We were very kindly invited to the opening of the Build-A-Bear Workshop at the Bridges Shopping Centre in Sunderland last week and as I was feeling very brave I decided to accept and take Zara and Oscar along. Now I don’t often do trips out alone with the 2 children as I don’t like being outnumbered but as we weren’t going to be out for long and we weren’t far from home I decided to risk it and I’m glad I did now as we had a lovely time :)

Having arrived at the store, we felt rather important to be allowed in before the grand opening and to be some of the first people to build-a-bear at the store. Zara was a little overwhelmed by the choice of bears that she could choose from (try telling a 19 month old to choose just one!) but we settled on a Doggy (no surprise there then :) ) which she fell instantly in love with. She was a bit reluctant to hand it over to have it stuffed and I don’t think she quite understood all the “putting a heart in it” part but we did put a bark inside his hand. Once stuffed we then moved onto the grooming part of the store, this was hands down Zara’s favourite part, I think she could have spent all day going back to brush her doggy, in fact I had trouble dragging her away to choose some clothes for him.

Now I don’t think Zara quite grasped the concept of dressing her doggy and choosing him some clothes so I chose his outfit myself and on the insistance of Zara we didn’t dress him, instead we packed his clothes in his going home box for him for later :) When it came to creating a birth certificate for doggy well Zara opted to call him “Big Doggy”, we already have “Little Dog” at home so Big Doggy was born :rolleyes:

Zara had to choose a Doggy

We were kindly allowed to build a bear for Oscar aswell and Zara decided we were going to make Oscar an owl (with a little help from me ;) ) By this time, Oscar was getting a little bit impatient for his next bottle and I could see a meltdown occuring at some point soon so we decided that Owlie (as named by Zara – got to give my girl 10/10 for originality ;) ) didn’t need any clothes as he was super cute without them.

Owlie The Owl

Both Doggy and Owlie were then packed in their little houses and I made a hasty exit back home before we had any meltdowns lol. I always like to leave before I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown ;)

Zara decided that Doggy’s little house makes a rather nice little house for her as well :)

Build-A-Zara

I’d like to say a BIG thank you to Build-A-Bear Sunderland for making us feel very welcome and inviting us to your pre-opening event. We had a lovely time and Zara and Oscar both love their bears :) (Sorry if we rushed off before we had chance to do any face painting etc but trust me it was best for all of us that we got out of there when we did :) )