Once again we were able to get all the Bell siblings and their families together for a celebration!! It amazes me how hard it is to get everyone's schedules to coordinate sometimes!! But that's old hat to me with my own family of coordinating 8 families! So the weekend before Christmas all of Nick's siblings got together at Mooma's house in Willard for our pre-Christmas celebration.
Most everyone got there Thursday night or met us Friday morning at Silver Dollar City. It was all of our last times to go this year as the year is coming to an end and no one was planning on getting season passes for this new year. Nick and I got there just in time to see the Frosty the Snowman outdoor show (It's a really cute show for the kids and this show and the Christmas Carol are always my favorites to see!) Every year the Frosty show has a part where the kids can come up to the stage and sing songs with Frosty. My girls NEVER want to go up! This year however, they actually went up (probably because their cousins were up there!) So Kayley is up in the top left picture sitting by Aunt Shannon and Addison. She's in the pink and red striped hat. Cora is in the bottom right in the purple and blue striped hat. Rex sat with Uncle Kyle for a bit and then later we joined Aunt Shannon as he was dying to get up on stage too! Then the light display is always fun to see, but it's always cuter to see the kids and their excitement! It was pretty chilly when the sun went down, but it wasn't as cold as it has been in the past!
Then Saturday morning we got up and all went out to breakfast (a tradition that was started about 4 years ago I believe)...it's the idea of stuffing our faces with breakfast food that gets us all going in the morning!! This year we decided to extend it to include some extended family and it was so great to catch up with some of them! I sadly didn't get a picture of everyone that was there, but Lorraine, Mike, Sarah and her kids were there. Kenny & Sharon, Eric and Sarah and their boys were also there. Then all of us, minus Shannon and her crew, but they joined us later for the rest of the weekend celebration. It was fun and thank goodness Hemingways (inside Bass Pro...another bonus for some of the Dads!) has a big seating area for all of us and a great, cheap breakfast buffet!! It was a lot of fun! Then afterwards we took the kids to the Santa Workshop display at Bass Pro. The line for Santa Claus was horrendous so we just had the kids ride the carousel and then do the craft. 
Then the most anticipated part of the trip for the kids....the present exchange!! Each year we have the kids exchange names and then Grandma also gets them each a gift. You would think they were waiting for a truckload of toys by their excitement! But my girls were very excited about their gifts! Rex also enjoyed getting presents. He finally gets it this year about what's included under the wrapping!
And these two boys were so cute to watch. Rex and Garrett are the closest in age as Bell cousins and it shows. We are always seeing them exchange tricks, taking toys aways from each other, and running around together to put on a show for everyone! And of course they are always loving on each other too!! Altogether it is so fun for me to see my kids have such a great relationship with all of their cousins, on both sides of the family! I have such fond memories of my cousins as a kid and I'm so glad that we live close to a lot of our family, on both sides, so we can have frequent get togethers like this so my kids can develop strong ties with "their friends" as they call them!
