! Time surely flies. The rest of the family continues to do well. The girls are growing and they'll be crawling around before we know it. We've started them on "food". Sarah can definitely out eat Ellie. Ellie doesn't seem to like it at all, but hey, it's pureed vegetables. How good can it actually be?

I'll leave you with a picture of Sam's birthday cake that Crystal made. Her talent shows no bounds.....

03 April 2010

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend is upon us. Yesterday we enjoyed going up to Mt. Airy to spend some time with Crystal's mom. Unfortunately her dad was away doing some work for a client and we missed him but Sam and the girls got to play with their granny. While we were there Crystal attempted to make some Easter pictures of the kids. I'll just say that trying to take pictures of three kids is much, much harder than it sounds. We haven't reviewed the pics yet but we're hoping that there will be some usable ones.

Sam is currently with his neena and pawpaw. There was an Easter breakfast at their church this morning with games and fun stuff for the kids to do. I'm gonna attempt to load the girls up tomorrow and take them to church for the first time. I'm sure my parents are itching to "show them off". ;)

The holidays really seem to emphasize how different our lives have become since Crystal has started working weekends. It makes it hard to do things as a family, but in the end, it will all be worth it!

On a side note, as we were getting ready for bed a few nights ago, Crystal walked into the bedroom to check on the girls (they had been asleep for a couple of hours) and this is what she found.
They sure do love each other!

Happy Easter everyone!

14 March 2010

New pics of the girls

Well I say new pics. These are almost a month old now and Crystal is gearing up to take this month's Easter pics.

As I sit here this morning drinking coffee and typing this, the girls are contentedly sleeping, Crystal is in the bed, and Sam is no doubt playing and having a ball with his grandparents (they came and got him yesterday). We've pretty well established a routine that seems to work. For those that don't know, Crystal now works the weekend 'graveyard' shift at the hospital. It allows us to not have to send the kids to daycare, but it does make the weekends somewhat tiring. We are however, slowly getting adjusted to this new life. The girls are starting to show their personalities a little more now by laughing and smiling, and crying. They are a joy and a blessing. And Samuel continues to amaze me everyday with the amount of information his little brain seems to be absorbing and his vocabulary expands daily it seems.  He likes to tell us that we're "driving him crazy". :) I assume he got that from his mother......

As per my usual way, HERE is a link to more pictures. I'll try to get the Easter pics up when those are completed.

13 February 2010

2 month checkup

The twins had their two month checkup this past week. All goes well and they're growing like little weeds! Sarah is now 23 3/4 inches long (21 at birth) and Ellie is 23 inches long (20.5 at birth). Both girls are over 12 lbs. now with Ellie weighing 12 lbs 5 oz. and Sarah is 12 lbs 1 oz. They are beginning to sleep longer during the night. One night we were even able to sleep for almost 7 hours straight! We are even starting to get some grins and smiles and interactions out of the twins now....what fun! They are very precious.

Samuel continues to adore them. Crystal has went back to work. Her schedule changed where she now works on the weekends which allows her to stay home with the kids and allows us to save on daycare bills!

22 January 2010

The girls one month pics!



Crystal has been able to take some new pictures of the girls. Sarah was typically a little calmer than her sister and we never could get Ellie to look at the camera. This is their 'one month old' pictures. Many more pictures will come in the next year, if we can find the time!

HERE are more pics.

15 January 2010

One month in

So the girls are a little over a month old now and all is still going well. Samuel continues to love them like crazy. All he wants to do is give them kisses! :) Ellie is showing some signs of having colic although we seem to be dealing with that fairly well. Sarah seems to sleep a little better than her sister, however Ellie will tend to sleep longer than Sarah. The girls are still waking up about every 3-4 hours at night so Crystal and I have long forgotten what continuous sleep is like, but Crystal does let me sleep as long as she can through the week so I can go to work without being a total zombie.

Crystal has been able to take a few pictures of the girls. We hope to have time to be able to try to make some more this weekend and if we do, I'll try to post some as soon as I can. However, for now, here's some that she has already done. Enjoy!


Sarah Elizabeth

Ellie Katherine

As usual, there are more pictures of Sarah and Ellie.