Birthdays!

My birthday was the day after Christmas and Daddy-O's was the 29th.  Unfortunately he had to work on my birthday so Poppi took a half day from work and came and watched the kiddos so Nana and I could do a little shopping!  The weather was a little less than perfect , raining cats and dogs, but we didn't let that stop us!  We had a great time!  The afternoon was spent relaxing at home in my jammies with my sweet kids!  On the 28th, Daddy-O WAS off so he let me sleep in and spoiled me like it was my birthday all over again!  He's such a good man! (insert old school song here...."What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man!... don't hate if it's now stuck in your head for the next 24 hours).

On Daddy-O's birthday, we waited on him and let him do what ever he wanted!  He enjoyed a little shopping himself, lunch at "the Horn", and ended the evening with popcorn and a movie with the fam.  

All of us squeezed into a little booth at Longhorn!

Had to post a pic of my surprise birthday gift Daddy-O so cleverly left on the Keurig so I would find it first thing!  It was a new bottle of perfume!

Christmas fun

We had a wonderful time this Christmas.  It was the first time ever we stayed home on Christmas day!  We visited my side of the family at Grandma and Papa's house the Saturday before Christmas and visited Chris' side of the family on Christmas Eve.  It was so nice to get up and relax Christmas morning and not have to rush to be anywhere!  As Christmas Day drew closer, I began to wonder if we had made the right decision with this.  Then I picked Jaxon up from Sunday School the Sunday before Christmas and his teacher told me how excited he was to be able to stay home and enjoy his family.  That was confirmation that we had indeed made the right choice!  It doesn't matter what day you see your family, just that you see them and enjoy them, which we did!  Here are a few pictures from the festivities!

Family Photos

It's always funny to think back to when Jaxon was a baby and I had his pictures taken every month.  Yes, I am serious.  Every. Month. With Camron and Caden it was obviously less but poor Joss has hardly ever had her pictures take professionally!  Now, don't get me wrong, they all have a camera of some sort in their face a lot of the time!
Anyway, we had our family pictures taken for the 2nd time since the princess arrived!  I could not have been happier with the photos.  Joss is a hard one to crack if she doesn't know you (and sometimes even when she does) so she is very serious but these pictures are fantastic!  They were taken by Landis Brown of Landis Brown Photography.  She is great!  I highly recommend her!  Please let me know if you would like her information!  I'm sure she would love to capture your family or sweet kiddos for beautiful memories!
And FYI, I'm going to have a hard time choosing which pictures to post!

Beautimous!

This makes my mama heart so happy!

Group hug!

My sweet kiddos loving on each other!  I think this shot may have been their idea!

This one cracks me up!  Joss looks so "merry" doesn't she?! 

LOVE this!  And it's a regular occurrence in our house to be honest.  Daddy-O and Mommy smooching and the kids pretending to be grossed out ;).  

How cute is that little mischievous tongue sticking out!

I told you I'd have a hard time choosing!  

From the Darling Dukes to all of you, Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and BLESSED 2013!

Parties, and buddies, and nativities, OH MY!

  We've had some fun things going on this month! It's been busy but not too busy which is always nice! Our homeschool group has a wonderful Christmas party each year. The kids and parents always enjoy it! This year the boys were the 3 wise men in the play.

As you can see, baby girl wanted to be involved with her brothers. She followed them right up on stage.  It was super cute!

We also had a play date with Joss' good ole bestie, Mercy! These girls (and their mamas) had gone WAY too long between visits! 

They are hilarious and adorable together! 

Each year our church has a Live Nativity.  It is such a blessing to be a part of! We were a part of the Potter's family.

We also had pictures taken by the super talented Landis Brown Photography.  She's the next big thing people! I'll have to do a separate post devoted just to those pics! 

We are having a wonderful December and we pray all of you are as well!

RACK round 2

We haven't been as good at documenting our RACK's lately! Here are a few pictures we have managed to catch! The kids and I have SO enjoyed this! More so this year than last! We have already come up with a fun way to continue this thoughout the year. Because as one wise Duke boy said "people need to see Jesus' love all the time, Mom".  So, true, sweet boy, so true!
 

  

RACK round 1

We have really been enjoying "RACK-ing" people again this year.  Jaxon and I made a "pocket chart" of sorts that we can reuse each year from now on to hold our RACK cards. For those of you who don't know, RACK stands for Random Acts of Christmas Kindness.  While we try to perform a few Random Acts of Kindness throughout the year, just to show Gods love, we are very deliberate to do one each day as we count down the days in December until Christmas. Often times people get so caught up in what this season is NOT about.  We, as a family, pray daily that we can show Gods love in some way to the people we are RACK-ing!

Below are a few pictures of the first few days. We look forward to this each day!

Some oldie but goodies.....

Jax and Coop chewing on their squeakies.  

He has always been such a sweet big brother!

LOVED these shirts!

Ok, so apparently they weren't happy with the turtle necks.  Can't say that I blame them but man they are some kinda cute!

Always been a character...wonder where he gets that from...ahem....

Those eyes!  I could just eat.him.alive!!!

My goofy boy!  I saw that same silly, sly face right before bed tonight!

We'll never forget Poppi dancing around with Jax on his shoulders at Disney while the men on stilts danced to the drums!

See you again soon Disney!  The Duke's can't wait!  Oh, and you better watch out...there's a new princess in town.....

Ok, so not an oldie...but boy she is a cutie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I have seen quite a few people posting things they are thankful for each day on their blog.  I wish I had thought to do the same thing!  Here's a few things I am thankful for:
*Daddy-O
*my sweet blessings
*my parents who do SO much
*my grandparents who are.the.best
*my in-laws who gave me my soul-mate
*the rest of my family who I can't name one by one...(I mean, I can name them, but I'm not gonna...)
*my friends
*my sister-friends
*my homeschool group
*my church family
*a warm home to live in
*a running car
*the fact that I am free to serve a gracious, forgiving, loving God

This is a pic of some of our homeschool group at our annual Thanksgiving party.  Such a great group of families!

Here's the princess at Grandma and Papa's house on Thanksgiving day.  Who would know we had to bribe this sweet face out of her.....hehe

The Duke's!  

Election thoughts

I'm not a political person. Never claimed to be. To be honest, I'm glad this election is over.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, their own vote. I choose not to discuss my choices with many, mainly because I don't enjoy the drama that can come from those discussions/disagreements.  We should be thankful we live in a country where we have that right, that voice, regardless of whether or not your "choice" won. You may be happy about our president for the next 4 years or you may be disappointed. Either way, God wasn't surprised by this outcome. He knew the results. The petty arguing and bantering about the subject did/does no good.  

While I may not discuss who my vote was for in this election, I will discuss this.  My ultimate choice is Jesus Christ. That's what really matters in the grand scheme of life. Not who won last night. Because in the end, God is still God and He is still good.  And no matter who our president is, we as a whole need to pray for our country.

Mothers of Multiples

That's children.....NOT personalities... ;)

The first weekend of November is always the NCMOM convention.  Mom's from all over the state come together to get away and enjoy each others company.  This year Greensboro hosted at the Embassy Suites.  It was a lot of time and planning on our part but it went SO well!  We were VERY pleased with the outcome.  Our theme was "Giddy-Up to Greensboro".  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Learning country line dances.....or trying at least!  

Spivey and I had fun texting pics of ourselves to Katie while she was trying to be "formal" during our general session.

These are just evil good.  Period. 

Dinner Saturday night

The GMOM crew.  Oh, and the Lone Ranger.  Do you see him creeping in the back left corner?  Tonto is hiding back there too with John Wayne.

Missing in Action

I have been lacking in the posting business lately!  October was filled with illness!  The day we came back from the beach (last post), I felt like I was coming down with a cold.  Well that cold was no joke!  I am still feeling effects from it!  Joss decided to catch it the week before last and it lingered a while with her and ended up in her ears resulting in double ear infections!  Daddy-O was 3rd in line and while his has been more short-lived, it has caused a lot of pain in his sinuses.  Poor Jax seems to be coming down with something as of this afternoon.  Please pray the sicknesses LEAVE the Duke household soon!  

During all this the boys continued to play baseball.  Their season ended this past weekend.  From what I hear, they all played the best games of the season.  Yes, this Mommy of the year missed their last games due to the NCMOM convention.

They also tested for their yellow belts in Tae Kwon Do and did awesome!  I get a bad case of the nerves for them and they rock it out every time!  

Joss is still sweet as pie.  She loves to sing, count, color, dance and is oh so independent! 

Field Trip Fun

We were very blessed to take a homeschool field trip to the beach with 3 other families.  We had a total of 11 kids and 8 adults. We had a wonderful weekend full of exploration and relaxation.  We couldn't have asked for better weather or better behaved children! Here are a few shots of our time!

The whole crew on the beach.

Of course we needed a beach pyramid!

We had a few first time surfers with Camron and Caden! Unfortunately I only got Camron on camera! They both mastered boogie boarding as well!

We also had first time friends who created a bond that made my mama heart happy!

We explored the sound and found all sorts of creatures! Some fun to touch, others not so much ;).

And finally, we got to see those beautiful beach skies at sunset. 

We look forward to our next weekend field trip!

Oh Happy Day!

Today has been a rather good day!  First of all, while I have been thankful to wear this aggravating wonderful heart monitor, I am glad to see it go!  I wore it for 21 days and thank the Lord, I didn't have anymore crazy issues!  Now, I'm just praying I don't ever again!  I am curious to see what the Dr says at my follow up...in December.  Why is it so far off??  I haven't the slightest idea!

Secondly, I got a phone call today that made my day!  Let's have a little recap for those who may need one.  Plus, I just love reminding people what an awesome God we serve!  Remember my polymyositis has been giving me a fit.  It's been "flaring" if you will.  It all began back at the end of August when I got really sick with shingles.  My levels went from normal to over 1,200!  As of about 2 weeks ago they were still over 1,000.  Soooo, after praying about what to do, Chris and I decided we would go ahead with an infusion suggested by my rheumatologist.  I didn't necessarily think it would work but I also knew it wouldn't hurt me.  We, as a family, as well as many others, have been praying that God would lay a healing hand over this.  Trusting Him fully to do so.  Well, Yesterday, I went in for my first of 2 infusions.  These take about 2 weeks to start working.  I asked to have my levels checked while I was there because I like to know where we are before the infusion.  I will be honest, I prayed specifically that my levels would be lower than 800, "lower than 500 would be great, but lower than 800".  Angela, the awesome nurse at the rheumatologist office (who has listened to me cry many times over the years) called me today with my levels.  I can always tell by her voice if they are "good" or "bad". They were  398!!!  I was beyond ecstatic!!  I told the boys and they all started dancing and whooping and hollering, "God answered our prayers, Mommy!".  What an awesome feeling!  He is an on time God, that is for sure!  Of course, my levels could stand to be a little lower but that is pretty close to normal for me!  

It's Turtle Time.....

We had our 7th and 9th annual Duke Boy Birthday Bash this weekend.  We decided to tone it down this year and not invite quite so many people due to our special guests.  We just so happened to find a turtle man who lives at the beach!  We didn't tell the boys about their special guests until they were here.  And for the record, they are tortoises, not turtles ;).  Mr. Randy brought his African Sulcata tortoises, Franklin, Ben, Jerry, and more for the kids to pet, ride, watch eat, water, play.....and so on!  It was a blast!  The largest was about 300 pounds and 60 years old.  The smallest was about 15 pounds and 6 years old.  They can live to be over 100!  Needless to say there are some boys in this house who want one as a pet.  As much grass as they eat, Daddy-O probably does too!  I have to say they were pretty cute.  Joss may be the only one who would object!

Here's Jerry having a snack!  And taking a break from giving rides.

We all posed for a picture.  Joss wasn't having it!

Cam-Cam taking a ride while Jonesie observed.

Jaxon REALLY wanted to keep this one.  Too bad he doesn't have $500 laying around!

Miss Priss was happy with her bubbies!

The awesome turtle cake made by Jojo's Sweet Treats!

Caden blowing out his candle!

The birthday boys!

The tortoises were all loaded up and ready to head back home!  I bet they slept all the way home!

It was a beautiful day for a party.  We all had a wonderful time!  We may just have to look Mr. Randy and his tortoises up on our next beach trip.....I just realized I didn't get to take a ride....