Riley's Birthday

We had quite a scare the last few weeks. Our computer crashed and Best Buy said they couldn't retrieve our data from the hard drive because it was too corrupted. We called around and took it to a data retrieval company, and it took them a week, but they were able to recover all the data on our hard drive.

We can't believe that another year has come and gone so quickly. We went to Disneyland again this year for Riley's birthday. He really liked the submarines, especially when we were "diving" and there were lots of bubbles. When we went on the carousel he didn't want to get on the horse by himself, so I went on with him, and by the end he didn't want to get off. In this video we were in New Orleans Square when a marching band came by. This is a video of Riley dancing to the music. (And yes, that's my dad next to him eating popcorn and ice cream at the same time!)




Click To Play

As we've been getting the baby's room ready, we decided that now would be a good time to get Riley a toddler bed so we'd have time to get him used to sleeping in it. He sleeps in it at night, but still takes his naps in his crib. He's done really well sleeping in it. He has only gotten out of it twice and we found him asleep behind the bedroom door, and once we found him asleep in this position.

It's been a long time...

We realize it has been quite a while since we've been able to update our blog and we apologize for that. A lot of things are happening in the Simpson household. First, for those that don't know, Jim applied for the L.A. County Fire Dept. He took the written test, which was either a pass/fail and he passed. He was notified via a letter that he had an oral interview in August. He didn't have a great feeling about his interview, but he received a letter a few weeks later saying he got a 98% on it. The fire dept. then puts you in bans from 1-5, and then they hire according to bans starting in ban 1. Jim was put in ban 1. He was notified via a letter from the fire dept that he has been selected to start his background process. If he gets selected to go through the fire academy, he'll probably start in April. This is a wonderful opportunity for him and we are very excited. The L.A. County Fire dept is a much bigger dept. with many more opportunities for promotion, training as well as better pay.

We are pleased to announce that we are expecting a baby boy early March. We are in the process of trying to clear out our office/craft room, and we will be turning that into Riley's room, and the baby will have Riley's old room.

As for me, I've had some medical problems this last month, and would like to express my thanks and gratitude to family members and friends who called and left well wishes and especially to my mom who took 4 weeks off work to help care for me and to my sister, Stephanie, who took Riley on two different occasions for nearly a week each while I was in the hospital and again when Jim had to go back to work. Not many answers as to why I got so sick. Each doctor thought something slightly different. The baby however, was doing fine during my entire illness. We saw a Perinatologist and got some neat 3-D ultrasound pictures. I went back to work with restrictions on October 31st.

Riley has really taken off with talking the last few weeks. He loves to say "ready, set, go" and race accross the kitchen and dining room. He also loves doing the actions to Itsy Bitsy Spider, Pat-A-Cake, and Popcorn Popping. Halloween was a busy time for Riley. He went to two different Halloween parties and trick-or-treating on Halloween. He was roaring for the camera in this picture.

There has been much more happening, these are just the highlights. We'll try to post again with pictures from Riley's birthday.

Take Care,

Jim, Stacie & Riley

Celebrity Look Alikes

Stacie's sister Heidi has found some fun websites. This is just one of them.





This isn't the best picture of Jim, but I liked the results better with this picture than with another picture I used.






I tried 4 different pictures of Riley. All but this one said Riley looked equally like both Jim and I.

Million Dollar Smile

The biggest news to date is that Jim got his braces off! As you can see from his million dollar smile, he is thrilled with the results!


Stacie and Riley visited Jim at the fire station and had dinner with the engine company. Riley made himself right at home!


Riley loves to read! Or at least look at the pictures...

Recently Jim gave Riley a bath. After Jim put his pajama's on him, Riley decided he wasn't done with his bath, so he took it upon himself to finish bathing.

We gave started another little web site just for Riley. You can view it at http://www.totsites.com/tot/rileysimpson. It's still under construction but hopefully within the next few weeks we'll download more pictures and journal entries. We'll put a link to it on our blog so you can visit it whenever you'd like. We won't be sending emails out when we update it because we hope to update it regularly.



Take Care,

Jim, Stacie & Riley

Riley's chores

Riley is doing really well using his sign language. Although he doesn't sign all of the words correctly, we know what they mean and all that matters is that he's able to convey to us what he wants. He has just started putting two signs together. He first put "more" and "eat" together and we are constantly impressed with how quickly he is learning other signs now that he knows that the signs correlate with an object or action.
We celebrated our 4 year anniversary and received the best anniversary gift from Jim's parents. They took Riley for the night so we could enjoy an evening just the two of us, and the best part of it was we we're able to sleep in the following morning!
Riley got his very own pet, a goldfish he named either "Deedle" or "Leetle". Jim & I don't agree on the name that Riley picked, but that doesn't really matter anymore as he only lived two days. Fortunately for us, Riley doesn't seemed bothered by the fact that his fish past away.
We took Riley to the Santa Barbara Zoo recently and Riley really seemed to enjoy the animals. His favorite seemed to be the Lemur monkeys. They have a giraffe there with a crooked neck. We thought it was pretty interesting and would share. They said it grew like that over time and she doesn't seem to be in any discomfort so they aren't going to fix it.



Riley is going to be 18 months in a couple of days, and Jim decided it's about time that he start earning his keep around the house. Jim and I each thought of the one chore we hate doing and now Riley will be doing it. So, Riley has been tasked with mowing the lawn and cleaning out of the kitty litter.

Click To Play

Take Care,
Jim, Stacie & Riley

Boutique InVogue

Our tennant moved out of our townhouse at the end of February and we were a little worried about being able to rent it out quickly and not having to make too many of the morgage payments ourselves. Jim doesn't have much overtime available at work right now, so Stacie had to work full time to help pay the morgage. Luckily, we only had to pay 1 month ourselves. Just when it looked like we might have to pay another morgage payment, we we're able to rent it out and the tennants moved in on March 30th .
Stephanie and Stacie's ebay business is doing really well. We were invited to join a few design groups, but we held out because we wanted to join a group where we felt the other designers would compliment our designs and be of the same quality. We applied to two groups that we were interested in joining and and were invited into one of them, Boutique Invogue! We are extatic. For those that don't know, a design group will list things together and some are very well known (in boutiqueland) and have quite a large following. Everyone puts Boutique Invogue in the auction listing so a person can look up just our groups items by searching those words. Your items tend to sell better if you are in a design group.
Riley loves to talk on the phone now. Before, if you held the phone to his ear, he would just smile while he listened, but now HE does all the talking and while YOU listen.
We took a trip to Lake Tahoe in February. We were supposed to go with Stacie's sister and her family, but her brother in law was unable to get work off, so they offered to watch Riley so Jim and I could get away just the two of us. We had a fun time snowboarding and ice skating, but everytime we saw a young child learning to ski or ice skate, it made us miss Riley and wish we'd have brought him with us.
Stacie's brother and his wife Brittny had a baby girl, Emma Madison, on January 10th. She's adorable (of course).
Stacie is really enjoying her sewing class and has turned in two projects. Her first project was a tote bag and her second pajama pants. She received an A on both projects and is now working on a shirt for Riley.
We spent Easter at Jim's parents house. Riley was interested in the Easter Egg Hunt only after he learned there were goodies for him inside each egg. After finding each egg he'd hand it to Jim and wouldn't find another egg until it had been opened and Riley was given a small candy or fruit snack from inside.


Till next time,
Jim, Stacie & Riley