Build a Bear

For Valentine's Day, I thought it would be neat to take the boys to the mall and let them each build their own teddy bear. I looked for a coupon online and asked if Grandma would like to join us, and she agreed. It was nice to have an extra pair of hands with the two boys. :) The first thing we did was pick out the bear shell. Joshua immediately grabbed a dark brown bear that had the tag "Bearemy" on it, and Caleb picked out the lighter bear with the name "Coconut" on it that you can see in the above picture.

Then they asked us if we'd like to add sounds to the bears. You can record your own sound, and I'm a sucker for the kids' voices. While the add-on cost almost as much as the entire bear, I have heard them the rest of the day so I think the kids enjoy them. We took our little sound buttons and went to the back room where the boys each said into their own button "I love you." It's so cute to listen to.

I have to say that the boys were pretty excited to get their teddy bears done. Joshua went first as we headed up to the woman to stuff his bear. This picture on the right is fuzzy but I loved his smile in it. It's so good to see him smiling!




The woman asked Joshua which paw he wanted his sound to go into, and he picked the left hand. When it was Caleb's turn, he picked the same hand. Then she put the sound in and told Joshua to step onto this pedal to stuff the bear while she worked the machine. He LOVED it! Caleb intently watched as the gal worked on Joshua's bear.

Here's Caleb taking his turn with the stuffing machine. I love how in the picture below he's pointing to himself, saying "my turn." The woman asked them both to spell their names so that she could write it on the bear's tags. They each gave her their names and the letters that spell their names.

After she stuffed the bear, she asked each boy to hug their bear to see if he felt "too hard, too soft or just right" and both boys agreed that their bears were just right.

Then she asked them to pick out a heart from the bin. She said to rub it in their hands to make it warm, jump up and down to get the heart pumping, put it on their forehead to give it wisdom and kiss it to give it love. Here's Caleb picking out his heart.

While Joshua did all the activities, Caleb went over and stuffed it inside the bear all by himself.

After the heart was inside, she stitched the bear up.

Caleb kept smiling and saying cheese for the camera, so I had to take a few more pictures before we went to the next station:

The next area you go to is the bath tub, where you use little brushes to "fluff" your bear and "clean" him. The boys enjoyed scrubbing their new little friends:

After that, we went to the 'dressing room' where the boys each picked out an outfit, which Mamaw bought for them (thanks, Mom!). The first thing we saw was the big boy undies, which she picked up for them.

Then I asked to make sure it was okay to take off the tags, which they said was fine as long as we brought them up at the end. So, we cut off the tags and dressed the bears. Joshua picked out a fireman outfit and Caleb wanted the soccer outfit. Mamaw helped dress Joshua's 'Bearemy' and I helped dress Caleb's 'Coconut.'

After we were done at the dressing area, we went to the computers to create the bears' birth certificates. You enter your name and what you want to name the bears. Since we had been calling them by the store names, both boys wanted to keep the names as is. So, we agreed.

Joshua insisted he needed a new fire truck to go with his fireman bear, so Mamaw agreed to stop at the toy store on the way out and bought Joshua a fire truck and Caleb Luke a little school bus to go with their bears. The boxes (almost resembling dog houses to me) were a little too big for the boys to carry, but they've enjoyed playing with them since we got home.

We showed Coconut & Bearemy to Daddy when he got home from work. It has been so adorable to hear 'I love you' over and over again from their little voices as they squeeze their bears' paws.

Here's Caleb & his soccer Coconut, posing for a picture since I didn't get one of the fully dressed bears before leaving the store.

 And here's the Bean with his fireman Bearemy.

Caleb gave Coconut a kiss before bed. Such sweetness! Happy Valentine's Day, boys! I LOVE YOU!