A Long, but Good Day…

For Christmas this year, Gram and Gramps told the boys there take them to Build a Bear. They were so excited! Well, Gabe and Bryson were. Josy was a little clueless. But we were planning to go a few days after Christmas and then in got pushed back so that Rachael could come with us, but then she and Matt ended up sick and couldn’t drive over, so we decided to go yesterday. This schedule change was very confusing for Gabe as his countdown kept getting messed up…

We got to Build a Bear and the boys first pick what animal they wanted. They all picked one for themselves, but then they had to pick one for Jeremiah too. We face timed with him and ultimately (with his Mama’s help…) he ended up with a dog, just like Gabe.

The funny part about this was that while the adults were all trying to help Jeremiah pick an animal and Gabe and Bryson were running around looking at clothes, Josy was standing in line at the fluff machine, patiently waiting his turn because “she need to bow up my dinosaur.” And while yes, that needed to happen, only he recognized that he had to stand in that line to make that happen.

The girl was cute and clearly did this all day, as she helped each boy fill up their animal, and put in their hearts and add sound (well, only my boys ended up with sound. I may regret that…).

They had to work together to fill Jeremiah’s.









Then they had to pick accessories, which ended up being rather dramatic. Gabe wanted army clothes, but he wanted it to say Army, not BAB, so he just got the hat. Josy’s dinosaur couldn’t wear pants (the tail got in the way), so he didn’t have many shirt options and he was convinced that he should be able to get shoes on over the claws, which I couldn’t make happen. Bryson’s otter was adorable and I don’t think there was any drama there. But then we had to guess what Jeremiah would want and they ended up with a leash and a food bowl for him. He’s the only one with an actual dog, so actual dog toys made sense. (He did not get puppy sounds as when I told Cassie what they sounded like, Winston started barking…)



We ended up some very cute little animals: Little Joe the Otter, Pup the Puppy and Dinosaur the Dinosaur. Jeremiah will get to name his own.

Then we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and the boys all elected to turn in their books for ice cream (even though it took Josy a very long time to eat enough chicken nuggets for that to happen…).



Then we got home and Josy got a nap in before we went out to dinner. The boys got the largest bowls of kid’s spaghetti I’ve ever seen. They also looked adorable with their napkins wrapped around their necks…

Then we went to Zoo Lights!

It rained a bit, which scared of a lot of people, but it emptied the place out and made it really enjoyable for us.

They had an amazing animatronic dinosaur exhibit, which we all thought was amazing…except for Josy. He was terrified. He was on Pat’s shoulders and I was holding his hands and he was still terrified. I was afraid he was going to be afraid of Dinosaur (who was waiting in the car with strict instructions to make good choices), but thankfully that did not happen.

Josy was way more afraid than he looked in these pictures…





But he was much better once we made it back to the regular zoo lights.







Then he saw a carousel. He loves carousals. At the train park last week, both of the big boys were too afraid to do it, but he wanted to go and he was very proud of himself for going with Gram. But they were in the wagon that didn’t go up and down. For this one, I gave him the choice of going in the tree house the big boys were playing in or going on the carousel and he picked this. He also wanted to go on the shark, which he was excited about because it went up and down.

He was so proud of himself for being a big boy.





Gabe did not make it far out of the parking lot before we lost him. I asked Josy if he was awake and he kept telling me that “I asweep”, but somehow he managed to actually keep his eyes opened. Crazy little kid.