IKEA and Malls

It's been a long weekend, yo. Poor Savino is all kinds of out of sorts, he has been sleeping very restlessly the last few nights and hasn't been napping at all except for 20 minutes here and there. The weekends really wreck our routine, and it's really my fault, but it's the only time that we can go run errands. Oh well, we will get back on track this week.

Part of why he is so off his schedule is that Tim got it into his head that we would go to the Robinson Mall which is on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, which is about 45 minutes away. The mall was HUGE and packed and noisy, and a little overwhelming for the boy, though he did pretty good most of the time. We also visited IKEA while we were up there because there isn't one anywhere around here. So it was a very long day for him, we ended up getting home later than I had hoped and Savino didn't get in bed on time. I think it threw him off, he's also teething hardcore. I had to give him some Tylenol on top of teething tablets, and he keeps waking up to scream. Poor kid! He has a dr's appointment on Wednesday, I am anxious to see how big he has gotten! I broke out the measuring tape the other day, but I must have been measuring wrong because according to the measuring tape he has grown three inches! That's just crazy.

I am in LOVE with IKEA. God I wish there was one closer to us. Cheap Swedish stuff! It rocks! I found a few things for my photography set up, and a few things for the house. If we had taken the van with us I would have bought more, so it's probably a good thing that we didn't. I wish that we had gone a little earlier in the day though, because by the time we hit up IKEA the kids were BEAT and ready to go home.

The main lure of the Robinson Mall is the Build A Bear Workshop, which if you aren't familiar with is a store where you pick a stuffed animal "shell" and help stuff it and put a heart inside it and you get an adoption certificate and they have a ridiculous amount of accessories and clothes and shoes and outfits for the stuffed animals. The actual stuffed animals are pretty reasonably priced, but start adding on accessories and it gets pricey fast. I took Haley years ago when she was still little when I went there once with Eleni and she has a bear named "Sweetiepie" from that visit. We got Savino his first stuffed animal, a brown puppy that we named "Woofy" and Haley picked out a bright pink bunny and named it "Rainbow". It was fun, and I got a picture of Savino clutching the little heart that goes inside the puppy. The person who does the stuffing of the animal (they have this huge fluff-stuffing machine) asks the kid to give the heart a kiss and make a wish and put it inside the bear, so I gave Savino his heart to slobber on hehe. I will definitely have to get a picture of Savino with his puppy, I put it in his crib so he can pet it and play with it in the mornings when he is chilling while I try to wake up. This morning he laid on his belly in front of it and kept reaching out and stroking its fur so softly, it was adorable.

Of course Haley was thrilled to get to pick out a stuffed animal. She has been carrying her "Rainbow" around since she picked out, she is in love. To be a kid again and be so thrilled by something so simple.

I picked up a few things this weekend to aid me in taking pictures, at IKEA I got this curtain rod setup, it's not a rod actually, but wire strung between two ends and can be mounted on a wall. It's hard to explain but anyway, I got it to hang backgrounds/drops from and a lamp to rig up into a softbox. Today I got a canvas dropcloth from Lowe's to use as a background until I can find something better, but I will probably dye it from its natural colour to something darker when the weather gets warm enough to take it outside. I need to iron or steam it but I am hopeful that it will be a good starting point to practice with. We will see! I might try to work on it a bit tomorrow if I can.

My laptop is still alive, miraculously enough. Crazy! I am still shocked.

I think I will take myself to bed and get some rest. It has been a very long weekend.