Oklahoma Part 2 - Grandma!

Part of the reason we all flocked down to Okmulgee was to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday. Her birthday was actually earlier in November but it was easier for all 34 of us to get together the week of Thanksgiving.

While their house would certainly fit us all it was decided that we would have more room in the fellowship hall of their church building. Plus, it had a kitchen so that would help make the Thanksgiving meal easier to prepare.

Thanksgiving morning we all gathered together and celebrated Grandma's 80 years. Since she has four children each of them took 20 years and talked about the world at that time and Grandma's life. Family stories are so important and let me tell you - the Reeves have plenty! I am very thankful to be married into a family like this.

Grandpa gave Grandma a little tiara to wear during the celebration. Lily wished she had brought one of hers.
There were two pictures that were shown during her first 20 years. I missed taking a picture of three year old Aline wearing a replica of a dress that Grandma wore when she wasn't much older than that. I was either making sure that Jamison was busy watching a Diego dvd or that Lily was sharing with the other great-grandchildren (she was).

Here is Audra wearing the replica dress. (I know, I'm not a photographer. I used the wrong setting of some sort and the picture does not do the dress justice.)

Here is the picture that they based the dress on. Those are chickens behind her in the picture. A lot of chickens. I missed the reason as to why there was a herd (gaggle? colony? pack?) of chickens around.

Grandma relaxed and basked in the attention.

My mother in law, Karan, made this pillow that has everyone's name on it. All the children are in yellow, the grandchildren in blue, spouses in green and purple, and great-grandchildren in red.

Brian's Aunt Linda made the cakes. Among many things, Grandma is an expert quilter. She made quilts for each grandchild when they graduated from high school. Four of the quilts were screened onto cakes.

The cake in the middle was a pin cushion cake. Adorable!

All the great-children helped Grandma blow out the candles. In the foreground you can see all the red roses. Each of us gave her a rose when we either came into the family or was born into the family. Due to my reluctant children I got to give three roses to Grandma.

Here are all the grandchildren minus Philip who had to work Black Friday and lived too far away to get to Oklahoma and back in time.

And here is where I would have put the picture of all 34 of us if Brian hadn't left the cd in the office. Of course, if I had asked him to bring it home that would have worked too.