Moving

It's happening--we're moving. About a week ago our landlords told us they would release us from our lease agreement so we could find an apartment with a more suitable floor (our current one is etched concrete. Looks cool, but not so cool). And so we went on a hunt...a hunt that stressed me out far too much. We absolutely adore so many things about our apartment--the space, how bright it is, the location, and most of all, the ward. But our apartment is at the very top of our budget and the floor was causing some fairly significant problems. Poor Hyrum has had a few too many hard bonks to the head, bruises, and bloody knees.

We found one apartment online that seemed like far too good of a deal--$750 with utilities included. That's ridiculously low. When I called the property manager, I seriously asked, "so, what's the matter with it?" She explained to me that the owner owned the property outright and was, more than anything, looking for responsible tenants who would keep things nice more than trying to make a buck.

You see, apartments in Calgary are expensive. I mean, really expensive. In fact, the apartment we're currently in was just listed today for $1300. 1300 dollars!?! I have few friends with mortgage payments that high. Yikes. And that's actually a very reasonable price in these parts. In any case, I was remarkably skeptical but figured it was worth a looksie.

So, we checked it out yesterday and you know what...not that bad! I mean, it has an "apartment bathroom." You know, paint pealing off the ceiling and less than adequate storage space. But for $750, I decided I could deal with a less than ideal bathroom situation.But, no cement floors, a nice and significantly sized kitchen, larger bedrooms (though, 2 instead of 3), more storage space, and significantly cheaper rent. Now we're talking. Oh, and get this--the managers, who live upstairs, are the bishop and his wife of the ward we will be moving into. Coincidence, maybe?

But it is with a really very heart that we are leaving. We absolutely love our ward. There have been few wards in our married lives that we were absolutely devastated to leave. Not that they were bad, we just always knew they were temporary. But, we'd planned on staying in this ward for the duration of our time in Canada so we got remarkably attached. My heart fell as I told our Primary president that we would likely be leaving. I think it fell another foot after it became a reality.

So, why move?! Sometimes I'm asking myself the same question. Really, it's about money. We're on a quest to pay off our student loans as quickly as possible. We want to be rid of debt, badly. And as much as we  love so many aspects of where we live (the floor not being one of them), we know that if we can lower one of our largest costs, we can achieve our goals even faster. Especially while dealing with the exchange rate and fees to transfer money to our US account, it's not getting paid off as quickly as we had hoped. I just have to keep up my mantra: If we can live now like no one else, later we can truly live like no one else.

And so we're off on new adventures--a new part of the city, a new ward, new friends. But we remember what is most important--our family. If we're together, then any house can be a home.

What we've been up to

It has been quite the time since our last blog post and frankly, I'm too tired and lazy to try to upload pictures at the moment. It's bedtime for mommy. But, I figured I'd might as well make a list of some of the things that have happened lately. If nothing else, I'll be sure to blog more about them later, hopefully with pictures so grandmas don't hate me...or mention that was the reason they gave us cameras as presents...or worse. In any case, here are some of the things that have sucked up the Cartwright's time recently.

• Brennan and Amy attended a swankified work Christmas party for which we were entirely under and over dress (not formal enough and too much skin covered, apparently)
• A fabulous trip to Utah for Christmas
• Getting a piano into our apartment that actually fits
• Looking for a new apartment. Great timing considering the fact that we just got a piano down here...blasted timing.
• Hyrum's first birthday
• Hyrum making his opinion VERY well known these days.
• Hyrum's newest words: uh-oh, no, (signing) more, (signing) all done
• Hyrum learning how to go DOWN the stairs so I don't worry about him so much
• Moving Hyrum to his own bed
• A Blendtec blender joined our family
• Experiencing our first negative 30 temperatures and resulting dead car (it's running now. Hallelujah!)
• An ipod touch also joined the family, courtesy of Brennan's "caught being good" points from work
• Also courtesy of Brennan's work--a treadmill joined the family. We officially have far too much big stuff.
• Finally got my computer's internet working. Discovered I've been putting in the incorrect password for, oh, I don't know, 5 months now. Yeah, I'm that smart.
• Hyrum has become quite the book worm. I'll often find him throughout the day with a book in hand, chattering away to himself.

And that about recaps our boring life since The Sad Piano Story.

The Sad Piano Story

Gather 'round my children

 and I will tell you a tale of woe. 

This is a tale of silly money decisions,

and a piano.

Saturday morning, 

all bright and true

Mother turned to Father and said, 

Perhaps a piano we find for me and for you?

I know we are poor,

But what joy there would be,

If we could find a free piano,

So there could be voice lessons, taught by me!

And so Mother began her search and her thought of,

"Perhaps we shall find one for free?"

Turned out to be true for there was one,

Located out in Airdrie!

The piano was lovely,

A mover they found whose price they could stand,

So Mother and Father robbed their emergency fund,

To move the instrument, a Segerstrom upright grand.

The movers arrived the next morning

with this bundle of joy,

But alas! It would not fit down the stairs,

And I'm not being coy!

And so the gruff movers,

they hauled the piano away,

While Mother and Father,

they learned a hard lesson that day.

Do not rob your emergency fund,

Not even if you think it's too good to be true,

For you see, they realized,

That an emergency is not for free pianos, or even two.

Catching Up

It has been a long, and I mean a LONG time since our last post. Broken computers, missing camera cord, laziness...  You know, the normal. So, here is one picture-dense post to appease the grandmas.

First off, in September, we bought a car! It's not much to look at--a 1996 Mercury Sable wagon.  The previous owner was one of these meticulous people who had the car serviced on a meticulous schedule so it runs beautifully. We are definitely enjoying the freedom to go where we need to go without having to take a whole day to run an errand on the bus...especially now that it's absolutely freezing outside.

Hyrum has been on the M-O-V-E! For the longest time, he wasn't showing any signs of crawling at all. He would just scoot in circles on his bum until he got to where he wanted. Not the most direct route of travel, but I guess it worked for him. I certainly didn't mind the fact that he couldn't escape from me very quickly. Imagine my surprise one day in late September when voila! He could pull himself to standing. Of course, like all things Hyrum, he wouldn't do it for the camera. But here was our attempt at having him recreate it.

More of Hyrum showing off his standing skills.

But within the last month, he learned how to crawls for realsies! I think the problem was mostly our floor. Our basement apartment has etched concrete floors in the main living area so, of course, I didn't put Hyrum down very frequently for fear of him bonking and destroying all brain cell. Almost the moment we fixed the floor, he was off!  For the longest time he was doing what Brennan called his "gimpy" crawl where he would get on one knee and one hand and just push himself along. It's pretty stinkin' cute.

And of course, Blogger won't upload that video...

In any case, it's cute. We'll see if we can get him to do it again some day.

Speaking of making fixes to the house, we also tried to remedy the bathtub situation. We only have a shower unit and Hyrum's getting a bit big for the baby bath. So we tried to see if a Rubbermaid container would do the trick.

Hyrum wasn't a huge fan so now we decided to just give him showers. Thus far he loves them!

His absolute favourite place to wreak havoc on the world is the dishwasher. Every single time I open it up, he charges right over and wants to help.

On October 10 we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving.  To celebrate, we made a turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rolls, and best of all, homemade pumpkin pie. Made from a real pumpkin and all!

And Hyrum celebrated his very first Halloween.  We're not really much of Halloween people so no costume. But Grandma provided a cute T-shirt to celebrate.

One thing's for sure, Hyrum absolutely loves food. In fact, I think half of the pictures we have are of him eating. One day we were eating corn-on-the-cob and gave him the rest of the cob to eat. Now he goes absolutely nuts whenever he sees corn. He seriously loves the stuff.

But, apples ain't bad either.

It's getting a little, well, chilly (translation: ridiculously cold!), in Calgary these days. Mommy made Hyrum a couple hats to help keep him warm. Unfortunately, his favourite activity in the entire world is to try and rip them off. Maybe one day he'll figure out that at -20 degrees it would probably be best to keep it on.

Modeling Hat #1

Modeling Hat #2

Crawling away wearing the whole snow suit ensemble. Remind anyone of poor Ralphy?

Going for a walk on  a day that was a little less chilly.

Our neighbours upstairs gave me this toy a few months ago. I put it in the closet and figured I would give it to the consignment store or something since I don't really like toys that can't fit into our little toy basket. But, one day I figured I'd might as well clean it up, put some batteries in it, and see if the kiddo even liked it. Verdict: LOVES the thing. I mean, seriously, loves it. Nearly every time we come out to the living room, he crawls right on over and starts dancing.

In both October and November, Mommy and Hyrum got to go and visit Grandma and Grandpa Isaksen in Washington for a little bit. Great thing is that Hyrum absolutely loved all of the hugs and attention. 

And here are a bunch of miscellaneous pictures because I've been a bad blogger.

(September)

Daddy and Hyrum taking a little rest

Hyrum enjoying some Nutella. Yeah, I'm a terrible mother.

Some early attempts at crawling.  Instead we just got some pictures that look like he's going to become a modern dancer.

I miss the days when these overalls fit :(

Mmmmm, broccoli soup!

(October)

The Calgary Temple is under construction! Wahoo!

And...more eating.

Well, there you have it my friends. Our little gus is growing up so quickly, it's almost hard to remember that he looked like this before we moved here.

(April)

Amy's birthday dinner

Hey all. It's been awhile since we've posted, so I figure I should do a little posting. Amy's birthday was back at the beginning of October, and Hyrum and I threw her quite the party. We went out for some father/son shopping. We went to the real Canadian superstore and costco. We attempted to go to The Real Canadian Liquor Store (actual name) but they weren't open yet. So as our last stop we went to The Liquor Store (also actual name). I always looked forward to the day when I could move out of Utah and buy my liquor in the same place where I bought my bread and cheese, but alas, you can't sell alcohol in grocery stores here either--not even beer (which proves that Canada is even more righteous than Utah--because you can buy beer at Macey's in Utah). However, I wasn't carded here and they didn't seem to have a problem with the fact that Hyrum was buying it with me, so that part was easier. We also bought Amy a super exciting present (at Costco... not the liquor store).

Hyrum waits excitedly for dinner to be done.

Look! I sucessfully got the cork out. This is significant because last time I bought wine (which was my first time buying wine) I didn't consider the cork until the meat was already cooked and the wine was ready to be poured into the meat. And I had to call my sister with her pocket knife collection to save me. It took her a long time, but she succeeded (for the complete chronicle see here). As a gift, she gave me a cork screw, so that I'd be able to survive without her after I moved away. With the right tool, life was less dramatic (however just to be sure, I opened the wine before starting anything else in the meal).

Here's the finished coq au vin product.

Here's the double layer chocolate cake with nutella frozen in the middle and whipped into the frosting. I was originally going to sprinkle hazelnuts over the top, but pecans were pretty and easier to come by.

Here's our cheese and fruit plate. In case you haven't figured it out yet, the theme of the meal was French.

Things to eat with the cheese.

The table spread.

The pineapple wasn't actually part of the dinner, but I felt it a nice addition to the picture. The sparkling cider on the table also had a cork (which Amy almost killed us with as it unexpectedly shot across the room. It did not need a corkscrew as he was just itching to get out of there).

Cake cutting time.

Hyrum: "Did I drop some of my wine infused vegetables on the floor? Could you get those for me so I can continue to suck any remaining liquid out of them?"

Pre-eating dinner.

Note: we did not eat the cake before dinner, the pictures are just out of order. I would never eat cake before dinner... that would be immoral. I would know, I got an A- in ethics once.


Hyrum trying to wash dinner down.

Here is a video of the cake eating. He's going to be a pro by the time we get to his first birthday. I suspect he'll be ready to eat his cake all proper like with a fork and knife by then.

I thought we had a video of us singing happy birthday and Amy finding her present, but maybe not because I can't find them.

Amy got a shiny red professional kitchenaid mixer.

The best gifts are those that the giver also plans to use themselves.

A trip to Banff and some surprising news

You maybe have already seen the photos on Facebook but I figured they deserve a place on the family blog!  Last Saturday, one of Brennan's managers took us up to Lake Louise in Banff as a thank you to Brennan for being such a stellar worker this busy season (I married a good one, huh?!).  His manager has also started dabbling in photography and took some pretty good pictures for us.

Just walking around Canmore which is a town just outside of the park.  

I think Hyrum was the only one who knew Gabby was taking a picture.

Super fancy-schmancy hotel located right on Lake Louise.  

Apparently Queen Elizabeth has some super special room here where she stays when she visits.

Here is one of the cutest thing that Hyrum does now: He copies the faces and sounds that we make.  If I make a high sound, he'll make a high sound.  If I make a low sound, he'll do the same thing.  Here he's practising scrunching his nose like Mummy and Daddy.

Posing for a picture on the lake.  Hyrum finally conked out and took a nap while we hiked.

Have I ever mentioned that I love our baby carrier?  It's a Beco and Hyrum seriously loves the thing.  Maybe almost as much as I do.

The mountains, the mist over the lake, the calm waters in the background.  This place is seriously gorgeous.  Let us know if you want to visit!

Hyrum wanted to face out for a little while so Brennan put him in his coat while we walked around.  Hyrum definitely thought that was a fun idea.

Oh yeah!

Hyrum's "Concerned" face.  Maybe it's because he knew two little German women were about to accost us and tell us we were terrible parents for not having a hat on him.  Here's the thing...he takes it off!!!  He used to be really good about leaving it on but now he seriously considers it his personal challenge to see how quickly he can remove it from his head.  And so the little German women went back to their country thinking we abuse our children in Canada but if figure if he was freezing, he would leave it on!

Isn't he such a happy little guy?

Enjoying himself in the great outdoors!

Gabby thought it might be fun to take one of the canoe rides out on the lake.  I was a little sceptical considering the thought of trying to entertain Hyrum in a boat for an hour, especially when it was pretty close to nap time, did NOT sound like a fun idea.  Boat--yes, screaming baby--no.  In any case, we thought we'd at least see if he fit in the baby life jacket.  It was a quite snug but the next size up was far too big.  Mostly he just fought the thing the whole time so Mummy won.  No long canoe trip with the baby.

By the way, did I mention we took this trip in Gabby's Mini Cooper?  For ya'lls reference, you really can put a car seat and three adults in one of those things.  I was pretty impressed!

So, here's for the surprising news.

Hyrum had a check-up and a couple of vaccines on Friday.  While we were there they weighed him, measured him, and showed me where he was on the growth charts.  Now, before I go any further, I've never been terribly concerned about Hyrum and I'm sure you can see why.  The fellow does not appear to be starving in the least.  His little ankle and wrist rolls definitely show that.  

So, here's the stats on the little guy:

Height: 28 inches, 50th percentile

Weight: 19 lbs 13 oz, 50th percentile

Maybe this is silly but that totally surprised me!  As much as we call him our big/little chunk, apparently he's just an average sized baby, which is totally okie dokie with us.  Just surprising!  In fact, I told our neighbour (who has a 10-month old baby) and she exclaimed, 

"WHAT?  So, what does a 90th percentile baby look like?!"

Also surprising was that he took his vaccines like a champ! During the first one he kind of gave the nurse a look like she had offended him but he did cry for a second as she gave him the second one.  However, after a quick nursing session he we wiggling around, smiling and giggling like nothing even happened.  A lady even commented in the waiting room that we must be pre-shot because he was far too happy.  Way to go, little buddy!

In other silly news, we left Hyrum with our friends for a few hours on Friday night while we went to go test drive a car.  Because it was a bit last minute and I didn't have any stored breast milk, I ran to the store to get some formula in the case that he really wanted a milk feeding while we were out.  Well, apparently my "lactivism" has rubbed off on Hyrum.  The child who will eat or drink just about anything (seriously!) would not even touch the bottle of formula.  I think he must have thought I was sincere when I jokingly called formula poison (I don't really believe it's poison...I just really like breastfeeding).  Well, here's to hoping I don't die before he weans.

On the car front: still no car, but hopefully we're making progress.  The hope is to have one within the next few weeks.  Imagine this: no more bumming rides, no more taking the bus, and no more using the stroller as a shopping cart.  The world is about to get pretty amazing!