My Top 10 of 2013 (Plus 6)

Did I just blink and then 2013 happened???  Cause, um, I am pretty sure we were just having New Year's Eve celebrations like yesterday.

Hey there Time; please slow down.

Even though it seems like it was gone in the blink of an eye, there was LOTS of fun, memories, laughs, accomplishments, thrills, sadness, waiting, blessings, answered prayers, and so much more in 2013.  Thinking back over the past year, we've had a pretty great one.

So, here is my Top 10 of 2013 (Plus 6...because that's how I roll).  And in chronological order (because that just makes sense):

January 2013: Getting baptized for the second time at church on January 6.

February 2013: I surprised Justin on Valentine's Day with a dinner at McNamara's followed by tickets to see one of our faves Flogging Molly in Nashville.  Best date night ever.

March 2013: Girls trip to Gatlinburg with my two oldest & bestest friends.  And it top if off, it snowed the whole weekend!  Was a gorgeous weekend with my gorgeous friends.

May 2013: Baby Lamb turned 2!!  We celebrated Liam's two years on May 9 with a trip to Build a Bear, dinner at Chuy's, and a carousel ride.  We had a fun party that weekend, too.

May 2013: Celebrated an AMAZING year with these kiddos at Mother's Day Out.  I LOVED my time there.  LOVED it.

June 2013: Chandler learned to ride his bike!!  We practiced for half an hour and then he was flying.  Super proud day.

July 2013: We said peace out to the miniature van.  She served us well, but Momma was pretty happy to see her go.

July 2013: I started my new position as a 2nd grade teacher at Lakeview Elementary with these amazing people.  Where I have always said I've wanted to teach. I am home.

August 2013: Chandler started 1st grade on August 1st!  Still cannot believe it!

August 2013: On August 11 we got as many of the Flatts (my Mom's family) together in my Aunt Ora's backyard for a good old-fashioned "get together".  Have so many memories with these great people in this place.

September 2013: We celebrated our birthdays!!  Chandler turned 6 and Mommy turned 32 29.  We had a yummy dinner at Cinco with the fam and a pirate party followed on the weekend.

September 2013: I ran (and finished!) the Women's Half Marathon in Nashville on September 28.  After training for three months, I ran the WHOLE thing and finished in 2:15:58, which was 2 seconds within my goal time.

October 2013: Family beach trip!!  The whole Whitaker clan headed to our fave place for a whole entire week.  Relaxing, great weather, beautiful water, and family.  Love.

December 2013: Snow day before Christmas!!  Not much, but enough to get out of school. :)

December 2013: Christmas Eve at Nama's with The Koehns.  Always one of our favorite days of the year.

December 2013: BIG NEWS TODAY!!!  My sister Andrea & BIL Jon found out today that Sam will be coming home in January 2014!  They leave for China on January 8th, will meet their son on January 13th, and be home as a complete family of 6 on January 26th!!!  Answered prayers!

What an amazing year it has been!!!  I simply cannot wait to see what 2014 holds in store for us Koehns.  It's gonna be good, friends.  In fact, it'll probably be kind of great.

"We will open the book.  It's pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and it's first chapter is New Year's Day."

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce~

Till next year friends!

Brittany :)

LoVe is Here

56.

That is the total number of blog posts that I have had so far this year.  57 if you include this one.  Which means I successfully met my 2012 New Year's resolution!!  Can it be so??  Did I not only meet, but exceed my goal of one post a week for the year??  Yep, it is true.   It's because I'm so awesome I guess ;).

I started writing Snips & Snails in January of this year.  My goal was to record some of our family memories from the year, funny things that the boys said/did, and maybe fit a little bit of humor in here and there.  I mainly wanted to be able to have a record of some of our memories since my memory (which I was once so proud of) is failing me a bit lately.  Aren't I too young for that??

I would say that I have done a fairly good job at achieving my original goal for my blog.  And I have really quite enjoyed writing it, too.  And I have found that writing about our family each week has taught me to be a more reflective parent.  As I would think back through the events of each week before choosing what to post about, there were many times where I felt like I deserved a nice pat on the back for a job well done in my parenting skills.  Often though, I would look back on things that I said/did/did not do with regret and think, "Man, I really should have done that differently."  Unfortunately there are no take-backs or re-dos in parenting. 

Lucky for me, my boys love me even when I don't deserve the "Mom the the Year" award.  I have learned that even when I mess up, they love me just the same.  And I feel pretty certain that they know that I love them even when they mess up, too.  (Okay, maybe Liam doesn't quite get the gist of it yet, but he will.)

Being the Momma to these two amazing boys has taught me a lot about love this year.  And even though I know that they love me now matter what, I want them to feel, and see, and hear the love more often.  That's what I'm talking about when I said I'm learning.  I'm learning that they don't feel the love when Mommy brushes them off because she's too busy with something else.  They don't see the love in my face when my patience has worn too thin.  And they don't hear the love in my sarcasm or my tone when I'm frustrated.  But that doesn't mean the love isn't there, because it is.

Love is here.  Love is in our home.  Love is in this family, through and through.

Love is pulling Chan into bed with us when wakes up because we know that one day we won't hear those tiny feet coming into our bedroom in the middle of the night.  Love is rocking Liam to sleep every single night because these days will soon be gone.  Love was holding Chan's hand and wiping tears away at the doctor when he knew shots were coming, and telling him that I wish I could take them for him (and really meaning it).  Love was sleeping curled up tight in a hospital crib with Liam so he wouldn't wake up scared in the night.   Love was smiling and telling Chan what a big boy he was and how much fun he was going to have at school,  even though I wanted to bring him back home and keep him a baby for one more year.  Love is relishing the time spent with Liam while I am at home.  Love is present every part of every day with these boys; the good and bad times, the easy and challenging times, the fun and not-so-fun times.  Love.lives.here.  

So, my resolution for this year??  I plan to read more.   I am NOT going to resolve to be a better Mommy.  Because here is the thing: I do the best I can every day.  And I know that I always will.  I don't always get it right and I probably never will, but I am trying and I am learning from my mistakes the best that I can.  And my boys know every single night that their Mommy loves them to the moon and back...over and over again.

And isn't that the most important thing?

"Be everything with so much love in your heart 

that you would never want to do it any other way."

~Amrit Desai~

Till next year friends!

Brittany :)

The Adventures of Shelf the Elf, Part 3

Well, tonight we will bid adieu to our elf buddy, Shelf.  We've had a blast keeping up with his adventures these past few weeks, but he makes his final trip back to the North Pole tonight...at least until next year!  Here is a peek at what he has been up to his last week with us:

Day 28: When you gotta go, you gotta go!  (This one was a hit with Chan!)

Looked suspiciously like Hershey's Kisses to me, but whatever!

Day 29: We found him on my computer.  Turns out elves like to "Elf" themselves, too!

Chan had a blast watching all of his Elf videos that morning.

Day 30: Since we can't watch any hockey, Elf decided to play some with the G-Man!

Day 31: Looks like they made amends!  Found these two watching the Grinch together yesterday morning.

Day 32: Our last day with Shelf!  He left one last note for Chan, along with some kisses (hoping these are really the kisses and not the other thing...)

Chan's last letter for the year!

Here's hoping Chan makes the nice list!  We will be checking one last time before bed (www.northpoletimes.com).  So long old buddy, old pal!  See you next year!

"Have you seen these toilets??!!  They're GINORMOUS!"

~Buddy the elf~

Till later this week friends!

Brittany :)

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I don't know about you, but when I look back on my childhood a good deal of my most cherished memories are from Christmastime.  I love that I can look back and remember so much of what made this season so magical for me as a child.

And as a parent now, I want my children to experience the magic of Christmas.  I want them to look back on their childhood and have memories of each Christmas that they are fond of.  I want to start traditions that we do every year, that perhaps they can carry on with their children one day.  So this month, we have been working on memory making!  We've been doing our advent activities each day (the ones that our elf brought us) and just enjoying each other this season.  Here are some pictures of our memories in the making from the past few weeks:

These next few are from our annual Flatt Family Christmas.  My mom's side of the family is quite large (our extended family) and we all get together once a year for a huge Christmas dinner.  I remember when it used to be held at my great-grandfather's tiny, little house on Elliot Drive on Christmas Eve.  After he passed away, we met one year at my great Aunt Chris's house, another at my great Aunt Ora's house (Santa hand delivered me a kitten that year!), but as the kids kept coming we outgrew everyones' houses and our schedules didn't allow us to meet on Christmas Eve.  For years now we have gathered at Old Hickory Church of Christ for our dinner.  I have SO many memories of these get togethers!  So glad that our family continues this tradition so that my boys can experience it, too.

Arless & Lula Belle's great great grandchildren (missing a few though!)

The new kids' table!

After we sing carols together, Santa and Mrs. Claus always make an appearance and deliver toys!  Here is Chandler showing Santa the picture of what he wants on my iphone.

And Liam was just exhausted

Do you remember making lists and writing Santa?  I totally do!  I am pretty excited that Chandler is learning enough now to write on his own (with maybe just a little help).

Chan's letter to Santa that he wrote at school.  The dog was a surprise to this Momma!

So, we wrote an extra letter for clarification...a toy dog :)

Those letters paid off!  Chan got a letter straight from the North Pole!

Came just in the nick of time as a good reminder to stay on the nice list, too!

These few are from Chandler's Christmas play at his school.  The boys and girls did an AMAZING job at their performances!  I was so impressed with the production!  Major props to the kindergarten teachers for their hard work on this event!

Chandler was Joseph for the play

All the kindergarteners entering the gym

During the reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", Chan is front row third from right

The grand finale!  Singing Christmas carols "Away in a Manger" and "Silent Night"

Chan & his buddy Sam

How could it be Christmas without lots of time spent in the kitchen?!  I remember my sister and I helping my Mom make Christmas cookies when we were little.  So much fun!  And Christmas themed breakfast is so quick and easy!  Plus the boys love it!  (Okay, Chan does...Liam just eats).

Reindeer French toast!

Christmas tree waffles

Building our gingerbread house this year!  I stopped at Hermitage Bakery this day to get the boys some gingberbread men to go with it since this was our advent activity for the day.

And we spent several hours in the kitchen baking and making Christmas goodies

I remember going to "A Walk through Bethlehem" once as a little girl.  My Mom & I took the boys last weekend and Chandler had a blast!

This Roman soldier was in full character!  Chan was actually a little scared...

Just looking through the scrolls in the temple with the priest

Hanging out with Mary & Joseph! 

And he met Three Wise Men, too!

I think this should be a new tradition: later that night Justin and I went with my parents to dinner at Margaritaville, then to see The Brian Setzer Orchestra at the Ryman!  They put on a spectacular Christmas show!

Cheeseburgers in paradise!

At the Ryman

Didn't get the best pictures with my phone, but the show was amazing!

We also got to see the amazing Carly Koehn perform two Christmas shows last weekend!!

And, us crazy Koehns have been doing our own performances, too.  If you haven't been checking out "The Very Koehn Christmas" videos, you may just want to give my facebook page a look.

And we've also been making crafts (mostly ornaments) and doing LOTS of Christmas movie watching snuggled up on the couch!

Chan and I made these Pinterest inspired ornaments to give as gifts

My snuggle buddies!

And today we took the boys to see the mall Santa.  We still had yet to get their pictures made together with Santa, so we braved it this afternoon and it wasn't too bad....depending on who you ask.

Best.EVER.

"Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time."

~Laura Ingalls Wilder~

Till next week friends!

Brittany :)