Welcome Boom Boom!

Ever since Houston was born, we have made a build-a-bear with each new addition to the family.  We took the kids to the mall today to make Holt a bear.  It wasn't long before Hayes spotted a camo bear and thought he had to have it!  Let the pouting begin.  We tried to explain to him that we were here for Holt as well as the meaning behind why we were there.  To no avail.  Then we tried to appease the situation by convincing him to put it on his Christmas list.  This only ensued a million more problems, "How will Santa know I want it?", "How long before Christmas?", etc. 

Due to the lack of "the perfect bear", we opted for a monkey instead.  We like our stuffed animals floppy, as opposed to stiff.  At the filling station, we attempted to explain to the lady that we did not want much filling in it at all, that the empty shell was almost enough.  Somehow, the monkey ended up looking like an Andouille sausage skin bursting at the seams.  "Like this?" she says.  Ummm....  So after about 5 minutes of her pulling stuffing out, she allowed a co-worker to relieve her and she went to lunch.  Yes, that is how long we had her removing stuffing.  Shortly after, we surrendered hope and reluctantly gave our approval.  Much like the waiter with the parmesan cheese grater at a resterant.  You'd love to tell them to keep going - pile it on!  But you end up copping out because you feel slightly embarassed over the pile of cheese already in your bowl.

Time to give the monkey a heart, or in this case -- hearts.  Each boy rubbed a heart on his head and his foot (I love you from head to toe), rubbed it on his knee (I'll always need you), and gave it a kiss (I'll always love you).  After labeling each heart H1-H3, in the monkey they went!  By the way, Hayes is still pouting.

After the monkey was all stitched up, it was time to give him a bath.  The boys did an excellent job making sure the monkey was "all clean" and fuzz-free.

Once the monkey was all clean, we decided Hayes was a little furry and could use a bath himself.  He stopped pouting for a moment.

Time to name the monkey!  The saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20.  We totally should have decided on a name before going to make a stuffed animal.  Dad and Houston entered all the birth certificate information in the computer but we were all stumped when we had to actually give the monkey a name.  After sitting and brainstorming for about 5 minutes, not agreeing on a single name, an employee suggested we use their name book.  Brilliant!  Dad started spouting off names from the list, much similar to the baby names books, and once he said, "Boom Boom", we all agreed that was perfect!

We heard about the camo bear the entire visit at the store with no reprieve and no amount of consoling would make it quit.  Hayes kept asking the same questions to which we would reply the same answers.  We told him that we would visit Santa soon and also write him a letter so he would know about camo bear.  I decided we should take a stroll down to the lobby of the mall to see how soon Santa would be arriving.  Surprise!  Santa was already there.  We took the opportunity to go ahead and tell Santa about the camo bear.  This seemed to finally make H2 happy.  We've heard about camo bear since then, but mostly just him telling us what he is going to name him or how floppy he wants to make him.  Much more pleasant!  And unfortunately, there are no pics of the boys with Santa because they only allow you to take pictures if you buy a print from them and we were not dressed for our official Santa visit.  And oh yeah, Hawkins was totally terrified of the jolly old man.  Wouldn't even get close for candy.  Now that says a lot!

P.S.  Holt was there for the making of his stuffed animal, he was just hiding in Dad's papoose.

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