A Personalized Party

A couple of months ago my mom & dad, aunties & uncles and myself collaborated to celebrate my grandfathers 80th birthday! We had (almost) the entire family on my mothers side together--quite the task with such a large family!! 

See?

We rented out a banquet space at Sonoma Chicken Coop (yum!) and threw in lots of personal touch to represent the family and of course the guest of honor--Grandpa! Grandpa encourages all of us (and everyone else he knows/happens to run into!) with Spirit Filled Munchies--acronyms using every day words to remind us to trust in the Lord. He is blessed with multiple encouraging thoughts every day, and sends us all emails quite often! His encouragement became a theme for the party (and his love for dessert was represented quite heavily as well).

 

Just for fun, a collection of words from the family for Grandpa to create acronyms with!

Newspaper from Grandpa's birth-date, his baptism certificate & a couple of family photos.

ASAP (All Sins Are Pardoned)

OK (Opportunity Knocking)

SMOG (Seeking Myself Or God?)

These and many other of his Munchies were printed & wrapped around candles. Each table also had little bowls of red candy, who doesn't like to much while waiting for everyone to arrive? ;)

I also put an old photo of Grandpa (most with at least one of his 6 kids!) on the tables. I purchased the frames from Ikea and enlarged/copied photos to avoid losing or damaging the real ones.

Never underestimate the power of balloons (for decoration and entertainment)! Oh, and dollar store balloons are just as good as the ones purchased from 'real' party stores.

Most everyone brought a dessert (with an emphasis on pie for the special you-know-who!).

Picking a color theme helps too, we used lots of red & metallic hues. Overall it was a great day of family celebration. I am so blessed to have been placed into this family. And thanks to AshWhitePhotography we have lots of great updated family photos to last us until the next big shebang!