My friend Reagan posted this on her blog and I had to see what it said about our boys.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family reunion - Free pedigree charts

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Home!

We arrived home last night around midnight. Micah was very excited to go to sleep in his bed. We were all very excited to be out of the car.

Our last few days of vacation were fun. The boys enjoyed riding on the Cape May Ferry, going for a boat ride with Al, riding the real train in Allaire State Park, NJ.

Derek has this week off from work so we will be able to enjoy some down time at home as well as get vacation stuff put away before he heads back to work. I am looking forward to being home but still on vacation for a few days.

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A beautiful day at the beach, warm and sunny. The boys dug a huge moat and built a sandcastle. The moat worked for awhile and then the powerful waves took over. Bryce did his best to shovel the water away, while Micah used his scooper truck. Matthew took two naps at the beach and spent lots of time snuggling and some playing in the sand. He had a pretty quiet day until we got to dinner. Then he was still quiet as he was busy eating and eating. He had the dinner I packed for him and then proceed to eat fries and a little chicken while we had all you can eat BBQ. He was a very hungry boy.

Bryce and Micah discovered the joy of playing in the waves today. Micah didn't want the water to touch his toes at first, then a little water got him. Soon after that he was "whamming the waves" (hitting). There were even a few times when the waves knocked him over and he was rolled. He came up and went right back. Needless to say they were covered with sand from head to toe when were ready to come back to our condo. The boys are tired and happy as are we.

Derek and I enjoyed some time out in the waves today. The water is warm and very comfortable to swim in.

It is beautiful here in Bethany Beach. We were on the beach at 8:30 this morning. The boys were ready to start making their sand castles and got started right away with the all important sea wall. Micah thought the waves were fun until they knocked him over. Bryce wondered when we were really going to go swimming. After playing in the waves for awhile he learned what ocean swimming is about. Matthew enjoyed sitting in the sand laughing as the waves came close to him, getting him wet from time to time. Then again he had lots of fun putting sand on Uncle Mikey and just playing as long as he was able to stand by something. Sitting is not so much fun unless it was in the water. Derek and I learned that we are not in as good of shape as we were 5 years ago. The waves are strong and they managed to take both of us down.  Playing on the beach was lots of fun hopefully we will remember to bring the camera tomorrow.  This afternoon we are going to go to the Boardwalk in Ocean City, MD.

On Tuesday, we went to the train museum in Strasberg, PA. The boys were in heaven. The trains were huge. The had an education center that was wonderful. Bryce had his chose of what to build with Knex, Lego and some thing else. He built an engine out of legos. Micah and Matthew were entertained with the Duplo Thomas table, the Wooden Thomas table, and the Geo Tracs. Derek and I enjoyed reading about the history of the railroad.

We have had a wonderful visit to Landenberg, PA. The boys loved playing video games with Cousins Ricky, Ian, and Zeen, going on a hiking adventure with Uncle Richard and PopPop, building with tinker toys with Aunt Carol. They managed to get almost everyone we visited with to play with them at some point. Matthew was very content to crawl around, laugh, make faces and snuggle. Derek and I have enjoyed the time to sit and visit with family and look through the antiques in Uncle Nelson and Aunt Evelyn's Barn.

Today we went on our second playdate with CHOW (Christian Homeschoolers of Woodbury.) The boys had a great time playing in the sand. There were around 15 kids all playing and working together to build a huge pile of sand. It was funny to watch as they had this huge playground to play on and yet they all played around one small structure working together.  I am very excitedt to have found this group, close to us and kids the ages of the boys. I think the boys will be able to form some good friendships and I will too.

Well the boys had a blast today pretending to fish with Fire just like the Indians did. I set up a dish pan of water, put in wax paper fish, gave them toothpicks for spears, turned out the light and turned on the flashlight.

Bryce also hit a couple of big milestones in school today. He complete Level 4 in Hooked on Phonics and has now read 75 books. He is very proud of himself and excited that there are only 25 more books to go to get to 100.

Bryce is a five year old now. He had a great birthday at Chucke Cheese with his friend Mikayla.

He had Little Bear on his cake. He loves to read the Little Bear stories.

We have continued on our homeschool journey. Bryce has learned basic addition and subtraction. He is reading seemingly every book he can get his hands on.

Micah has finally started to truely potty train. We had our first sucess yesterday - it took sitting for 45 minutes but in the end worth it as he was sucessfully 2 times today.

Matthew is getting bigger everyday. He is trying to figure out how to crawl, what a fun process to watch.

Over the last few days Bryce has been working on writing Thank You notes for his Christmas presents. He feels very strongly about doing this.

Today Micah is starting a new adventure - Potty Training. It should be an interesting week in our house.

The other night at dinner Bryce and Derek had this conversation.

Bryce: "I don't think Santa needs to come here this year."

Derek: "Why is that?"

Bryce: "Well we already have a lot of presents."

This just warms my heart. To know that my 4 year old is starting to understand that Christmas is not about getting lots of stuff but celebrating the Birth of our Lord and Savior.

Bryce was confused yesterday because we started "school" in the morning. I explained to him that when we are home in the morning we will be doing school then - especially in the winter when we are not able to be outside much.  This morning he was ready to start as soon as breakfast was done. It is wonderful to have a child so eager to learn.

Bryce started to learn about place value today. I am interested to see when it clicks for him. Now my challenge is to find all of Derek's legos, from his childhood, so we can count them and make them into groups of ten.

For history, we read the story of Zaccheus. Then we used textured brown paint and painted a tree. We used paper towel in the green to give the leaves a neat textured look. Painting is always a big hit around here and clean up is getting easier too.

We ended up taking the week after Thanksgiving off. Derek was sick, I wasn't feeling the greatest and any mention of school and Bryce didn't want anything to do with it. So we played, colored lots, read books, went to the Children's Museum and just enjoyed being together.

Monday we stayed home all day and started to work on book work again. Bryce is learning his number words in math and we are reading about the Parables of Jesus this week. We also started reading The House on Pooh Corner for a read aloud. I am really enjoying this and Bryce is doing a good job following the story. Bryce also started reading a chapter book out loud this week. HOP Level 2 Deluxe has 3 chapter books and we started the first one "Detective Dog and the Lost Rabbit." I am very pleased that he is not only reading it but can tell me the next day what happened. I am so happy that he is comprehending what he is reading.

Over the last few days we have gotten quite a bit of snow. The boys love to help shovel to just play in the snow. So we have been spending time outside too.

Today we read the bible stories of the four friends who lowered thier friend though the roof down to Jesus. Bryce built a duplo house and I made a stretcher. Then we found one of Matthew's animals to lower down into the house. Micah watched then joined in the play. They had fun reenacting the story several times.

This afternoon Bryce was trying to teach Micah how to add 1+1 and Micah was answering with letter sounds. It was funny to listen to the exchange from the other room.

Bryce is now at 37 books. He is gaining so much confidence with this process. It is really fun to listen to him read. And boy does he remember the stories. Right now he is mostly rereading his Hooked On Phonics books, he has only read most of them one time yet when he goes to reread it he summarizes the story for me first.

This week we went to Walmart, as we were leaving the boys received stickers from a gentleman collecting the carts. The boys got in the car and decided to stick the stickers on thier face and hands and told me they were "All stickered up"

On the way to play with Kris, the boys were trying to see as many types of trucks as they could. We saw lots of Tracktor Trailers, some Dump Trucks, Garbage Trucks, Tankers and One Snow Plow and one Bucket Truck. I think we might have our new on the road activity. Twenty Trucks DVD taught the boys about many different trucks and has spurred Micah on for his love of things with wheels.

Bryce completed his first paint by number this week. He did a really good job. Micah painted a dinasoar and is very proud of it. Bryce has now read 27 books on his way to 100. He also helped to make pretzels for dinner one night. They were Yummy.