In The Morning When I Rise

There is a song we sing in my women's Bible study called Give Me Jesus. It chokes me up every time I hear it. This week we learned that a woman in our study had passed away and even though I did not know her, I still could not bring myself to sing this song because of my own personal convictions connected to the lyrics. Here they are...

In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise
in the morning when I rise, give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus, give me Jesus.
You can have all this world,
but give me Jesus.

And when I am alone, oh and when I am alone,
when I am alone, give me Jesus.

And when I come to die, oh and when I come to die,
when I come to die, give me Jesus.

Nearly every morning when I wake-up and stumble out of bed I have a pout on my face, a to-do list in my head, and crying toddlers asking where daddy is. So in the morning when I rise, I am ashamed to say that my first thought is not to ask for Jesus to steer the day. In writing this, however, I hope to keep myself accountable in doing so. I hope to start each day with a smile on my face, a calmness in my heart to face each task with joy, and a love that can equal the love of my children's father.

Lately, Jeremy and I have been struggling with balancing the parental discipline of our children. After hearing Maya say "I like Daddy better," and hearing her cry for her Daddy to put her to bed I have decided to ask Jeremy to help me co-discipline the children in hopes that they do not see me as the mean one. I recognise that it is probably much harder for him to discipline because he gets very little time with them during the day and does not want to spend a second of it in a fierce battle over right from wrong. Love and discipline is a tricky thing, but we now understand that it is something that needs to be tackled together. Our new plan has already begun to make a difference in our family life. We seem much happier. We laugh more and we play more. I stress less and hope for the best instead of expecting the worst. And I owe a lot of it to the most amazing daddy and husband I know.

As a couple, this is our 5th Christmas together. Our first was only 2 months after we got married. By our 2nd Christmas, we had a 2 month old daughter, and by our 3rd Christmas we had a 1 month old son. Last year the kids were still young and it seemed overly stressful with two sugar-filled babies. So it is nice to welcome in a new Christmas where we can change the course of events, eat less, and just enjoy playing together as a family.

I do not make New Years resolutions because they normally never work out for me, so instead I wish to make promises to my family for 2010. I promise to be more loving and less nit-picky. I promise to play more and do less list-making. I promise to make our marriage a priority and not just our kids. I promise to breathe more and tense less. And if I begin to fail, I give Jeremy the right to remind me of these promises because Satan can have all of this world, but as long as I have the love of my family then I have been given the gift of Jesus.

Our First Christmas together (2005)


Our 2nd Christmas together (2006)


Our 3rd Christmas together (2007)


Our 4th Christmas together (2008)


Our 5th Christmas together (2009)

Merry & Bright

As most Americans do, (my Can-American self included) we decorated our house this past weekend after Thanksgiving. This was the first year, since having kids, that I decided to put the ornaments all the way to the bottom of the tree. (In years past we only decorated the top half because little hands liked to remove the ornaments.) Well it worked out fine, for a few minutes anyway.

Here is Maya helping place ornaments on the tree...

And here is Declan...(notice how we had to cut the feet out of his pjs because his ginormous feet wouldn't fit in there any longer!)

Now here they are taking the ornaments OFF the tree.

The final product...




I'm sure some day all of the ornaments will stay where they were originally placed. Right?!

This was also the first time in 3 years that we have put Christmas lights on our house. (Obviously the kids kept us really busy in years past!) Jeremy did not have the proper equipment to repel down our mountainous roofline so he only placed lights on our landscaping instead. Perhaps next year we can borrow our friend Tony's boom-lift so we can go all Griswold on the neighborhood! Until then, baby steps...




We are extremely busy this week with three get-togethers at our house, Jeremy's company Christmas party, and much more so I have to keep this blog short and simple.

But one more thing before I go. I have only been to the gym 3 times in the past 2 weeks (I think) and I have been feeling pretty yucky about it. I stepped on the scale last night to see how much I had gained and to my surprise, I lost another 2 lbs. The crazy thing is, I haven't seen that number on the scale in 10 years and even back then it was short lived! I was so happy that I just had to share my excitement with you. My quest is not over though so I just need to stay focused and not be tempted by all of the baking I am doing for other people!

Have a great weekend. Check back next week for more Christmas decor pictures.

Understanding Motherhood

I am a nurse and a therapist. A mediator and events planner. I am a hair-stylist and a chauffeur. I cook, I clean, and I blow multiple noses. I am a personal shopper, a home decorator, and a teacher. More occupations are added to my role as a mother as my children increase in age. I do not get paid and the benefits usually come from personal satisfaction of accomplishing the fore mentioned duties. Days off seem to be allotted only when I have a doctor's appointment or a crisis on my hands that cannot be solved by chasing after two toddlers. For me, Motherhood starts at 5:30am and continues until 8:30pm. If I were to include the hours when the children are sleeping and I am restlessly tossing and turning wondering if they are warm enough or safe enough in their own beds, I could easily say that Motherhood is a 24 hour/7 days a week position.


All that said, I wouldn't change it for the world! Motherhood has taught me selflessness. It has taught me sacrifice. Being the mother of two toddlers who test me four or five times a day has taught me patience and encourages me to love differently. I now know to love every little idiosyncrasy. I love the independence they develop from day to day. I love the arguing because it helps my children's voices get heard. I love the disobedience because the time-outs teach them right from wrong. But most of all I love my children for their innocence. They are little people unaware of safety and cooperation but with my help they are learning.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful to be a mother. The days off are few but this is easy to forget when memories are being made and love embraces each day.





Jeremy, I love you too! I am Thankful for my whole family.

(Taken this summer in the Detroit airport)

Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho! It's off to ____ I go!

Who knew that life would all of a sudden get so busy when the Fall season swept into our lives. The kids have enjoyed our fun outings but mommy has been a little stressed with trying to maintain a clean house as well as carting the kids from play date to gymnastics to appointments to Bible Study to...(you get the idea!). Add to that the constant reminders to make meals, desserts, or gifts for said groups and it seems too much for one person to handle...right? Well I have started to realize that this is the life of a mother...at least a stay-at-home mother. I can't imagine (yet) the chaos that comes along with being a working mother of two athletes who needs to be in two different places at one time. I'm sure that time will come though.

And here I sit for a few minutes - kidless while my children rest after a long morning of excitement and play time.

I rest in moments like these to reflect on the sweet innocence of my children....



What can be more sweeter?

Even when the volume in the house is at a maximum, they still manage to make me smile and be proud of everything they do. I see more and more promise in every day that my little girl will be a future performer.

This morning we had a play date with some friends at Scotty's Playhouse in McMinnville. The playhouse is located at the church we used to attend when the kids were first born. It is named after my friend Carmen's son, Scotty, who died when he was around 12 year old of cancer. Scotty would be in college if he were with us today. On our way to the playhouse, Maya said "I love Scotty mommy!" Knowing she had never met Scotty I asked her why she loved Scotty to which she replied "Because he's my best friend and he has a park in his house."

Perhaps there was a little too much static around for Kestyn. Can you tell?

Here is my friend Sarah who is starting to show. She just found out she's having another girl! Now Declan will have TWO Ondracek girls to choose from.

I love the look on my friend's son, Brevin's face in this picture. I think he really wanted to play with one of those enormous baseballs.

It was a fun morning.....now I'm off to work on a newsletter.

Our Little Shawn Johnson

Maya started gymnastics last night. Her class age group is 3-6 years but she did really well. I was given the wrong date of the first class so she missed last week's session and was able to make it up last night. TWO HOURS of gymnastics for a 3 year old is a long time but she did great. They stretched, did sommersaults, jumped on the air-blown trampoline, walked on the high balance beam and touched their toes to the uneven bars. I was so proud of her. She is not used to taking instructions from teachers but she did pretty good - aside from being tempted to move on to the next activity before the rest of the group. She made it through the two hours and we treated her with a nice healthy PIZZA dinner afterwards (wink).

(Unfortunately, the lighting made it hard to get good pictures. We managed to get some good video footage though!)

(This video was taken with our regular camera so it too is not the best quality)

What's In a Name - Part II

Jeremy and I decided early on in my second pregnancy that our baby should have a repetitive first and middle initial just like we had done with Maya Marie. I was not about to give up on the middle name I had chosen, Curtis, because it was my maiden name and I had always hoped to keep in the family. So that limited our choices to names starting only with the letter C. We brainstormed for a couple of months and discovered that the only name we had both agreed on was Caleb. After hearing the name pop up more and more, I was convinced that it was too common for my unique taste. So after many months had gone by, I urged Jeremy to continue looking for the perfect name. Now, Jeremy likes more common names like Carter and Cody, but I just couldn't see us choosing either of those names - yes I was selfish! We had it narrowed down to two names the week before I went into the hospital - Jacobi and Declan, both of which I had only heard in passing as I flipped through channels on the television. Jacobi sounded better but Declan looked better on paper. Jacobi meant "he who supplants" and Declan meant "full of goodness."

We did not know the sex of our baby when we went to the hospital. On November 3rd 2007, our beautiful baby boy arrived and the doctor asked what his name was going to be. "Declan Curtis" I replied and Jeremy just looked at me and said "Really?" Nearly 3 weeks had gone by before I heard Jeremy say that our little boy was beginning to look more like a Declan to him. It is an uncommon name and it caused us a lot of mixed-emotions. Did we do the right thing? Will he get teased? Will he like his name? Will he always get people asking him to repeat his name (as we do now). But now I am reminded that our little boy IS full of goodness. He helps me do the laundry. He shares with his sister. He says "I lul you" without always being prompted. He thanks God for his food and blows kisses to random strangers. Declan Curtis is and always will be full of goodness in mommy's and daddy's eyes.

And if he chooses, he can always go by the name D.C. or Curtis.


Birthday - November 3, 2007


1st Birthday


2nd Birthday

Side Note: If Declan had been a girl, his name would have been - without a doubt - Carlee.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY SWEET DECLAN!

Fall & Halloween Festivities

I saw a grass-hopper yesterday jump onto the shrubs in our front yard and thought that all of it's grasshopper friends in Northern Alberta must be jealous of it's ability to still hop about at the end of October. A blanket of snow covers Fort McMurray (where my father lives) yet we have been so blessed down here in Oregon to have had beautiful weather these last few days. Actually, I don't remember ever trick-or-treating in weather as warm as this. The kids were even coatless this year!

We started the festivities off with a fall festival carnival at our church. The kids dressed in their costumes off we went to experience some children's worship time and carnival fun. When the kids spotted their friend Ella (Snow White) in the sanctuary, we were hard pressed to keep all three of them away from the platform area.

I love this picture of Declan (a Train Engineer) and Ella in the pew at church. Looks like they are praying.


Miss Maya (or shall I say SUPER GIRL) in her costume and showing off her new face paint...a butterfly.


Saturday morning we headed to Tualatin for the Annual Pumpkin Boat race. According to the announcer, it is the WORLD'S LARGEST Pumpkin Race Regatta in the WORLD! (Could it be because it is the ONLY pumpkin race regatta in the world? hmmm!) It was fun to watch the Seed Extractors at work...yes carving out a hole in their ginomous pumpkins so they could have somewhere to sit when they began the race. It was hilarious and yet it looked like so much fun. Jeremy even said that we should try growing a huge pumpkin just so we could enter the race next year.

Me and the kids with one of the big pumpkin boats....


A Seed Extractor...



Maya and Declan wanted to paint & decorate a pumpkin at the regatta...

Grandpa's little buddy!

Grandma's little followers!

And the race begins...

Then it was trick-or-treating time. Super Girl got ready by flying all around the house...

Our little Train Engineer looked like a pro as he pounded the pavement, even though it was his first time going door-to-door...

Super daughter is off to the next house!.....SWOOSH!

"That's it daddy?! That's all I got?"

Better to come home early than to have kids bouncing off walls for the next week or so;)