Check and Check

So 2008 is over and i don't always make New Year's resolutions, but last year I did, I wanted to lose weight, and watch less T.V. and read more (watching less T.V. and reading more kind of went together.) I would say I was successful in both attempts. After I lost all of the pregnancy/baby weight, I have lost another 28 pounds.

And I don't watch much T.V. anymore. Although I do watch the news some days, Heroes, and Thursday nights on NBC. I'm glad for this because it has shown me what a real waste of time TV really is.

A Spell for Chameleon- Piers Anthony

The Source of Magic- Piers Anthony

Castle Roogna- Piers Anthony

Centaur Aisle- Piers Anthony

Ogre Ogre- Piers Anthony

Night Mare- Piers Anthony

Dragon on a Pedestal- Piers Anthony

Crewel Lye- Piers Anthony

Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen

Mansfield Park- Jane Austen

Emma- Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey- Jane Austen

Persuasion- Jane Austen

**Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins

The Underland Chronicles: Gregor, the Overlander- Suzanne Collins

The Underland Chronicles: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane- Suzanne Collins

The Underland Chronicles: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods- Suzanne Collins

The Underland Chronicles: Gregor and the Marks of Secret- Suzanne Collins

The Underland Chronicles: Gregor and the Code of Claw- Suzanne Collins

City of Ember- Jeanne DuPrau

The People of Sparks- Jeanne DuPrau

The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Confessions of a Shopaholic- Sophie Kinsella

Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: A Horse and his Boy- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair- C.S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle- C.S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength- C.S. Lewis

Montessori Today- Paula Polk Lillard

**Twilight- Stephenie Meyer

**New Moon- Stephenie Meyer

**Eclipse- Stephenie Meyer

Breaking Dawn- Stephenie Meyer

The Host- Stephenie Meyer

Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will- William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet- William Shakespeare

Hamlet: Prince of Denmark- William Shakespeare

Jane Austen (A Biography)- Carol Shields

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead- Tom Stoppard

Uglies- Scott Westerfeld

Pretties- Scott Westerfeld

Specials- Scott Westerfeld

Extras- Scott Westerfeld

{**These are books I read twice during 2008}

So add them up (and count twilight, new moon, eclipse, and P&P twice) and you get 51 books impressive right?

Okay So I'm aware that Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, 12th Night, and Ros. & Guil. are Dead are all plays and they aren't technically books but would you like to guess how much I care???

Best Book: Of Course, the best book of all time: Pride and Prejudice. I love it. Seriously.

Worst Book: I guess would be Ogre, Ogre by Piers Anthony- I like the Xanth novels in general, but this one was awful- I didn't like it at all.

Funniest: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- I actually laughed out loud a few times while reading it, not something I usually do while reading

I purposely watched most of these movies after I read the book because it's fun to compare- The worst adaptation from book to movie goes to Mansfield Park- seriously, the movie was only loosely based on the book- it reminded me of how The Lion King is "based" on Hamlet or Clueless is "based" on Emma, Mansfield Park the movie was WAYYYYY off.

So Goals for 2009... maybe I'll finally learn to dance like Shakira

Chirstmas is Officially Over

We had Christmas Eve with my side of the family, Our own Christmas at home on Christmas morning, Parkers birthday Sunday night, and the Tieman Christmas on Monday night. We are finally done opening presents.

Jasons parents wanted to wait until jasons younger sister and her family were in AZ before getting everyone togther, so we all got together last night and opened presents and ate BBQ Elk meat that Gary got while hunting Thanksgiving weekend.

Over the past week I have gotten all kids of awesome kitchen and scrapbooking stuff, Jason all kinds of stuff, and Parker got WAY too many toys. We've had lots of fun spending time with family, and we're trying to organize all the stuff we've gotten.

With our stockings

Parker admiring his new noisy toy

And a quiet toy... that's more like it

Then Megan warmed up to Parker and cuddled with him a few times, and they even danced together.

The Stats are in

So we had Parkers one year old check up this morning. He is doing great, the doctor is very impressed with his walking and talking and commended me for his healthy eating :) So the whole Tieman family can shut their faces and stop making fun of me for not shoving a bunch of junk food in my kids mouth. Seriously
Parker is 22lbs 6oz- almost at the 50%
He is 30-1/2" tall, about the 75th percentile
And as always his head circumference is well above the 95th percentile- I have a big headed baby- he was born that way and it seems to be sticking around.
Parker got three shots today and screamed louder than I thought he would be physically capable of doing- but has recovered and is now napping.

Birthday Party

Last night we had Parker's 1st Birthday Party at Grandma and Grandpa Tiemans house.

It was fun, family came over and ate, Parker opened presents and made a mess of his cake. At the end of opening presents Parker looked at his pile of toys and looked at Daddy who had been handing him presents to open and said and signed "more". I thought it was hilarious, he asked for more presents and more toys. We gave him cake instead. He went slowly with the cake at first, but enjoyed it and made a mess.

First we all sat around and ate. Then it was time for presents

I was impressed, Parker did a really good job of actually opening his gifts

Then after presents it was time for cake. Parker got an oversized cupcake to himself. Very colorful.

Everyone else got regular sized cupcakes.

Singing Happy Birthday

Testing the frosting, he wasn't sure what to do.

But eventually he figured it out.

And ended up as a total mess... this is right before the bath.












HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER!!!!!!!!

Parker is One!!!

Parker turns one year old today! It's hard to believe an entire year has gone by already- He's not really a baby anymore is he? He walks and talks (a little) and is hardly recognizable as the little infant who just laid there all day long.

On His due date, December 22nd

On his Birthday, December 28th

In January, being held by Aunt Joann

In February, sitting in his chair

March 2008- Looking cute

In April, playing with his feet
May, Sitting on his own, putting the pacifier in his mouth by himself (putting in backwards of course)

June 2008- In his bouncy chair

July, Fresh out of the shower
August, playing with a pillow

Crawling around in September
Talking on the phone in October
November, Gangster Parker
December- playing with a coloring book.
Here's a little about Parker at one year old

~~He loves to watch me cook, and "help" me stir

~~He hates being made to hold still, even in the hospital he would get mad and scream if we bundled him up in his blanket, we would have to unbundle him every time a nurse came in because they would wrap him up tight and he would get pissed. Refusing to "hold still" against his will makes it really, really, really, really hard for me to give him one of his allergy medicines.

~~He loves his blankets, he would bring them EVERYWHERE if I let him

~~He's a watcher; he always wants to look around and figure out what's going on, for example, when we go to the park if there are other kids there he'll spend the first few minutes watching the other kids play and then join in once he's figured it all out.

~~He's a little control freak- he throws fits if things aren't done his way. He'll push or pull me so that I'm standing where he wants me or... He'll get out of his stroller and walk along side it trying to steer it- He's a such a controller- and I wonder where he got it from **cough cough Jason cough**

~~He loves to copy people and is really pretty good at it, he copies my sign language all the time, copies what we're doing (he'll pretend to stir if I'm stirring something) and is getting good at copying sounds and words with his mouth, the best is when he tries to copy Jason doing animal noises--way too cute

~~He's a ham already- if he sees the camera out he'll sit and smile and laugh for it and he'll repeat almost anything that gets a good reaction...

We're very happy to have Parker around. This first year has been fun. Happy Birthday Parker

Merry Christmas

Parker and Me in front of the tree Christmas morning

Parker got a set of tunnels and "forts" Christmas morning, he had fun in them

He also enjoyed playing with an empty wrapping paper tube

Christmas Eve

In my family we open our presents on Christmas Eve, and the only presents we get on Christmas day are from Santa. So Last night my family got together and opened presents.
Here's Donovan lining up his new farm animals so they can talk to the gift bag. How does a conversation go between a plastic animal and a gift bag?? Well the gift bag says "Hi, I'm Giant". OF COURSE

Here are a couple pictures of Parker helping to open his presents, and one with a bow on his head.

Loving his new horse-pillow, he had this with him in the car on the way home and a spent a couple minutes giving it kisses-- So Cute!
Uncle Tres showed Parker how to take a picture, Parker began pushing Tres's hand out of the way so he could take over... he's my tiny little control freak

This is where Tory got what I would like to call a buttload of Old Navy Sandals (Every color they sell)

It was a fun night, with good food, and nice presents, Parker got several toys, Jason got Fable 2 for Xbox and I got lots of awesome scrapbooking stuff.

Weekend Wrap Up

I didn't think I would look forward to weekends so much once I quit work- but I do- I love having Jason around all day so I love the weekends as much as ever.
This Friday night Jason and I went out shopping, no big deal, but it's good to go out together even just for a short time.
Then Saturday we went to the Wildlife Zoo for a little bit since we have annual passes there. Parker always enjoys going to the zoo.


Parker and me petting a deer.

Petting a llama

And petting a baby goat. Parker was a little scared of the goats at first, they're much more aggressive than the other animals, and they kept trying to eat our shirts.

Then Saturday Night we went to out ward Christmas Party which was... well... lame. We have nearly 300 kids in between the ages of 3 and 12 in our ward so the party was completely geared towards kids, I know most ward parties are appealing to kids to some extent with Santa or something but this was to the extreme, Jason and i didn't stay very long. Oh well, it probably could have been worse right?

Then Sunday we went to church of course and we got the sad news that our calling is changing. We're still called to be primary workers but instead of teaching sunbeams like we have for the past 18 months we going to teach one of the CTR 7 classes during 2009. Which won't be as much fun- I'm sure we'll like it, and at least the lessons will be more interesting, but the 7 year olds won't be as fun to work with as the 4 year olds.

Then Sunday Evening we drove across town to the Mesa Temple, where Jason and I got married of course, and saw the Temple Lights. We got there right as it got dark, so we missed most of the crowd, which was nice
Parker and Daddy by some lights
Parker making his escape.

Our Family

Parker and Daddy again.

Inside the visitors center was a display of nativities from around the world and here's the one from Slovakia, where my parents are living.

Thursday Mornings

Every Thursday morning Parker and I go to the Surprise library for story and singing time. We go early and play at the big park that's right next to the library and bring some bread to feed the ducks and geese. Parker loves loves loves the ducks and geese, especially when we feed them because they come so close and make so much noise- he laughs a lot.

Ducks begging for more bread,, trying to eat my legs.

He really enjoys watching them walk all around him, and he'll chase them around a little... did you know that if you frighten a goose it will hiss at you??

(Parker gets hissed at a fair amount)

And while we were there Parker said the word duck and used the sign language for it several times each, he of course also called the geese ducks.