Enjoying this last bit of childhood bliss with our Farewell Toys R Us Photo Shoot.

In-store photo shoots seem to be a particularly hot trend lately. My friend Sarah did an amazing Target Christmas photo shoot with her daughter, I saw this Target wedding photo shoot and Whole Foods wedding photo shoot, and people are heading to craft stores to take floral portraits. But for my family, I was ready to do something a little different. You see, this week, Toys R Us announced that they would be closing down all of their stores. I visited New York in 2015 and had the opportunity to say goodbye to the iconic FAO Schwarz. And I remember as a child saying goodbye to stores like Lionel Playworld and KB Toys. But Toys R Us? It was the place of childhood dreams. Straight A report card rewards, lost-tooth money, birthday celebrations, pre-holiday shopping… there was always a reason to head to Toys R Us. So yesterday, with smiles and misty eyes, we headed out for our Farewell Toys R Us Photo Shoot.

Farewell to my children shopping at Toys R Us.

The shutting down of Toys R Us stores hit me in multiple ways, so I will literally walk you through each one. First, I was sad for my children. The amazing thing about Toys R Us is that the only reason you head there is for fun! Big box stores, where we will now be forced to toy shop if we don’t order online, are for grocery shopping, laundry detergent shopping, pet food shopping, and other stuff that is super boring for kids. Those aren’t stores designed for just them. So we made this Toys R Us Photo Shoot shopping trip as fun as could be! First, board games. I’ve always loved board games, even when my friends made fun of me for liking “bored” games as a kid. It’s fun to stroll down these aisles to see what fun, new games are available. My kids love them, too.

Next up, a little active play. Motorized cars, scooters, skateboards, the Best Paintball Gun, and more! Toys R Us was always the place where you could pull the bikes off the shelves to test them out. Try all the different toys without getting into any trouble with store employees. I cannot imagine us riding this kids’ truck through any other store, so we let them have extra fun in this section for our Toys R Us Photoshoot. Well, I think they had fun, despite Lydia’s terrorized face and Bryce accidentally flipping out of the back one {I will spare you that image}.

Then we calmed down a bit to enjoy classic kids’ toys like trains and LEGOS. Bryce ran right over to the train table. We used to have one of these, and rarely was he particularly interested in it, but there’s something about Toys R Us that makes kids want to play with everything available to them. That’s exactly what I hoped to capture in this Toys R Us photo shoot.

Lydia has always loved her baby dolls, ever since she was a baby herself. So we walked the bright pink aisles of Toys R Us, soaking in every minute of gender-stereotype hot pink imaginative play. Princess dress-up, baby dolls that eat, poop, and pee, baby strollers, and more! This experience is just pure childhood love for her.

Toys R Us is also known for their fun kids’ furniture, so we had fun trying out the furry stools and squishy kids’ chairs. This is one of those times I told the kids to “act natural” for a photo, which they interpreted as “say ‘blah blah blah’ a million times over until we’re laughing”. I’ll take it!

Farewell Baby Registries and the Excitement of Motherhood at Toys R Us.

And then the second phase of this experience kicked in when we hit the baby section. The summer before we got pregnant with Lydia, Richard and I had a discussion. Normally, a place like Babies R Us at that point in our lives would make us eye-roll. Maybe even gag a little. But we challenged ourselves to walk the whole store and see how we felt. And suddenly, it felt magical. I wanted to see every baby product and begin a registry and plan our whole world around starting a family. So we did just that. All of that joy and excitement {and sadness about it ending} came back as we wandered this section. That meant I had to capture it all.

I was not at all planning to get into any photographs {clearly my mismatched gym clothing is indicative of this lack of preparation} but I couldn’t help myself. This glider and ottoman were calling my name, so I held my big babies and drowned in the moment.

Farewell to my Childhood Trips to Toys R Us.

And then, of course, the nostalgia really hit when I remembered my own childhood trips to Toys R Us. It made me miss the simple things, the people who loved me as a child who are no longer with us. Friends I rarely see anymore. Toys I played with and adventures I had, all from my imagination. Even Richard felt the nostalgia as he showed Bryce some of his favorite childhood toys. I had to capture this in my Toys R Us Photo Shoot.

The kids played more throughout the store, checking out all of their favorite toys. Mario Bros. hats and puppets, trucks filled with blocks, pinwheels and over-sized lollipops, gum machines and Geoffrey the Giraffe. It truly felt like the end of an era. A beautiful era of childhood bliss and innocence.

My children may never remember trips to Toys R Us to redeem birthday gift cards or the excitement of a store made entirely for them, but we have this day, these photos, and these memories to reflect back on forever. I plan to print the images from this Toys R Us photo shoot to make a book, maybe something like a catalog, that they can look at to remember a time when they got to experience the magic my generation got to experience when they stepped foot in a Toys R Us store.