{Halloween in Houston}

 How cool is it that our trip allowed us to be in Houston for Halloween?

Look! My mom is Mary Poppins! Practically perfect in every way!

We dressed up Miriam as Pikachu!

And Dan and his girlfriend Melissa dressed up as Ash and Misty! Seriously how cute are they?

  

And Evette was Elsa, of course. She was a lovely Ice Queen.

And Uncle Scott was a pirate. Isn't he a good looking pirate?

After hitting a few houses down near my mom's house we headed up to Papa and Gigi's house to meet up with the hobbit baby to go trick or treating up there.

 

Between nearly every house Evette would say, "I'm so essscited!"

The ratio of "grown ups" to kids was a little skewed but we all had a good time!

Halloween night was a success!

Good times! Late nights and lots of sugar. :)

{Houston Trip}

The girls and I flew to Houston to welcome Uncle Scott home from his mission. Sean would have loved to come but the time off from work and the plane tickets were going to make it difficult. 

I survived the 6am plane ride with the two girls all by myself! They did beautifully. Mind you, I have very very low expectations for a plane ride - make sure everyone survives. If everyone is alive at the end of the trip, it was a success! We succeeded! But in all honesty, they did really really well. 

It was so happy to be back in Texas at Mimi's house! It was pretty low key while we were there. Lots of books, snuggles, helping Mimi make dinner, visiting Gigi down the street, and playing outside.

Scott brought us all back some sweet gifts from Brazil!

At one point we went to the temple to pick up some things and to tour the grounds a little bit.

Mom, Scott, and I were also able to do a session at the temple. It was great. It's hard to get to the temple over here in San Francisco - it's a long ways away and with traffic and a baby that's still nursing, and babysitters, and more and more excuses.....it's hard. So I was so happy to be able to go!

Evette loved helping Mimi teach piano lessons. For those of you that don't know, my mom teaches a ridiculous amount of a piano lessons - she has 50+ students a week. So various times during the week Evette would grab a few dozen books, and sit next to Mimi during piano lessons.

Evette also got a little piano lesson herself!

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And gave a few piano lessons!

look at my babies! Evette's not grumpy, she's just making her mad face to be funny. crazy kid.

sometimes it's hard to fall asleep at Mimi's house... she was sitting on my lap and crying about how not tired she was until her cries turned to snores. She was on my lap for about an hour. lol

Scott's first movie post mission was FROZEN! He loved it and Evette loved watching Scott laugh during it.

Miriam mastered the art of crawling at Mimi's house! I attribute it to the wonderfully fluffy carpet!

good old uncle reading some books

Look at these cute cousins! It's so fun to live so close to the other set of grandparents and our one only cousin. We were able to spend a good amount of time over at Papa and Gigi's house.

 

We had 2 flights on the way home, but we survived and therefore a success. To be honest, they did do incredibly well for such a long day of flying - about 8 hours worth of planes and airports.

It was so great to see Daddy!!

Although we dearly missed having Sean along with us, it was incredibly nice to come home to a perfectly clean house, new sheets, and a nice dinner waiting for us.

{Elder McIntosh is home!}

The girls and I flew down to Houston to welcome home my baby brother who was returning from his 2 year church mission in Brazil. I was so excited to see him - I've been missing him like crazy! Two years gone with only weekly emails and an occasional video chat on mothers day and Christmas was a long time!

The girls and I went with my mom and dad to pick him up from the airport. We made it just in time!

Here he is! Doesn't he look great!!!

I was so anxious to see him! I was a crying mess - he looked so good and so happy and I had missed him so much!!

First hug to the mom, of course! So sweet.

And then dad and meeting Miriam and reuniting with Evette!

He'd only seen pictures of Miriam and Evette was just over a year when he left.

Sweet Uncle with his cute babies.

 After the airport we swung by Dan's school to pick him up and take him back to Houston with us. Good ol' brothers. I'm pretty lucky.

 The three reunited but desperately missing the Rach.

Isn't he a cute missionary?

After getting Dan we headed to the church and Scott got released as full time missionary. I am so grateful for Scott and the work and service that he did on his mission. I'm grateful for his wonderful example to me and to my baby girls. But I'm super grateful that he is now home!

{Masterworks Chorale}

I did something for me - just for me - and it's awesome. I joined a choir. When we first moved to California we went to our now favorite farmers market and while we were shopping for some fruits and veggies for the week we got a flyer for a choir concert that weekend from Masterworks Chorale. Sean took the flyer and then told them that I wanted to join the choir, too! I was taken back and surprised that he so boldly told them that I wanted to join. They said their season was just finishing up but that they would have auditions for the next season at the end of the summer/beginning of fall. We unfortunately didn't make it to the concert because we had sick babies that week. The idea of auditioning for a choir was terrifying for me and I just let it sit in the back of my mind - trying to decide if it'd be worth it or not.

Mostly I was scared and wasn't sure if I wanted to put myself out there enough to prepare and audition.Well, Sean asked about it a few times and convinced me to audition. I was scared, but decided he was probably right and that I should. It would be a great opportunity for me to get involved with my music again, to meet new people, to just have some "Heidi" time. So he convinced me.

I was to prepare a song to sing, either a solo/aria or my voice part of a choral piece. I went through a few different pieces trying to decide what to sing but nothing really felt right to me. In highschool, I was a soprano I, the highest voice part and I loved it. After having babies my voice changed (can you say puberty #2?) and I wasn't quite sure where I sat in the musical clefs. Finally a few days before my audition I settled on "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis. I know it's kind of cliche, but I adore that song and felt good about it. Plus, I decided that instead of having the conductor, Dr. Baker, play the piano for me while I sang for him, that I would play and accompany myself for the audition. I do not have the strongest voice, but I wanted to prove my musical abilities so I thought that by accompanying myself that I could show that.

I drove to my audition which was in a small church and sat quietly in the car to calm myself before going in. I heard a beautiful voice singing and I thought I had my radio on my classical station and could not hear it because the car was stopped, so I turned off the car so it could be silent and I could focus, but the voice didn't stop. I realized the windows to the church was open and that the voice I heard was another person auditioning. Holy cow. I was screwed. Her voice was lovely - angelic - perfect. I'm embarrassed to say that I turned on the car to drive home. There was no way that I would be able to compete with that. Luckily, I decided to call Sean and tell him that I was heading home first. He was adamant that I stay and audition. He, being the wonderful supportive, loving husband his is, gave me a great pep talk about how
you never know if you don't try, you prepared for this, you have a great voice, yada yada yada. And so I decided to go in.

Dr. Baker was a sweet man and very kind and I was immediately at ease. We discussed my audition form and musical background a bit and then he asked for my music so he could play for me. I asked him if it would be alright if I accompanied myself instead. He looked a little shocked but said that absolutely I could and that I was the first person in all his years of doing this that would play for their own audition. So, that was exciting and scary.

I sat down, cleared my mind, and prepared myself to sing. I have always wanted to sing this song. Like really sing it - with someone to listen to it and appreciate it. To feel it. I love this song - it speaks to my soul. So I sang. I sang the song. And it was thrilling to sing it. And that cute little church just held my voice and carried the music beautifully.

Dr. Baker looked up and said it was lovely. I was in shock and thrilled. We did some voicing and some sight reading and then he welcomed me to the choir as an Alto I. So happy. I did it. I made it.

Now, every Monday from 7-10pm I have choir rehearsal and it's awesome. It is a bright spot in my week. I sing amazing music with amazing people.

We had our first concert of the season 2 weekends ago and it was amazing. Our big piece was The Grand Mass in C Minor by Mozart. Beautiful piece - and brilliant - I learned so much and felt so much. I love good music.

Now we're working on Christmas music, which is amazing!