February 22, 2020

Build-A-Bear With Luke for His Birthday


It's so hard to believe it's been almost three years since I became an aunt! I have loved every second of the moments I've spent with Luke and Riley (and now baby Shelby). Luke's third birthday is next month, and Becky requested that, instead of a gift, we could take him out somewhere or do something with him for memories instead. I loved that idea!

The kids have a trillion toys anyways, so the idea of doing something fun with him instead of buying something sounded much better. I wish I'd have thought of that when my kids were little!

Anyway, when Noah was two years old, my brother's first wife, Danielle, took Noah to Build-A-Bear. It was SO cute! I think Build-A-Bear was still pretty new then, but we were in Minnesota to visit Brian and Danielle, and we went to the Mall of America. We rode on some of the rides at the theme park inside (I actually have a memory of getting on a ride with Noah where I was too fat for the lap bar to lock!) and Danielle took Noah to Build-A-Bear.



I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to take Luke and Riley there when they were a good age for it, so I thought this would be a good time to take Luke. Jerry was off work today, and obviously the kids didn't have school, so the four of us were able to go pick up Luke and take him to the mall in Toledo.

Luke is a total chatterbox, and I love it! His carseat was in the back of my (tiny) Jeep Renegade, and I was in the middle seat with Eli on my other side. We were squished! But Luke asked me more questions in that 45 minute ride than I've ever been asked in a lifetime, hahaha. He's at such a fun age!


At the mall, we went into the Build-A-Bear store and Luke was hoping that they had elephants (he has a stuffed elephant at home and said he wanted a friend for it). They had unicorns and warthogs, but no elephants!

At first, he was going to choose a bear that was covered completely in sequins--and I was totally fine letting him choose anything he wanted--but he ended up choosing a soft teddy bear instead. I have to admit I was kind of relieved. The sequins were a bit much!

We brought it over to the stuffing machine, where Luke had to step on a pedal to make the stuffing come out and into the bear.


Then, he had to do a little routine to add a heart inside the bear--which was super adorable.







Then we went looking for clothing/accessories. I didn't make any suggestions, because I wanted to see what his (almost) three-year old mind came up with. And it was hilarious! The first thing he chose was a pair of boxer briefs. I had a hard time getting him to look for a shirt and pants, because he wanted things like a skateboard, a bed, butterfly wings, etc.




Finally, he chose a shirt--it was a Tigers shirt, but not the Detroit Tigers. It was a random team I'd never heard of (I didn't even know what sport it was!) so I thought that was funny. And he chose a pair of jeans that had holes in the knees, just like the jeans he was wearing. (In the car, he told me that he didn't like the holes in his jeans and he was pulling the white threads off, hahaha.)

He found a rocket backpack from Paw Patrol that he wanted to get instead of the butterfly wings. And he wanted red boots and sunglasses. And a winter hat. It was SO cute to watch him pick everything out! And, being his aunt, of course I didn't give him a budget ;)

After we (I) got the bear dressed, he got to name him on a birth certificate (Luke's first choice was "Dad", but he settled on "Barry", hahaha). We took his picture with Barry:



After we paid a small fortune for his bear, he was able to take his bear out of the store inside of a little backpack. He was so cute I almost couldn't stand it. (People at the mall were literally pointing and saying how cute he was!)



We got Chick-fil-A for lunch. For some reason, Chick-fil-A is a huge deal around here--people love it--but we don't have one close by. Toledo is the closest, as far as I know, so when in Toledo, chicken it is!


After lunch, we squished back into the car and drove him home. Tomorrow, Brian, Becky, and the kids are going to Hilton Head to visit my parents, so Becky was packing for the trip. Luke gave Jerry the royal tour of the new house (Jerry hadn't seen it yet) and then we came home. I was SO EXHAUSTED for some reason (so was Jerry). I just watched a movie called "After" on Netflix, and loved it. It's a teen drama--if any of you were into Twilight, then definitely watch "After"!

Tomorrow, Eli is going to be in a Rubik's Cube competition in Ann Arbor at U of M. I'm so excited/nervous for him! He's super fast (he can solve the 3x3x3 in under 20 seconds now, although his average is about 25 seconds). He's going to be in four different competitions (different for each cube--the 2x2, 3x3, Pyraminx, and Skewb). It'll be a long day--about 8:00-5:30, if he makes it to the final round on the 2x2 and 3x3. He's just hoping to make it to the second round. Wish him luck, please!


5 comments:

  1. The shirt is for Auburn University in Auburn, AL. So wild they would have it in Toledo!

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  2. Luke is very cute! I'm glad he enjoyed making his teddy bear.

    Good luck to Eli!

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  3. So cute, and such a great idea! (I'm putting "After" on my watch list now. I've been curious about it....but now that you mention the Twilight effect...I'm totally going to watch it! Lol!)

    ReplyDelete

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