DD8.5 has been going to high school ceramics after school club/open studio at the school I teach at this year. Her progress has been amazing, and just this week the teacher told her that she would like her to be part of a 2 person art show after Christmas!
(The other person in the show is a grandmother of a student who has fallen in love with art since her granddaughter started bringing home art homework.) The teacher has been great about nurturing DD's artistic talents and honestly thinks her talents are amazing.
DD is so excited she can hardly contain herself. She will have to write an artist's statement for the show and a little piece about each selection in the show.
(If I knew how to, I would post some of her work here, but I don't know how to do that yet. When I do, I will share.)

DD9: Can you turn on my CD player? I want to listen to Katy Perry.

Me (before pressing play): Is she in the CD player already?

DD9: No, I think she lives in California.

LOL! - Kathleen'smum!

Kerry - that is fantastic!

DD6 is in first grade, and the library books are color-coded for reading levels. A few weeks ago she shared her frustrations with me that she couldn't get blue books. I suggested she advocate for herself and speak to her G/T teacher about the issue, but apparently there was some miscommunication, so after that I got involved, and her G/T teacher kicked off whatever processes the school needs to verify her reading level and get her access to harder books.

So yesterday was her library day, and the librarian told DD she could get any books she wants, but if she wants to get gray or (some other, non-blue color) books, she'd have to read a page to the librarian before she could check it out. DD was very happy about this development, and her explanation for WHY she was so happy was:

"Because my favorite thing is learning, and my second favorite thing is reading."

Awwww....

DS7's 1st grade class read a story called "an egg is an egg." They then had to come up with an example of something that changes (caterpillar into butterfly, seed into plant, etc)

DS came up with:
"a star goes supernova and becomes a white dwarf."

The teacher, to my disgust, asked DS to come up with something a little more "earthly." DS rolled his eyes, and said, "a lake can freeze."

That woman is going to completely break his spirit.

Sounds like the dwarf was the teacher.

Aww indeed!

doclori - my eyes would roll too!

after many rounds of "just do what the teacher tells you to do" (which I am really beginning to hate saying, but that is another story ;)), DD8 went along easily with yesterday's writing assignment...I'm sure it helped that it was about dogs and they could go right to the computer, instead of writing a rorugh draft...
Mrs W provided an outline with some questions to help them get started and they were allowed to "Geronimo Stilton", play with fonts, etc...so apparently, DD writes EXACTLY the minimum 5 sentances required to qualify this as a paragraph! Another parent, Mrs G, was there, assisting and she is telling me this and comments that she was sure DD would have lots more than 5 sentances. Mrs W is pleased, but I'm sure, since she sees DD interested this time, she will encourage her to do more, which is great...so she suggests 5 adjectives be added. Mrs G asks DD some questions to help her along..."Why don't you describe the snow?" and DD looks at her and says "everyone KNOWS snow is cold and white". We are both totally laughing and honestly, I am just happy the child did as asked this time!

Espers turned a year old last month. I mentioned a few months ago that she said very clearly, "get out of here" when her brother was trying to interrupt her nursing.  I had said the same thing when he did that every day for a week.  So, she wasn't talking.  That was echolalia.  She just used it in the right context.  
Now she uses some words and names, this, yeah, up, eye-it, and many wrong words, like "hot" asking for food.  But she does not talk beyond those few single words, and sometimes she'll answer you.
She studies.  She watches her brothers phonics lessons.  There was a game on the video that goes like "ugly umbrellas open under something." She answered "uh".  That was cool because me and Wyatt had been playing the game, we had been answering the sounds.  So she just played along and got one right.  
Well, that one I can tell everyone.  But since she doesn't really talk yet, she squeaks for please and squeals for no, I'll save this other story for here.  She did another echolalia in the correct context.  I was reading a teaching spelling website on my phone.  Wyatt asked what I was reading.   I read outloud the list with the same ending sounds.  Espy said clearly, "they rhyme."   I don't want anyone to think I think she knows what it meant, she just remembered for a second that's what I say when I say rhyming words and it came out of her mouth.
I think she'll be good with languages because Wyatt's first echolalia was "goodnight" and Espy's was a four word sentence.

@La Tex - thats so awesome! love the rhyming bit especially