Teddy Bear Picnic

Last week Build a Bear had a crazy sale of "pay your age" per bear. My sister, Amanda, and I decided to brave the chaos (knowing very well that it would be complete insanity!) and take our kids to go get a bear. We arrived at the mall around 7:20am and waited the hour for the store to open. There were still quite a few people in front of us but we were determined. The kids all did great considering they needed to have so much patience.

We were fortunate enough to get everyone what they wanted and it only costed me $16 (instead of $100). It took us nearly 3 hours in the lines before all 6 of our kids left with their beloved stuffies. If you've ever been to Build-A-Bear, you know that the experience can be quite long. Each kids first picks an unstuffed bear. Then, the kids get to help stuff the bear with fluff, add a heart, give them a bath and make them a birth certificate. Its quite the procedure to buy a bear. Nothing changed on the day of the sale, the experience was the same. The only unfortunate thing is that the lines were so unbelievably long. I heard that so many people waited in line for four, five, six plus hours and left with a $15 off voucher to use at a later date. The lines got cut too quite early in the morning because of "Health and safety issues" and so so many disappointed kids.

We were lucky to get the bears but I do think the company could have managed it a little better. Perhaps, just having the bears pre-stuffed to "grab-and-go" without the long experience. Maybe that would leave the kids wanting to come back because they love their teddy and want the experience too! Or maybe just buying the unstuffed bears that day and coming back another day to stuff it and have the whole experience. I don't know but I do feel bad for everyone who waited for hours and was turned away.

Our kids did have a blast though. Penny chose a Teddy Bear, Bentley picked a bunny.. he said it was the most soft so he couldn't resist it.. and Carter chose Charmander the Pokemon.

After the chaos, Amanda and I decided to meet at the park and enjoy a "Teddy Bear Picnic" with the kids. We made Teddy sandwiches, brought teddy grams and pretzel sticks and veggies and fruit. It was all so delicious!





These 6 kiddoes are so sweet and I love how they get to grow up together, get to experience chaos together and get to love on each other often.





What a lucky bunch, including us!

That night, before bed, Penny told me that her little leg was hurting her. I saw that she had obviously gotten a bug bite of some kind. It wasn't itchy, just painful for her. I circled it and sent her to bed and checked on it once more before Brian and I went to bed. In the morning, the inflammation was even bigger than the first circle so we made an appointment with the doctor.



The Doctor inspected it and noticed that there were 4 holes in the centre of it. He said it was for sure not a spider or mosquito bite but that he was unsure exactly what it was. We were told to use cold ice packs, Benadryl, Advil and Areus to try to help the pain and inflammation for 24 hours. If it didn't get better, we were to take her back and get antibiotics. We stuck to it and within 24 hours the redness and inflation was practically gone.

This summer has been so fun but our family hasn't been short of the flu or bug bites... its been pretty exhausting. Hopefully next week we can get back to our adventuring!