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Ellie and Elmo

So, Eliana is now officially 1 year old. For her birthday, we went down to Roseburg, since Merrill's brother Jon got back from his mission in Puerto Rico. We didn't have much of a party, but we did make her a cake for the occasion. Can you guess what it looked like?ELMO!! We discovered that Eliana loves Elmo. So I had to make her a cake that looked like him. It was my first 2-layer, and I even colored the frosting right. It was hard to watch Eliana plow into it. She didn't even eat the cake, really... just licked her fingers a few times and then started to cry as she tried to get the cake off of her hands. It was really cute. I wish we had a video of it. Merrill tried filming Eliana with the cake, but when we got home, we found that we only had about 2 seconds of the video recorded. Such a bummer!

We want to throw Eliana a little party next month and invite some of her friends from church to come play and have cake. Hopefully I can pull off another Elmo cake and we can get some pics and video of her eating it.

Here's a video of Eliana opening the Elmo doll that Tiffany sent her a few days before her birthday. She was so happy to have it, she sat there hugging and kissing him for like 5 minutes.

Christmas 2010

We went down to Merrill's mom's house for Christmas. Ellie had a lot of fun with a little dancing Santa that she had. And I thought it would be great for her to be dressed up for her first Christmas.
Merrill's new shirt and tie--thanks Monica and Shelby! (I still need to get a pic of me wearing the awesome apron you guys gave me!)
Here are some funny clips of Eliana before, during, and after Christmas:

Devil in a Blue Dress

Well, she ain't a devil, but these pics of her in a blue dress are pretty darn cute. I realized I hadn't taken pictures of Eliana for a long time, so I picked out a dress I thought would look good, sat her down in the middle of the floor, and started shooting.

The Past Two Months

Where to begin? The last two months have been quite interesting, to say the least. We were planning on moving to Utah so Merrill could go to Weber State and for better job opportunities as we weren't finding any here in Portland. So, we sold all of our stuff and hoped that everything would be better in Utah. Then in the beginning of August, Merrill thought he would try one last shot at applying for apartment managing positions in Portland. That week, we got interviews and were offered 3 different positions. Thus, we decided we were staying in Portland. Now we've got a job that provides a rent credit of $750 and salary of $300/month. Merrill can keep going to school, and I can stay home with Eliana. This works out so much better for us, knowing that if we had gone to Utah, there was a slim chance of finding jobs, an apartment, and a way for Merrill to pay for school (out-of-state tuition; financial aid would not have covered everything). We know Heavenly Father answered our prayers. He really is mindful of what each of his children are going through and is looking our for us.

We love our new apartment! It's a 2 bd/1 ba. We were surprised at how big the apartments are, compared to what we've been living in the last 3 years. There is a grocery store right next door, and a park just south of us (Mt. Tabor). We're surrounded by a bunch of local restaurants and shops, some of which are pretty good.

We like our new ward, too. But it's really small, almost like a branch, because there is 77% inactivity. There's a lot of work to be done. Merrill and I gave talks our second week in the ward and the Bishop has already talked to us about past callings we've had. We're just anticipating the interviews to be this Sunday or next.

I haven't been able to post pictures for awhile, so here's some of Eliana. I'll get more up as they come.

My New Favorite Outfit:

New Dinner Fave

I found this recipe on the back of the pepperoni package that we buy. It's easy, simple, inexpensive, and Merrill and I LOVE it!

Hormel's Delicious Pepperoni Pull Apart Pizza

2 (7.5-ounce) tubes refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1 cup pizza sauce
1 (3.5-ounce) package HORMEL sliced mild pepperoni
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375 F. Cut refrigerated biscuits into fourths. Place biscuits onto lightly greased pizza sheet in a circular fashion to form a 10-inch circle. Top with pizza sauce, 1/2 of pepperoni, cheese and remaining pepperoni slices. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until biscuits are baked through and cheese is hot and bubbly. Serves 6-8.

So Sleepy

After going on a walk this afternoon, Eliana was sitting on my lap, and then fell asleep. I love the affects of sunshine on a hyper-active infant!