Grandma's 90th Birthday party

So last Saturday was my grandmothers 90th birthday party. My mother, neice and I started planning it last January. It took quite a bit of planning due to the fact we had several family members who live so spread out around the U.S.

I had a couple people comment on the picture of my grandmother. Fortunatly my grandmother and her parents before her were very good about marking pictures. All of these older pictures you see have names of everyone in the picture and the date the pictures were taken! Its pretty neat since no one is having to wonder just who is in the picture. My grandmother has tons of pictures also so it was easy to find these pictures. My gift for her for her birthday was a scrapbook with several of these pictures in it for her to display. It has pictures of everyone in her family from her and her sister (who died at 21 of pnemonia) and her 2 younger brothers. In the picture to the left she is the little girl with the big bow in her hair in the front.

Anyway about the party......It went well. I made the scrapbook, my uncle had a painting made from the picture I used as the invitation which was of her and another cousins mother made a quilt using pictures of

my uncle, cousin and her kids now. It turned out pretty well. My cousin lives in San Antonio so I don't see her ofter. Actually the last time I saw her was 2 years ago when my uncle passed away. My other cousin lives in Washington DC as a newspaper writer and I don't see her very often. Actually the 2 of them had never met. This was the first time my

grandmother had seen all 5 of the grandchildren together in one place

and we are all adults and there really are only 5 of us. Its a long story and not something I really know how to explain

why we have never all been in the same place before. See we are an odd family because my grandmother was not a normal lady of her generation. She was married 5 times! Her 3 children are from her first 3 marriages and are each 6 years apart. My grandmother was different and led a very interesting life after growing up with several different kinds of jobs. Not to mention she likes to tell everyone her story about dancing with Johnny Cash and some other adventures with oldies country singers. She was never married to any of them though, unfortunatly....we may be more well off had she! She was a pretty crazy lady though.

Her 3 children all led very different lives. My oldest uncle was an many times awarded pilot in the Navy. He won several medals and awards during his time and eventually became a pilot for a major airline. He passed away 2 years ago from a tumor in his liver that took him within days of being found.

Her second son earned 2 masters degrees in different fields of science. He has multiple sclerosis though now. He was also had one of the first successful open heart surgeries when he was only 5 in 1950!

My mom was her youngest and only girl. She married my dad and they have been married for 34 years and in our family that is a major

accomplishment itself! She has also built herself up from practically having nothing and proved that someone who has a child very young can become something with a lot of determination and perseverance.

Both of her boys had one daughter each and my mom had 3 children 2 girls and 1 boy. My 2 cousins and my brother all share a birthday exactly 3 years apart for each one. How do you do that?! I think its pretty cool! It also makes remembering my cousins birthdays really easy.

From her 5 grandchildren she has 10 grandchildren 3 from my cousin, 4 from me and 3 from my sister ranging in age from 6- 22. To the right is my granmother holding McKenzie when she was 1 week old at Thanksgiving.

My grandma with her 2 surviving children.

Grandma with the 5 of us grandchildren notice the 4 girls....yes my brother has longer hair then all of us girls!

Grandma with 10 great-grandchildren. Funny story when my mom called grandma when my nephew (the oldest) was born and told her she was a great-grandma she thought she was just giving her a compliment! I've always thought that was funny.

Grandma is not afraid to take part in the silly face picture with the great grandkids even though not all of the kids are cooperating. The 22 and 19 year olds think they are to old to make silly faces.

Grandma at her 90th birthday party. She is extremely healthy for a 90 year old lady. She still drives....yes she passed the test! Also she just bought herself a brand new car. She has great vision still and only needs glasses for reading. She only takes a low dose of blood pressure medicine and her doctors are surprised that her bones are as healthy as they are. She has not broken anything since she was young. She asked me what we would do if she lived to be 100 (I'm pretty sure she will) and I told her that was just enough time for us to figure out how to have a 100th birthday celebration. Also notice she still has her redish brown hair? Yeah she does not dye it this lady has very little grey at 90 years old! I hope to take after her that way! Anyway I will be completely shocked if grandma doesn't make it to 100 years old and doesn't end up someday getting on the news for the oldest person. She is to damn healthy and spunky to let anything ever get her down. Also a funny note.....my kids call her Granny Grumps. My dad joked about that once at is stuck!