Christmas Morning

Christmas is always so fun. I love the girls waking up and running to see what Santa left for them. There's such an excitement that isn't around any other time of the year.

This year the hot items were:

Briana's guitar, lots of clothes, jewelry, and a docking station for her ipod

Brandi's ipod and a docking station, coat (the brown one she's modeling in the picture) and clothes and boots

and Brooke got a talking Barbie styling head, a very cool horse that walks,

a Color Explosion pad, and camera for kids and of course a few new clothes, too.

They were very excited with all of their gifts and it was a wonderful Christmas day.

Ronnie surprised me with a new GPS for my car. So cool! I really wanted one! :)

Poor Ronnie only got pajama pants and a new hoodie.

Good thing he's not very materialistic. He doesn't much care about getting gifts.

The girls all picked out little gifts at their school holiday shop for each other and for us. It was really cute to see what they thought we would really like. They did an excellent job.

We hope your Christmas was great, too!

Have a safe and happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

to all of our family and friends.

So, if you are wondering why you haven't pulled a Christmas card from your mailbox from The Gantt's this year, I hope you're not still checking the mailbox...it's not coming! :)

The mere thought of taking cute pictures with cute outfits and finding a cute card and mailing them all out has really put me over the edge this year. Something had to go, and this was it. Sorry folks! I had a good two weeks where I couldn't get anything done due to sickness and a broken garage door that took two days out of my precious December. (long story)... so forgive me!

We're grateful at this time of year because we know our family has been so blessed. We are grateful also at this time to be able to reflect on our Savior's miraculous birth. We have a testimony that HE lives and HE loves us! We are so grateful for this knowledge.

We also love and appreciate all of you so much. You have all touched our family's lives in many different ways. We thank you for your love and support.

But just know that we love all of you and thank you for all the cute Christmas cards and letters we've been getting. We love hearing from you and seeing how all of your families are growing. We have had a wonderful year as a family and if you've kept up with our blog, you've already read all about it!

Anyway, HO HO HO!!

Hope you've been good, because Santa Claus comes tomorrow night!!

Love,

The Gantt's

Wicked Weather

This past Friday was a SNOW DAY around here!! All of the schools were cancelled because we had up to a foot of snow!! I don't know what the actually amount was... who cares at this point, right? I'm not so sure I've seen this much snow fall at once the whole 5 1/2 years we've been up here! It's been close...very very close.

I kept wondering how in the world we were going to shovel our way out of our driveway because we haven't broken down to buy a snow plow yet- we only have 2 snow shovels. And I'm sorry, with this weather that just won't do! Ronnie was out and about at work and with his back that recently went out, there was no way he would be shoveling. So I'm watching the truck that plows our neighborhood come through and plow the roads. While I'm standing in my garage watching the girls play, the truck goes into one of our neighbors driveways and starts plowing their driveway. LIGHTBULB MOMENT-- I remembered in our Association newsletter last month they posted a phone number to the company and had a quote for plowing driveways. So I quickly get on the phone and asked if they would radio their guy to come to our house and plow us out! I told Ronnie that was the best $35.00 I've spent all year! Ten minutes later they were gone and my driveway and my sidewalks were clear !

Anyway, I took a picture of the girls playing in the front yard. Remember that picture a few posts ago of our house with some snow in the yard? Well, I took another one to compare it to. WOW! Look at the difference! To top it off, we got another inch or so last night and we're getting another round tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. All of you with your 70 degree weather, count your blessings. We have a week left of weather in the 20's. Today is all of 10 degrees. :)

Even though we had WICKED weather on Friday... that didn't stop us from going to the Detroit Opera House to see WICKED that night! It was FABULOUS!!! It was a little hike getting there because of the storm that came through, but thanks to Ronnie's 'expert' driving skills we made it there safe and sound.

Briana, Brandi and Brooke loved it! We especially loved Galinda- with a 'Ga'. Brooke laughed at her so many times - she was really entertaining.

Anyway- we're happy, safe and warm and we love ya'll!

Happy Holidays Video

Lunch with Brooke

Today I had lunch with Brooke at school. Each class of first graders sang us Christmas songs (aren't they all so cute?) and we did a few activities with them. Here is Brooke's class- she's on the right bottom side with the blue shirt on. (I know- I didn't think to put her in Christmas colors this morning!!) Oh well! I'm just the mom-- I can't think of everything!! :) Her teacher , Mrs. FeatherHer good friend, Jordin.

Jordin is actually the only other little girl in her class

that is as tiny as Brooke. They were also in the same

kindergarten class last year and were the only two peanuts

in class! :) I guess they've bonded.

Brooke's crazy pictures

Last week when I was pretty much feeling like CRUD, Brooke asked me if she could use my camera to take some pictures. I said "Sure!" and I'm sure I must have fallen back asleep. Well, I had forgotten all about it until today when I took the camera to school to take some pictures. So the following pictures are random- VERY random pictures that Brooke took. Some are actually good, while others are, well- you'll see! :)
I love that every once in awhile she decides to turn the camera around and take pictures of herself. Too funny!

Brooke's crazy pictures

Brandi's First Gymnastics Meet

What a fantastic day we had on Saturday! It was Brandi's first gymnastics meet. She could hardly eat breakfast in the morning because she was so nervous. But it all turned out well. Brandi was great!! She had a routine on the beam, bars and had to squat on the vault. Many of my pictures turned out so blury because I was too far away and it's hard when they're swinging around bars, leaping on the beam and running to the vault- it's all in motion and I couldn't focus. So you aren't going to see alot of action pictures, here. I'll try to take better pictures at her next competition.

Anyway, here are the results from the awards ceremony... Brandi got 5th place on the bars, 6th place on the vault and 7th place on the beam in her age group. Once she can do a round-off with two back hand springs, she can have a floor routine. But for now, she can only do a round off with one back handspring. (still...not too shabby, right?! :) We are so proud of her for placing on each of her events! She has three ribbons that we're going to start our collection with!

She'll have one more meet in January and Feb, then 2 in March and one more in April. So it'll be interesting to see how well she'll improve over the next few months. She's only been in gymnastics since last January. She's accomplished alot this last year. I was watching the older girls (12 & 13 yr. olds) compete and I couldn't help but get excited to think that in the next 4 or 5 years she'll be doing these amazing things that the big girls were doing. She definitely has natural talent for this.

this is a blury picture of her doing a split on the beam.

Whew! What a long day! But it was all worth it!

This is for you, Grandma Cooley

This week was the Young Women's in Excellence at Church. The theme this year has been "Be Steadfast and Immovable, Always Abounding in Good Works" taken from the scripture in Mosiah 5:15. Each of the girls had to tell a story about someone in their family who has been an example of being steadfast and immovable.

So here's Briana's story (word for word) about Grandma Cooley:

My grandmother was the youngest of four children. A completely average girl and did well in school. She was fine until she was 11 years old. That year a mosquito bit her and gave her encephalitis. She went into a coma for about 3 weeks. During those three weeks, she got lots of brain damage. When she woke up, she had to learn everything all over again. She had to re-learn how to walk, talk, everything. It was very difficult for her back in school. In fact, in 9th grade she dropped out. It is still very difficult for her to do things like read and write. To this day, she has epilepsy, or uncontrollable seiqures. She has nearly died 3 times in her life. She is very faithful to the church even though she didn't grow up a member. She joined in 1966. She grew up, got married, and had kids, just like a normal person. One of those kids was my dad. Even though she may seem handicapped, she served a mission in the temple, learned the ordinances in Spanish, and has read Jesus the Christ all the way through even though it's like really big. She also studies the scriptures every day. My grandmother is such an example to me. She never quits. To show that, she is working on 15,000 geneology names. My grandma has shown steadfastness and immovability, and I love her.

What I loved about that night was that almost every single girl talked about one of their grandparents. That just goes to show you how much influence they have on our children. I am so proud of Briana for writing such a beautiful story about her grandma. We are so grateful to have family members that are good examples to my children. We have many!