Hello again, I have a very basic question

I have defined two buttons in my nib and also added outlets to my view controller. I would like the buttons to stay hidden and disabled while the game is playing and only appear when the game lose condition is met.
I have tried removefromsuperview in the init method for the view controller, with insertsubview when the game lose condition is met, but the buttons stay visib le throughout....

UIButton *button;
button.hidden = TRUE;

thank you Kyle, I assume that renders the button inactive besides hiding it.