Nana's 90th Birthday

We had a rockin' 90th birthday party for my Nana last weekend. And I say that without a hint of sarcasm -- the party was really great. My mom organized the whole thing and didn't miss a detail.







I have this photo of my Nana and Papa hanging in our apartment.




Nana is like the family historian. She is full of stories (sometimes totally random...) about the old days, distant relatives and a confetti factory in Italy. My mom was able to get in touch with old relatives who were able to relive old times with my Nana. For the rest of us, we were able to meet cousins for the first time and put faces to my Nana's stories that usually begin with something like "DO you remember Uncle Victor's daughter, the cop?"



We joke that Nana brought animal prints back in style, so as a tribute to her we all wore leopard print, including the kids. Rich wasn't thrilled about the boys in leopard, but Dina won that battle :)











When you are 5 months pregnant and wearing leopard, you have to just go for it, right?














Nana was pretty surprised when she walked into Coyote Grill. Nicolas and Lyla ran up to her and yelled surprise before she saw the rest of the crowd, but it didn't diminish her shock as she saw dozens of familiar faces.


Appropriately dressed in leopard




My mom and Aunt Phyllis wrote a song for Nana to the tune of "Mame" and led a sing along. After the sing along, Lyla managed to get ahold of the mic and sang a solo version of Happy Birthday to Nana, followed by several bows and thank yous to the crowd.








Lyla and my Uncle Jack totally hit it off and were running around together all night.


We danced until the wee hours of 10 pm




















When Nana got the chance to speak, she said that life is worth living until 90 for great-grandchildren. And boy do her great grandchildren love her.




Nana loves all things politics, so the family read telegrams from politicians who wanted to be there to celebrate, but were otherwise engaged. Newt Gingrich chose not to attend because Nana isn't into open relationships, Rick Perry forgot the third reason why he couldn't attend and Obama was stuck out of the country because he couldn't produce his birth certificate. Nana guessed the punchline to nearly every telegram before it was read aloud.





How do we top this for 91?