Thanksgiving fun!

First let me update on Joseph. He endured the shingles and was thrilled to have his prayers answered and to feel better by Thanksgiving and by the day after he felt really really good and since that was his birthday, his life wasn't so bad as he had believed. From a mother's point of view, the shingles were horrible, even the pain medicine only took the edge off but the pain was still there.
Now, on to a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend!! We had a total of 34 people eating dinner at mom and dad Talbert's house. This was our trial run for our family reunion that we will be having this summer. Those who were present were Richard and Susan and family, Deborah (Jeff was in France) and family, including Deborah's sister Mary and her daughter Rebekah, Jim and Debbie and Josh, Jake and Sara, Charlie, Kevin, as well as our family and mom and dad. For sleeping we split between our house, Aaron and Diane's, and mom and dad's. This worked out very well. We also were able to have enough space for eating and for playing games. On Thursday and Friday, we set up 5 card tables and had 20 people playing the same game. It was wild. Brad had to set up a spreadsheet to help keep score and after every 4 rounds we rotated tables with the goal being to try to get to the top table by having the best score. Mostly this holiday was about laughter and friendship. It was amazing to have that many people together and there was no arguing, complaining, or any other difficulty. The Talbert family is truly an amazing family and I am so blessed to have become a part of this family.
Along with lots of family and food, on Friday we had a baby shower at my house for Lenay. Her and JC were not able to join us for Thanksgiving because she had family visiting but we were excited to have a shower for her since her family was around as well as so many Talbert's.

Lenay opening her gifts, Kelsey is on the side.



Susan, Bobbye, Diane, and Sara enjoying the shower.


Lenay again but check out the diaper cake that I made. I forgot to take a better picture than this but it turned out really cute (if I don't say so myself!).

So, Laura needs to do homework so the rest of the fun will be in the next post!