Build-A-Bear

I've been so fortunate the last two years in a row that my stepdaughter's last day of school had early release, and also happened to be on the days we had the kids. We've kind of made it a "tradition" that I pick her up and we spend the afternoon together just-girls celebrating the end of the schoolyear and beginning of summer. Last year we got our toenails painted and went to see a movie together that she'd been wanting to see. This year we did Build-a-Bear. Later in the weekend we all went back to Build-a-Bear as a family so that my stepson could have one too, I didn't want him to feel left out!

I'd seen those places and knew what they were about, but had never actually stepped inside one before...what a fun experience! The way they have it set up is absolutely adorable.

First, the child (or child-at-heart) picks out an animal from a wide variety of choices. My stepdaughter chose a bunny and my stepson chose a parrot.

Then you take it to the stuffing machine, where you pick out a heart to put inside and the worker has the child do all sorts of cute things with the heart like make a wish on it. Then you stuff your animal.

The child gets to help stuff it by pressing the foot pedal:

My stepkids have a lot of practice with this because I let them press the foot pedal on my sewing machine when I am sewing!

Once the animal is stuffed and sewn up (by the worker) you take it to the bear laundromat and give it a "shower" (air blown by pressing another foot pedal) and brush it:

Next comes the fun (and potentially very expensive) part: picking clothing and accessories! They have a HUGE variety of cute tiny clothes and accessory items, and "dressing areas" where you can try outfits on your animal. Sooooo cute! We giggled so hard at the tiny pink bear-panties!

(One word of caution: those adorable sequined clothes and sparkly shoes and surfboards and backpacks do add up! If you're not careful you could spend way more money here than you meant).

Once you have your outfits picked out you head to the computers to create your animal's birth certificate. This is where you get to pick its name. Once you input all the information (in a very easy-for-kids-to-use way), it will print an official birth certificate on thick paper. Then you take your animal to the register, pay for your stuff, and they box it all up in this cute little cardboard box that is exactly like you get when you adopt an animal at the pound. Sooo cute!

We all had a fabulous time with this, and the kids sure love their animals! M's bunny is named Violet and L's parrot is named Flowers. My favorite part of this is that the kids got to exercise total creativity/individual personality in their choices. No pressure or suggestions or anything about what kind of animal they chose or things to for it to wear....seeing what their own little individual tastes and personalities produced is priceless: