Halloween 2010

This Halloween was fabulous! The weather was absolutely beautiful; I had a 3/4 length light weight sweater on and it felt wonderful. The kids costumes came together really well; everything, with the exception of Morgan's $8 clearance skirt that I couldn't resist, came out of our dress up buckets or pulled somehow from stuff we already had. They were very clever and inventive and I couldn't be more proud of their creativity.

Ty was completely freaked out by Troy in his costume but other than that, he totally caught on this year and had a great time trick or treating! He knew to hold his candy bag out and wore his costume the entire night and loved it. He can now say "CANDY!" The pumpkins turned out really cute and everyone enjoyed carving their own including Ty a.k.a "mom". It was too cute to see Ty concentrating so hard on "carving" his pumpkin, paying very close attention to detail.

There are so many things I love about this time of year.  I love going to the pumpkin patch every year with my family and pulling out the first of the seasons decorations. I love the weather change, the first rain of the season, burning my pumpkin scented candles and the smell of burning jack o lanterns on Halloween night. Well, it's been fun but...so long ghouls and goblins...hello Santa Claus!

Paying close attention to detail!

The cutest puppy ever!

Guitar playin' Raggedy Ann

Super Nerd!

Major Flirt!

 LA Ink Rocker

Striking a pose!

His back side was really cute too!

SUGAR COMA!!!

SFBI

On September 24th I completed a week long course at the San Francisco Baking Institute. It was a great experience and I really learned a lot. It was a grueling week in the sense that I was on my feet for 9 hours a day for 5 days and the commute to SF sucked. The instructor was fabulous but hardcore. She was very ambitious with our time and in the end we completed 10 cakes, 4 buttercreams, 5 cream bases, 1 syrup and marzipan while still fitting in lecture and demo. We were all complaining of exhaustion by the end. I learned some great cake "science" and can adamantly say I will never "measure" again!

After a long 10 hour day (our last day)

Interestingly, most of the students were working professionals from all over the United States with two students attending from different parts of Canada. In the beginning it was a little disconcerting because the instructor gave us a tour of the kitchen and then put us straight to work spitting out all sorts of french culinary terminology that I had never heard before. I caught on rather quickly and the rest of the week went extremely smooth, in fact, amazingly smooth! I felt very confident in my abilities, surprising myself at times, and never once felt inferior to the professionals there. I was very pleased with all of my final products. We learned all sorts of crazy cakes with very interesting histories like a genoise, dacquoise, biscuit viennois and le fraisier, just to name a few.

Mmmm...golden chiffon with a butter lemon curd, raspberries and pastry cream

I am proud to say that I can now keep up with all of the professional kitchen jargon (almost always in french). The hardest adjustment coming home was cooking in my home kitchen again after using a commercial kitchen all week...that sucks! I had the time of my life and definitely feel that this is what I am suppose to be doing. I am also so thankful to my husband who took a few days off, and my sweet friends who helped me with Ty all week; it's so great to have a group of people who love and support you.

My favorite...Chocolate Hazelnut Dacquoise with a Praline Buttercream

The ovens

The kitchen

They say...

...kids grow up so fast these days:

Starts the day with a shave...

Followed by some housework...

More cleaning...

Then some yard work...

Ends the day with some web surfin'...

Nursery!

Once again, I am really behind on my posts; life has been so busy. I could be on the computer for hours trying to catch up on all the happenings in the Addington household or, I could journal our most recent experiences with some occasional "flashbacks" in hopes of eventually getting caught up. So here's the latest:

Ty started nursery! It was a great day; Ty's first day in nursery was on his actual 18 month birthday, so cool. It was also the first rainy day of the season, also very cool! We went to church, took Ty to nursery for the first time, came home and started our first fire of the season and vegged on the couch watching movies until it was time to go to our friends, the Hornfischer's, for a birthday dinner. We ate delicious food and cupcakes (of course), and had great conversation. Good, good day!

On Arrival

He had escaped...

...and wanted back in.

Checkin' things out.

Thank you Bro. Olsen!

Snacks at last!

EFY baby!

I am so happy that we were able to send Cody to EFY this year. He went to an EFY Provo session so he had a great time staying in the dorms at BYU.

At the airport, once through security, he had to navigate through the terminal to catch his flight and then catch a shuttle once he landed in Salt Lake to make the 45 minute drive to Provo. Once on campus, he had to figure out where to go and what to do and then catch the shuttle back when it was all over. I think that's a lot for a first time solo traveler! He wasn't really solo, he had his friend Damian with him, but it was also Damian's first solo trip. Needless to say, I was really nervous all day but he made it and he had a great time.

The few pictures he took where very nice pictures:

At the airport saying their goodbyes

The best ice cream ever!!

Girls...of course.

The Y

Campus

Hi Uncle Dan!

This is Ty Daniel visiting Dad at work. He had fun (and was spoiled rotten) with "Uncle" Dan.

Ladies man...

The ladies sure love Ty. It looks like he may be destined to be related to the Hornfischer's, one way or another. :)

Too cute for words...

OH...possum!

Well, it's been a while since I have blogged so I have a lot of catching up to do but I had to start by documenting the day an opossum snuck into our house and greeted us during our morning school routine.

Troy was just coming down for breakfast when he saw what looked like a giant rat tail cruising around to the other side of the kitchen island. He went to investigate and found an opossum in our kitchen! I came downstairs shortly after and Troy just as calmly as ever says, "Mom, there is an opossum in the kitchen."

He said it so calmly that I didn't get what he was saying at first. When I discovered the opossum for myself, I sent Troy out the door to the bus and I ran upstairs behind a baby gate and called animal control. After an hour and a half they finally showed up and this is what they found:

The rest of the family lives under our shed

Happy Birthday Brooke AND Ty!

Well, a month later I'm finally sitting down to try and update my blog. Is it because I finally found the time to do it...yeah right, I'm just too tired to do anything else right now.

We had a fabulous time at their party. I was nervous about how this birthday would go. It's Ty's first birthday (a big deal) and Brooke's eighth birthday and the first birthday that she has to share. I didn't want one birthday to overshadow the other so I was walking a fine line.

I think it went great. The weather was beautiful (thankfully considering the weird weather we've had this year.) We had lots of jumpers, sno cones, a ton of cake and lots of food! Believe it or not, with all that cake we had, there was NO leftovers; I didn't get any! We let Brooke do her cake first since she did arrive here first and then we did Ty's cake. Ty LOVED experiencing his new favorite thing...sugar! He also spent more time outside on his birthday then he ever had which I hadn't really thought about until after the party was over and he kept trying to make a run for the door to get back outside. He has been addicted to the outside ever since.

Brian and I were wiped out by the end of the party so Brooke opened her gifts with her friends but we didn't open Ty's gifts until Sunday afternoon. I'm glad this birthday is past us, I still can't believe I had two of my children on the same day and that my baby is already one!!

Brooke- I am so thankful that Heavenly Father sent you to me. I know we tease you by telling you that you must belong to the mailman because you are too beautiful to be ours but I wouldn't trade your vivacious personality for the world. You are my sunshine on a cloudy day, no one can make me laugh the way you can. I'm proud of you and I love you.

Ty- You light up my life. I would wake up in the middle of the night for the rest of my life if that's what it took to have you in it. You are my cuddle bug, which I so appreciate and I love to watch you grow and learn from the world around you. I love the intensely curious little face you make when you are learning something new. I'm so thankful to be your mom.

 

Ty wasn't so sure about the jumper at first but then he loved it!

This picture says, " Yeah, I'm eatin' my cake...jealous?"


A cake fit for a princess, Princess Brooke that is!






Ty, loving his cake!


We brought Ty's gifts inside and opened them the next afternoon.

This Birthday takes the cake!

Well, I have to go through 224 pictures before I can post something on Ty and Brooke's birthday so I decided to post the cake pictures in the mean time. The party was great and the cakes turned out cute. It was way more of a feat than I should have tried to take on so parts of the cake are missing or as I like to say "jacked."
Considering I had to plan the party, shop, prepare food for 87 people, clean the house and bake and decorate all the cakes, I did well. The top layer of Ty's is jacked up because I literally through it together moments before and Brooke's is missing the whole bottom layer which we still served. All in all, I'm satisfied but won't bite off so much next time.

Brooke's princess cake; pillow and roses are completely edible.

Ty's cowboy cake; completely edible with the exception of the candle

Ty's personal cake; we peeled the fondant off once we sang.

My first haircut!

This week will be a week of firsts for little Ty Daniel. His first bottle of Toddler Formula (much prefers nursing still), his first birthday will be this Saturday and today was his first haircut!

I really hemmed and hawed over whether or not to get his hair cut for his first birthday. One day I was certain it needed to be done and then the next day I was adamant that he needed to look like a baby as long as possible. Well... the truth is, it looked really bad and well, he can't be a baby forever so in he went. Ty could not take his eyes off of Jamie, it was so funny. He did really well and got a lot of cooing from the other stylists and all and all it was worth it, he looks very handsome now and ready for his party on Saturday!