Bottle Rockets...

So, on a lighter note..

If you ever feel like giving away money for a good, hearty, laugh- I know a guy who'll gladly help you out. 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 5 cents, you name it. For 5 dollars, he might drink a shot glass full of hot sauce, or something similar. For 25 dollars, he might bend over, pull his pants down to his knees, put his ass out the window of a townhouse, and have a BFF gingerly place the end of a bottle rocket into his ass (although he might complain a little, if it hurts). For the same small fee- you can even watch the BFF light it up, and watch it shoot out of his ass and into the street. How's THAT for good times???

And not only that..he'd willingly to do it again. Blondiesassypants told me that she recently saw this doerofanythingstupidandtakerofmoney, and this is what he had to say:

"Next time we do the bottle rocket thing, we need to make something out of cardboard that will protect all of my goods, with just a hole cut out to stick the bottle rocket in."

In which she promptly emailed me, and said:

1. To think that there will be a next time???

2. To put thought into making a contraption that leaves an asshole opening????

3. To want someone shoving a bottle rocket in your ass again???


Yeah. True story. No lie.

I have NO idea who'd do that... I don't have ANY relationships with THOSE types of people...;)

Oh Ryder...

I almost called 911 today. Almost.

He woke up this morning in a fit of coughing. Cough. Cough. Cough cough. Cough. And then, he coughed so hard a few times that he puked. And then more coughing, and then more puking. Cough. Puke. Cough. Puke. Ok, he's done this before, no big deal. So he's not going to school today. We'll work it out. We always do! Until...the barking started. The croupy barking. Bark. Bark. Bark. DAMMIT. Bark. Bark! Bark! He barked all morning til we just couldn't take it anymore, and decided to take him to the doctors. He came home after a hefty dose of decadron, which worked like a miracle the last time he had croup. His lungs sounded great, it was all in his little throat. This time, though, the decadron didn't help a lick. But like a trouper, he managed to fall asleep for his nap, but woke up puking again, and then fell back asleep on Scott on the couch. And when he woke up again, I swear I thought he couldn't breathe.

*[I just don't know what happens to me when I think someone can't breathe. I panic. It's the same with the whole drowning thing. Is it because I almost drowned myself? I dunno. Is it because of the PICU experience that if there are breathing issues involved, I think I only have seconds to correct the situation? i dunno. Whatever it is, I HATE IT. It renders me completely and utterly useless, near tears, shaking, panicking, and completely unable to think. I just don't know why I can't KEEP IT TOGETHER.]*

When he woke up, he just was barking, looked uncomfortable, was crying, and trying to take breaths. It looked to me like he was struggling. It looked to me like he wanted to puke, and wasn't sure what was going to happen. We picked him up and took him into the middle of the kitchen, for easy clean up if he did puke again. And that's when Scott says, "hey grab the puffer". I completely freak out. My pulse starts to rise, and I'm shaking, and I'm trying to figure out which puffer is mine, which puffer is his, which one is albuterol, which one is flovent. I can't even open the package, I have to grab scissors cause I'm shaking so much. All the while he's barking, and crying, and gasping. All I can think of is to call 911. Cause I feel like I can't deal with it, and I'd rather have someone else here with a clear head (like I had with my patients) to sort stuff out. I just kept wondering how long he could keep barking until his trachea completely closes off. And then I start thinking, "well, if this is croup, albuterol isn't going to help, because it just isn't his lungs that's the issue!!!" He won't be able to inhale any of it!!!

Ohhhh I was such a mess. Ridiculous. The whole time Scott is holding Ryder, and just sitting there, calm, both of them on the kitchen floor. He tells me to calm down....I try to calm down...and Ryder stops barking...a little at a time. We all take one big, deep breath. He falls back asleep on daddy on the couch. While he's sleeping, I'm listening to his lungs like a freak. They sound great. AWESOME. Its definitely his throat. His little trachea. And when he sleeps, he moves air fine. It's just the barking and the agitation, that throws him into a fit. =( Poor little guy.

And.....he wakes up, and is completely fine. I just don't get it. These kids don't come with manuals and its completely pissing me off. But god, do I love him. Jesus. He's just everything to me. Everything.

Happy Birthday to YOU Too, Old Man.

So what's it like to be so old, Slowburn? I would like it to be known (finally, for the blog record), that everything that I've ever tried that might have happened to be "bad", has been ALL Slowburn's fault. Period. He's lucky his kid is so damn cute. It makes him a little more huggable too, no? =)

Here are some pictures of your CUTE KID! You must feel super special. I waited til it was exactly your birthday, and posted them. JUST. FOR. YOU.

Happy Birthday!! Just like we said we would, we're headed for the wheelchairs and canes....and watching our kids grow....

Happy Birthday Ian!!

Dear Baby Ian,

I can't believe you're one! It makes us all a little sad, but what do we do? You're beautiful, and if you have ANY vibes like your momma, you're going to the rock the world someday. I love love love you, and everything about you. My only wish would be that you were here. Your mom and I got to texting about how far you and she have come in the past year. So, instead of texting back to her to tell her that I know what she's feeling, I pulled up an old blog post about my thoughts on Ryder's first year. HERE it is....

But Ian, you did something for me today too. You made me remember what it was about blogging that I so enjoyed to begin with. I thought about not posting for a while... Go under the radar, so to speak- to hide my thoughts, actions, words, and pictures....But going through old posts to find the one for you, made me realize that I've left a piece of me here. It's far better than a journal because not only is it a piece of me, but a little something from all of us- through all of the comments, and jabs from the buddies.. through the Fat War...through Ryder's issues of being sick, to our vacations and birthdays, to my dad and heart surgery, to my miscarriages, and to the evolution of my photos..its all here. The last two years of our lives. Why would I want to stop something so wonderful over something so stupid? Thank you, Ian, for making me see the more important things in this world, like...LIFE. Thank you for making your momma sooo happy after all her attempts at having you...thank you for being such a great baby, so much so that your mom probably wonders why I was such a freak with your cousin.

You, and all the other beautiful kids in this world are reasons we are all here. Put all of that aside, and all we have is some cool baby gear. Which ain't bad either, but- you know what I'm sayin. One day you'll really get to know who I am. And I can't wait!! (Don't listen to anything that your mom tells you.  She's fuckin nuts.) And I really can't wait til I can really sit and talk with you. Actually I CAN wait. We'll all wait together, just to slow down the time that is just flying by.

Happy Birthday Ian.
I love love love love you,
The Coolest GodMomma Ever,

Me

PS- I sadly do not have any recent pictures of Ian...but thanks to P, you can go 

HERE to see some birthday pics...

Because I Love Her!!

This is because it's coming up on Wednesday, and P and I always used to commiserate over how SUCKY Wednesday hump days were.  I'd go over to her apartment after work, still fuming in my work clothes, and she'd be "prepping" for dinner.  We'd spend the rest of the evening smoking and gabbing between stuffing our faces.  I'd laugh at her while she complained over how much mosquitoes fucking pissed her off.  I'd wrestle with the Tonka pup.  And really, what the hell did we have to complain about then?  Those were the good days.  The good days still exist, but what seemed to be insurmountable then, ain't so much now.  I continue to marvel over her, and the other peeps who fill me with love every single day.  This is for YOU P!  I love this picture of you, so deal with it!  I'm just practicing with Photoshop anyway.  So if it looks a little shaky in some areas...that's because it's for P, and I don't really care.  Like four layers going on here.  Crazy.

So much is happening so fast.   Jonas and Luna are beginning to get work...it's a little scary. We got our logo (it freakin rocks, btw) and suddenly things are beginning to happen.  Maybe a little too fast, but its happening.  Gangs all here.  All we need to do is get out there.  Deep breath.  Focus.  Practice.  Just get better.  

Babies, Beds, and iPhones...

It's been quite the weekend, and it was pretty low key!!

So my hippylovergirl Amie (who has an amazing name for that hippylovergirl baby) came over with her killerloverboy Dylan, and I could NOT put the camera down for two seconds to catch up with her. I'm telling you that boy is sooo cute, I drool when I'm near. I lick my lips cause I just wanna shove my nose into his neck. I die when he looks at me with that smile. I took 50 million pictures of him, and they all look the same because all I wanted to do was to get that perfect smile with the perfect eyes staring into my soul =) When we first started out, we were in our living room, so I started shooting him at 200 ISO...but then when we moved into our living room, which is much darker, I bumped up the ISO out of the galaxy to 1600, so I didn't have to use my on board flash. Needless to say, they turned out grainy. I don't know why I didn't bust out the light fixture that I had....but who cares? That means he gets to come over again and I get to squeeze him til..til..forever!!! Amie, thanks for letting me shoot the little adorable cute cute baby..can't wait to see him again Friday!

We also bought Ryder a BIG BOY BED this weekend. Wahhhhhhhh...we bought it Saturday night..late late..and we didn't get home til around 9pm. He helped pick it out, and he was sooo excited about it that he HAD to be in it for bed that same night. This meant that the freakishly tall husband was hammering at around 9:30. So worth it though, he loved it. Ryder was so proud of himself, and so tickled, cause it has a BLUE TENT over it. The transition was easy. Well, there wasn't a transition. He was ready for it, and he jumped right into it. I died a little. =( A big boy bed. Sniff.. The next day, when we were taking apart his crib, he asked, "Where's da baby bed, mama?". I told him we gave the baby bed to Dylan (since we had just seen him). "We gave the baby bed to Dylan, Ryder...remember? He's a baby...he needs the baby bed. But you're a big boy. That's why you have a big boy bed. Just like Aidan". His response? "YEEEAHHHHHH! BABY BED in AMIE cah. Wydew beds big boy bed like AIDAN! YAAHHHHH!". Tear. Sniff. I think I wanna have me another one of these cute kids.

On the iPhone front, I ALMOST bought myself the new version, but not out of consumerism and the need to be cool (which would be typical for me). On our way to buy paint for Ryder's room today, I put his sippy cup, and my iPhone, onto the roof of the car so I could strap him into the car seat. When he was all snuggled in, and I got my nosey kiss, I backed out, stood up, grabbed the sippy cup, hopped into the car, and away we went. 5 minutes later on Route 29, we hear a THUD on the top of the car, and we both look back to see what the noise was. We saw white, and black. And nothing more. "What the hell was that?" Shrug. Eh. Whatevs. It wasn't until we were through with Home Depot, 2 hours later, when I was searching for my phone...when I pee'd my pants and realized that what I saw out of the rear view was, in fact, my phone. I considered it a goner.

The Freakishly Tall Husband drove us back to where we thought we had last seen it. I dunno why. I KNEW it was a goner. There was NO way that the little iPhone could survive that crash. But we were curious. He hopped out of the car...found the black rubber casing....we're close. After searching around some more on the side of the road in weeds infested with dead animals, he found it. It wasn't shattered, it wasn't beaten, it wasn't bleeding. It had two missed calls on it, since the husband called it hoping that it would ring...and a big scratch on its right upper rounded corner. That's it. The glass was still pristine, and everything else was like perfect. I immediately started the browser...fine. Checked my email...fine. Played some tunes...fine. Called the Husband...fine. He called me...fine. Same with texts.....How it survived a 65 mph crash off of the roof of the car, I'll never know. But, I must say..."iPhone, NOW, I'm humbled."

So ahh..how was your weekend, bitches? Girls in Cali, and Girls who just got back from Cali, feast your eyes on this yummy goodness that I got to SHOOT!!

B.O.Y.S.

So this is a Super Friday Picture Post! Looks like I'm averaging about a week to process pictures, and I'm coming up with around 30 or so keepers from each session. Still need to become more fluid with the camera and the lighting, and I know this is only going to happen with constant practice. And let's talk about CS3 for a minute. I've always had Photoshop, it's saved me in the past with brightness and contrast, but it would be a beast to work with because of how slow my computer was. Just opening up a RAW image took (at the very least) a full minute. Then sliding the scales over to the right or left to adjust images took another minute, and god forbid you didn't like the way that it looked, and you wanted to slide it again. Crap. Another minute. It was soo painfully slow that I was very near the point of slitting my wrists and wanting to just call it a day...and then to have to save it as another file in another folder of another application- just slap me in the face, and call me your bitch, why don't you???

Now, with the MacBook Pro, CS3 flows like a dream. Like Beefcake swimming through an ocean of pork fat mixed with butter with her mouth open wide.  Not only that, but I can keep multiple pages of the web browser up (you know- to download free textures from Flickr), run iTunes, keep Aperture open to retrieve photo files, and edit with CS3 without any hiccups. After all this time, I know what the Seed was talking about. Magic!! What I did with these photos in the last week, would have taken me nearly a month on my old computer. God Bless all things fast, simple, user friendly, and well- Apple. I also probably need to mention that the blue wooden backdrop I'm using for my pics was found on Deviant Art.  Thank you, Harry Bundles, for the tip. It's a great site.

So here is the work I've been doing. I just threw up a random picture of Ryder since- the blog is called Blue Ryder. You can see more of him here on Flickr for the 4th of July pics. To see M & C's wedding photo set, go here, and to see Ryder's Godfather in all his glory, head on over here!!

Happy, Happy Friday, and Happy, Happy viewing!  Helllooooo weekend, and Hellloooo more shooting...

Because I Have a Serious Addiction to Photoshop Now...

I know it looks a little busy, and a little crazy- but after two full days of trying to figure this out, TADA! Thanks to the Freakishly Tall Husband (again), and Browser- for help in formatting the blog so my pics can be BIG.

This is Luna at her best (for NOW)! Since most of my images of M & C were blurry, I tried to salvage the pictures by making them dreamy. Pretty dreamy, no? Jonas shoots with awesome light, and hard edges....Luna...well- here is Luna!

The Newlyweds....

So, yes- it's been a busy night for Jonas and Luna. Here's your sneak peek, M & C! Thanks for your patience too- especially with this novice over here praying desperately for her camera to visualize you. Most of my pics turned out either blurry and unfocused, or just too dark. Again- lots to learn. But as long as we're having fun- and we're together, that's all that matters! I'm glad you aren't paying clients though =) Love you, and THANKS!

Guess WHO?

Had the very nice pleasure of shooting Ryder's Godfather this afternoon. Wow- is all I can say. Who IS this guy? Where did all these muscles come from? And let me tell you...playing with light flashes is sooo crazy. Lots to learn, lots to learn. But goddamn, I'm having fun doing it. Thank you Godfather- for your patience with us..and thank you for your hotness!!!!!

Because All Photographers....

Take pictures of themselves taking pictures?

So I'm Tickled Blue..

Thanks to the Freakishly Tall Husband and a lot of XML, here is the new look to Blue Ryder.  I love it, and I hope that you enjoy it too!  A big, fatty reason that started this whole face lift process was the ability to upload larger pictures to my blog, instead of the tiny "large" pictures that Blogger sets you up with.  I now have the capability to link to a larger picture size....for better viewing all around.  

If you're in the search for a new Blogger template, go here.  It's not really as easy as it looks, but with a little perseverance and a persistent and stubborn freakishly tall husband, you might get everything to upload properly.  Just make sure you save your previous version before you go and do anything stupid.

Have a really great 4th of July, and apparently, The Seed has something for us.  Go check him out.

How's This For Size??

Lake Como, Italy

Just Playing with My New Tools..

This was a house in Cannes, France that the Freakishly Tall Husband and I fell in love with. After some tomfoolery with Photoshop....here it is in all its fun. God, I love my MacBook Pro.