A Surprise Party

My grandmother turns 80 this December.

The family surprised her last Saturday and threw her a Birthday Party.

We had so much fun. Nearly all of our family was there to celebrate her and her life.

I hope she enjoyed it, because everyone else did!!!

I do not think I can adequately put into words how much I love and honor my grandmother. She has shown me through word and action what the important things in life are... family, faith, loyalty, devotion, and hope.

So much of who I am is because of her and my mother's influence.

My Granny taught me to love Christmas, the value of hand- made gifts, to love crafts of all kinds, the power of a bag of M& M's, and the importance of the family meal (and dessert ;)).

Happy Birthday Granny! I love you so.

My cousin, Tina made my Grandmother this awesome Scrapbook.

The book commemorated her first 80 years so beautifully. We all enjoyed looking at it.

A time to eat cake!

The family.

Some more of the family.

Yet, more of the family.

The kids table.

These are my grandmother's great grandchildren and great nieces and great nephews.

Okay, so I thought you might be wondering why my family was all wearing name tags.

Do we not know each other??

No, these were not your conventional name tags.

Each one was specifically made for the wearer and said things about when my grandmother was their age. So for example the above name tag says, "When Great Granny was my age 7-Up was Invented". This is the one Livy wore- since she is 1- this happened when my Granny was 1. Get it?

Here are two other examples below... the first is my brothers and one of my favorite- he is 23. The next is my mom's- I won't call her out on her age.

Aunt Jayne and Isaac.

After he dove for the cake- he would not be left out of the sweet and messy goodness!

Sally, Sue (my mom), Amy, Karen, Pattie.

These are the Tangeman women of my mom's generation.

My female cousins.

Me, Katherine, and Tina.

The cousins of my generation.

Ben, Shannon, Katherine, Tina, Sean.

A Very Brady Birthday.

The men were not at all happy to be part of this photo... sorry guys.

Granny and her favorite granddaughters.

Shannon, Katherine, Tina, and Granny.

Mom, Me, Granny.

I don't know what their problem was, they don't look very happy.

Must be fatigue after a day of parting hardy!

Three generations of Tangeman women. Livy was asleep and I was not about to wake her - so we did not get a picture of all 4 generations (this time).

Tina, Sean, Granny