Building a Bear

Today I took Clara on a date day and we invited Hannah to come with. We went to the mall, where we started at the American Girl store. We just browsed here as I wanted to get an idea of maybe some birthday or Christmas presents since I often struggle with that. Clara decided she loved this, but I am not sure she would actually play with something like that. Dolls generally aren't her thing.

Next we rode the carousel. Both girls were really excited about this. I thought it would be like the zoo, but it's much smaller so it's the kind of thing that makes me super dizzy, so total labor of love.

Hannah is afraid to go up and down so she rode on a bench. With goggles, because safety first.

Then we did our main event of going to Build-A-Bear. Clara loves stuffed animals so I thought she'd enjoy the process.

This is where she pumped her bear full of stuffing.

Then she did the heart ceremony, where you, among other things, rub the heart on your head so the bear will be smart, on your back because he'll always have your back, on your shoulder because he's a shoulder to cry on, and then you blow on it to make it warm and put it in the bear.

Then you can groom your bear and choose accessories. The whole operation is based on up-selling to kids, so it's a bit exhausting to say no to so much.

This bag was the only thing I said yes to that I hadn't planned on. It was the last thing so it was no-fatigue by then. And she had a great time. We had a fun day, though perhaps a bit consumerist. We also stopped at PetSmart to look at puppies at her request and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A. We all had fun and Hannah asked if we could do this exact date when it's her turn, though probably we won't.