Build-A-Bear Party!

This year, we planned a joint birthday with Grace V.  Grace's mom, Dawn, and I met at a MOPS meeting when the girls were only weeks old and were delighted to find that four years later, they were in the same JK class!  Since their birthdays are only days apart, we connected over the summer to combine our efforts.

We originally planned to have a birthday party at the movies, but in the stages of collaborating on goodie bags, Dawn came up with the fabulous idea of offering Build-A-Bear toys as take-home gifts.  We took it one step further and decided to have our entire party there!  What a great idea that turned out to be!

We were assigned two party leaders to walk the children through their choices.  Grace and Aili, as birthday girls, had their choice of bear/animal - anyone surprised that Aili chose the pink unicorn?

I didn't' think so.

After choosing their animal, the party leaders led them through a silly dance (see above) to shake out the sillies before they headed to the "Stuff It" section.

One of our leaders, Lara, explains to the children what the hearts are for...

Each child receives THREE hearts (one for their animal, one for Grace and one for Aili), except the birthday girls - they receive TWO (one for their animal, one for the other birthday girl).  They then have to give the hearts a big hug, to transfer lots of good wishes and love to them.

They then have to make a wish for their friend's animal.

Next comes the fun part!  Aili's up first, to step on the pedal that will stuff her "Fluffy".  Don't ask me where she came up with that name.

I'm just glad she didn't come out with Brutus or Gus.

Note the little boy in the green shorts - he was so excited that he ran right up and stomped on the pedal before Aili could! :)  It was so cute!

Once Fluffy was stuffed and laced up, the next step was to groom them.

After that, it was a mad dash through the store to touch and try on every accessory possible... 

And I don't mean just the kids! ;)  Yeehaw, Sheri!  I managed to talk Aili out of the roller skates for Fluffy... they were $18/pair - and of course, as a unicorn, she'd need two pairs!

Gary grabbed a quick shot of Aili with Hailee and Kayleigh and their animals:

Because we only had a few of Aili's closest friends that attended, we decided to treat Connor and Liam to their own animals:

After the Build-A-Bear party, we moved the celebration to the food court and had our cake there - except we decided to go with cupcakes for ease!

Happy 5th Birthday, Grace and Aili!