Today at exactly 12:12pm on the 12th month of the year and the 12 day, and the 12th year of this century and (millenium) we took a picture. Since this day comes only once every 1000 years, we thought it was important. :) If you zoom in to the little black clock we set on the mantle for just this occasion, you can see that it reads 12:12.
One of William's favorite books is "White Rabbit's Color Book". It's about a little white rabbit who finds 3 tubs of paint and dips himself in them and discovers how different colors are made. He has the book memorized, but it didn't click with him until we mixed the colors ourselves. We got out the water color paint and painted little splotches on small white cards. Then he smashed the papers together and saw what color was made. It was a great discovery that red and blue actually did make purple, and red and yellow actually did make green. He loved it.
Here's Alan working on a Lab for his 7th grade Life Science class. The microscope came free from k12 as part of our curriculum materials. Can't beat that!
Something I remember from my kindergarten class was painting the classroom windows. We had one wall of our classroom that was entirely windows, and we got to paint scenes on them for every season. Now that we have school at home, and in a clasroom with windows everywhere, I thought it would be a lot of fun to have my kids paint our windows!! Here they are painting Halloween scenes. 
Just 2 blocks away is a little neighborhood playground that we ride our bikes to for P.E. and recess sometimes. It's great to have a place so close to go to for outdoor activities.
Georgia Cyber Academy set up a great feild trip at Columbus Botanical Gardens. There were alot of kids there, and alot of neat things to look at and do!
Yesterday was Tom's 37th Birthday. The kids and I put together a little movie for him about all the things he does for us. Alan and William both took turns playing Tom, while Kaitlyn and Sarah took turns playing me. You might not get some of the scenes because they are specific to our family, but Tom loved it. The file was too big to load onto blogger, so we put it on youtube. Here it is from there:
As of August 31, 2012, Alan is officially a teenager. He had a fun hang out party with lots of friends from church. He had such a great time he's using his birthday party as a theme for an Essay he has to write for school in October. I'll update this posting with it later.
Alan, Sarah and Kaitlyn started their first day of school at Georgia Cyber Academy on Monday, August 13th. I turned the playroom into a school room for them. This year I wanted to be different from last year. I wanted my older kids to be happier and feel like they were a part of something instead of just being off in their rooms "doing school" on the computer. So, I got some "desks" for less than $10 at Walmart, and set up our classroom. I have a giant old bulletin board that I got free from a friend in our ward, and a big old chalk board from Tom's work. All of the curriculum materials come free from the school.
There was a time when I scoffed at the idea of desks in a homeschool setting, and that's why for the past 2 years I hadn't done it. But, since my children came from a traditional school setting, they had a REALLY hard time adjusting to such an informal school experience. Alan cried every day for months the first 6 months he was home. They wanted something that tied them to the same experience their friends were having so they wouldn't so isolated and lonely. So, that's why did the desks. They were a surprise for them on the first day as well as the entire classroom, and they were MUCH happier this year with this change.
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