Grandpa Pruitt

My maternal Grandpa Pruitt died on November 19th at the age of 90 years old. This picture was taken last year, the last time we were to see him alive. What a funny and loving man he was to me and my children! Jackson was especially taken with him and his great grandma. We will miss them both so much, since in a way we have lost our grandma, too. She is my step-grandma, married to my grandpa for 30 years, and now that her husband has past, her crazy neices have come and taken her away to live with them, shunning contact from the Pruitt side of the family. It's a long story, but I hope that she will be taken care of in her remaining time here. She is also 90 and very frail.

Chad and I flew up to Seattle for the funeral over the weekend. 9 of my 10 siblings were able to make it, so we had a nice weekend together and packed in alot in a short time.

Here is my mother (left) and her two sisters, Penny and Pam. They all three spoke at the funeral and did a wonderful job! Of course, my mom spoke the longest. Like mother, like daughter. My mom is a convert to the church and the only member in her family. My aunts had their pastor officiate the service and he gave a rather interesting sermon on the cross and asked why we have a symbol of torture and death as a reminder of our Savior. Good question. Why would anyone? I think he thought he gave a great answer, but our family was not so sure. Speaking of torture, mom asked us kids to sing "I wonder when he comes again" and let's just say it needed some work. My grandpa served in the Army in WWII and so there was a nice salute at the end of the service.

My three sisters and I try to get a picture when we are together.Lanith is the oldest (right) and Samantha is the youngest (left) with a 17 year difference between them.  LeaAnn and I somewhere smack in the middle.  LeaAnn went and colored her hair dark so she could stand out from the rest of us. Nathan was taking our picture so we had a hard time keeping it together. Ok. So maybe just Lanith and I did, but we are getting goofy in our old age.

I love my Pruitt cousins. They are few, but we always have fun when we get together.

My baby brother and sister.

 Lanith's oldest daughter Casssidi (on my immediate right) just had her third baby girl, named Meadow. Of course I gave her a hard time about the name, but she was sure a sweety and so beautiful. BTW, it only recently occured to me that I am a great aunt. Not only that, I have been a great aunt for 6 years now! What an airhead I can be! Here I have been giving my sis a hard time for being a grandma, not even considering my role in all this. I have just been referring to my grand nieces as "my niece's kids". Brindy, botttom left, is another niece.

My nephew Tyler happend to have his football team's state championship game the night before the funeral in Tacoma, so we all met up at the game to watch them get creamed! Here are my parents, Chad, and 5 of my brothers watching the slaughter. We had fun though!

We really like to multi-task when we all get together, so we celebrated my dad's 69th birthday at Red Robin after the game! I love my dad!