It's A...

October 28, 2013

Baby!

That's right, we are expecting another kiddo here in the Hoyt household, expected to arrive in late February! As you all know, I didn't want to know the gender of the first baby while Matt did, so we compromised and he found out and had to keep it a secret. Since he was such a good sport this time, I decided we could do it his way this time and find out what we were having.

But since I didn't really want to know, I wanted to find out a fun way. Matt was still en route to Alaska when I had to go in for the anatomy ultrasound, so I had the ultrasound tech write the gender in a sealed envelope. Weeks went by as I pondered how to do it. I had read years ago about people getting cakes made to find out the gender. It seems so trendy now, but I still kept circling around to it. Trendy or not, I love cakes, so why not do it that way?

Brittney offered to make it, but I wanted her to be surprised too! The only solution was to order a cake. That's right. I *paid* for a cake... I'm so ashamed! But look how nice the cake turned out!

The cake shop did a great job - there was no way of seeing the cake color through that icing! All that was left to do was to cut the cake and find out if Tommy is having a little brother or little sister! The suspense was killing all of us!

Well except Tommy, he was much more interested in his Ritz crackers. :)

After much debate on methods and timing, Matt and I decided to tackle it together so neither one of us would get the edge on seeing what color the cake was:

It was at this point Tommy got interested. We had already tried asking him if would prefer a little brother or sister, but he had no opinion on the matter as of yet.

And the verdict is...

A baby boy! That's right - two little guys!

I think my first words upon seeing the color were "Uh-oh!" I'm going to be totally outnumbered now! But considering how much I love my little guy that I already have, I can only imagine how much more love I have to give to a second baby boy. I might end up pulling my hair out at some point, but I think having one boy makes having two seem not that much harder. Any of you with multiple boys calling me crazy right now...? :)

After trying his brother's cake, even Tommy seemed to get excited! He's going to love having a little brother to play with! And I so ready to love both my boys - though I still have to wait a few more months to meet the second little guy. Oh well - can't rush a good thing, right?

Natalie seems pretty pumped about the second baby news as well, though maybe because Tommy was dropping cake for her to enjoy with him. Of course, she's just tall enough he can whack her from the high chair... Think she would be embarrassed if she knew she had icing on her head? ;)

(Belly shot courtesy of Brittney - as are most of these photos! I wouldn't have taken one, but she figured you would all want to see the growing belly. At least I was wearing a cute shirt!)

Snowy Sunday

October 27, 2013

What to do on a snowy Sunday morning??

Of course the snow didn't last very long this morning, but it made me not want to leave the house at all for any reason. Plus snowy weather seems like the perfect time to bake things. Luckily I had started a batch of bagels the night before!

Not the easiest baked good I have ever made, but they were ridiculously good! Everyone gave them a thumbs up and we are already debating what flavors to try adding to the basic recipe first. My vote is for cinnamon raisin!

I ended up using a bit of a combination of the Fine Cooking and Cook's Illustrated recipes, so I don't know which one to link to. Maybe I'll figure out next time I make them and try to post the Jen-version. Finding the high protein bread flour was the toughest part - you get creative when King Arthur wants $20 to ship you a bag of their Sir Lancelot high-protein flour. Luckily with some vital wheat gluten, I think I managed to make it happen. :)

Photo Editing Fun

October 16, 2013

I have a confession to make, I haven't been editing my photos. Well, not very much anyhow. I used the software that came with the camera, but it's pretty basic. I just didn't have the time to mess with it or the desire to buy the software.

Well it turns out we have a photography club at work up here and they just happened to be demo'ing Lightroom - Theresa's favorite photo software. So a free lunch and a chance to play with Lightroom? Why not??

And I loved it! I just made a few minor tweaks in some old photos of Thomas and they look so much better. I'm sure it's in the eye if the beholder, but they just look like warmer, more flattering photos of the kiddo I love. :)

Plus since Matt brought our computer, I might a really have a way to play with my photos and website again - woowoo!

Matt's Here!

October 6, 2013

The big day finally arrived – Matt’s here! I had been diligently tracking his progress on the SPOT locator all morning and then it wasn’t updating. The last update was when he was on the north side of Anchorage, so I showed Duncan and asked what time he thought they would get here. He recommended going outside pronto. Good thing he did – I just our coats on and walked outside to see them pull around the corner. After a mad scramble to get our “Welcome Home” signs held up, Matt finally got to hug Tommy and I after 8 weeks apart.

Tommy just stared at his dad. He didn’t run from him (like he did to me after only two weeks apart!), he didn’t smile or cry, he just stared at his daddy. All while holding his new favorite broom of course. Then, we let the dogs out of the car – they immediately freaked out and ran all over the yard in excitement – which only elicited long looks from Tommy as well. I think the poor guy was trying to take it all in!

Once his dad picked him up and started playing with him, it all seemed to come back to him:

“Oh right – this is the fun parent! I have missed him!!”

House Hunting, Take 2

October 4, 2013

Matt's on his way up here, currently somewhere in the middle of nowhere, British Columbia. He should be here on Sunday - so excited!!!

I was planning on forgetting the house hunt and let him deal with it after the disappointing first trip out looking at houses with the realtor two weeks ago. But I figured I could go out one more time with Ed and see some more houses. If nothing else, I can cross some off the list. And hopefully not fall in love with the one house the relocation people won't let me buy. (Stupid fake stucco!)

Anyhow, I'm not exactly excited to go in case you can't tell, so I needed something fun at the beginning of the day to get me through. Thomas decided that wouldn't be sleeping in (5:20 wake-up time?!?), so I decided we would go out for breakfast before dropping him off at daycare. He's been a bit hit or miss in restaurants lately, so I figured IHOP would have an understanding crowd at 8am on a Friday.

But he did awesome! He colored, stared at other kids, waved bye out the window at people and polished off a silver dollar pancake breakfast! I was pretty glad I opted to get him his own meal. What a big boy he's getting to be!

Sun Day!

October 1, 2013

I heard a rumor (via Brittney) that work will occasionally give us "Sun days" when the weather is particularly nice. Especially if its been a bad stretch - which it has been...

Well guess what happened today??

Sun Day!!!

We decided to go rescue Tommy from daycare and all four of us went to go get frozen yogurt. Tommy was more excited about the waffle come pieces than the yogurt - until he realized I had chocolate... Then he shoved his bowl out if the way to try to steal mine. :)

Last time we went, someone got chocolate stains all over their pants... Figured the vanilla would be easier to clean up. There's practical, then there's what delicious. Can't deny he's my kid! ;)

Heather's Last Weekend

September 14, 2013

For her last weekend, I thought it would be best to go back to Girdwood and introduce her to the Bake Shop as well. We had a slight detour on the way because I wanted to find the Crow Pass trailhead that we had started our backpacking trip on 5 years ago. It was much further off the main road than I remembered, but it was definitely the same trailhead I recall. Though with a brand new bear warning sign - yikes!

After the obligatory yumminess of the Bake Shop, we took Tommy back to his favorite park to blow off some steam. During a quick ice cream break, Heather decided she would rather go to the Wildlife Conservation Center than up the Alyeska tram (easy choice with the cloud cover). And it was a great choice, we made it just in time to see them feed the brown bears - which were way closer than I would have expected!

We managed to say goodbye to all the awesome wildlife in time to get Heather back to the airport in time to tell her goodbye. It was hard saying goodbye again and knowing we won't see the family for at least a few months. But it was great to get so much quality time in with both of them. I know that I certainly appreciated the help getting Thomas up here and easing him into a new daycare. And hopefully he appreciated it as well - I'm sure he did, that boy is definitely a people person!

Talkeetna Hurricane

September 8, 2013

I love the town of Talkeetna! Mostly because of the Roadhouse, but the whole town is super friendly and has amazing food for such a tiny town. So I figured Heather would love it equally as well. Unfortunately all of the rooms at the Roadhouse were booked so we stayed at the Northern Guest house down the road. I was worried about it being further from downtown, but there isn't really such a thing as far away in Talkeetna.

Apart from introducing Heather to the fabulous food and seeing all the tourist shops, we decided to take the Hurricane train. Apparently this isn't a well known train, even by Alaskans. It's a whistle stop train running from Anchorage to Hurricane Gulch that stops wherever anyone wants to get on or off. It's how most people get to their cabins along the route, so we got to meet some really cool people. And the conductor of the train is super friendly with kids, they all got a bunch of trinkets and even a Golden Spike from the railroad for being so well behaved. Tommy even got one - he was definitely the littlest kid on the train but he did so good! I had stuff to entertain him when he got bored of looking out the window, plus he's sure footed enough these days we could wander around in the cars without him falling over. All in all, the train was well worth the visit - plus we got to see a black bear! Possibly the only wildlife Heather saw outside of the zoo. ;)

We had a great weekend and I think Heather may have fallen in love with Talkeetna too!

Oh and we stopped for burgers on the way back and Thomas discovered dipping French fries in ketchup. I think he was more interested in licking the ketchup off than eating the fries - definitely my kid... :)