My grandfather....Earnest Mathis....one of the most special people in my life turned 90 on January 30th! What a blessing for our family to be able to celebrate such an amazing life and so many acomplishments! My mom and aunts put me in charge of theme...decorations, etc....of course they took care of the food! I took about a week and thought about all of the things my grandfather has done...all his hobbies...all the things I love about him and well..it finally hit me! A vintage newspaper theme....my grandfather reads his paper religously..everyday...goes to the mailbox even in the rain for his paper....he saves his papers and knows everything that was written in the paper from beginning to end! Perfect! My cousin Lauren who just graduated from UGA is back at home temporarily so I enlisted her help! We had so much fun!
First I decided that we would need a vintage look...my mom booked the Creative Arts Guild in Dalton which has high ceilings and a distressed look/feel to the building. We knew that we would be working with round tables...which was perfect to fill the space of the room....I picked out some light weight linen and burlap for the tables...thankfully my aunt had them sewed so I wouldn't have to get my sewing machine out! I designed the invitations to look like the newspaper....took boxes and modge podged newspaper print to them...each table was a different section of the newspaper...I had entertainment, livestock, classified, marriage announcements, birth announcements...and the food table was dedicated to his time in the Army. Each table had it's own newspaper section and told about that area of his life. Thanks to my aunt Val and cousin Lauren for pulling most of the pictures for me...all I had to do was scan the pictures and print them out in black and white, (we didn't want any original dissapearing) and of course I wanted the black and white image! I made burlap banners for the back wall and we had a cute sign in table and guestbook so he could remember all the guest that showed up...all 175 of them! Wow...now that is a testimony! The favors were shelled peanuts...one of my grandads favorite snacks...we even had a picture to put on the table of him eating peanuts.
We kept the food simple b/c it was from 2-4 and we figured most people would have already eaten lunch....we had mini water bottles with his picture around each bottle...fruit, cheese, crackers, oyster crackers with special seasoning, a coffee bar, punch and assorted cupcakes with 90th birthday cake toppers!
We also had pictures of my grandady's superette store and one of the first houses he built...after the party we celebrated at Longhorn's with our immediate family for dinner. My uncle Earnie and Aunt Val flew in for the weekend from Littleon, CO.
I will never be able to explain in words how special my grandad is but I think he knows....happy 90th Grandaddy...I love you!
