BFF's

Gloria and Elsie had their 8th annual joint birthday celebration on Friday night. They are exactly 1 year and 5 days apart. Two years ago, I took the three girls to the mall after they all got their ears pierced together. This picture was taken in December 2005:

I know I sound like a broken record, but they grow up so fast!! :( Two very short years later:

Gloria has been looking forward to a Build-a-Bear birthday for several months. It's quite an experience, going to Build-a-Bear. . . First, you choose the animal you're going to stuff. . .

. . . then you wait in line at the stuffing machine and prepare for the heart ceremony. After the animal is stuffed, you choose a little heart and go through all the steps: kiss each side so your animal has lots of love, rub it on your nose for good luck, touch it to your forehead so it can be wise, jump up and down three times so it will have lots of energy and rub it on your cheek so it will always be warm. This is a very important and serious part of the process.

When you've gone through all the steps, you close your eyes and make a wish and the heart is placed lovingly inside with all the newly fluffed stuffing.

Now onto the grooming. . . blowing and brushing are very important to the health of your Build-a-Bear. . .

Last, but not least, the perfect outfit is chosen. This can take some time. . . lots and lots of time. . .

I let the girls take as much time as they needed and they were all very happy with the end result:

Now to conquer the mall. . . The first stop, of course, had to be Limited Too:

Here's another picture from 2005 at the same store:

They've changed just a bit. . . .

The pet store was right up there with Limited Too on must-see places:

We spent a total of 4 hours at the mall which put me over my yearly mall-time quota by about 4 hours. Back to the house to open presents.

Megan gave both of the girls a cool knitting craft kit:

They loved it!!!

Elsie gave Gloria a chair for her American Girl doll that was custom built and painted by Shawn. It's beautiful and she was thrilled!!

Because I'm such a great party hostess, I slaved over sugar cookies in the shape of bears for the girls to decorate. Actually, Jeanie brought me a kit a couple of weeks ago that contained everything necessary for this project and I remembered it was on top of my fridge at just the right moment!!

Bedtime finally arrived around midnight and before I knew what was happening, Gloria had drug both of her mattresses out to the living room and made a comfy bed. I'm not exactly sure what time sleep came, however, since I went to bed!!

I was awakened way too early to this!!!:

We all had a fun time and the girls spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon just hanging out and enjoying each other.