Happy Birthday Grandma Pizza

Happy Birthday to my Mom! I hope you are having a fantastic day and I wonder if you can figure out the meaning behind these pictures?

Kid Update

Mya Williams came to Chicago in October for a visit. She did come with her parents and we all had a really great time. Natalie loved having her turn to hold Mya. Natalie is my busy girl. She loves a task whether it be cleaning floors, putting away groceries, or holding a sweet baby. She is eager to help. Today while I was cooking dinner, Natalie declared that she was "usable". I questioned her definition and sure enough, she said that she was bored but that she could be used to help out - usable.

Alise had a 4th grade project due a few weeks ago. She was to research Harriet Tubman and write facts about her, make a puppet, and then dress as Harriet Tubman to do a presentation before her class. Alise was very impressive! Of course, I am a bit bias. I tried to put the video of her on this blog update, but it didn't work. I'll work on something for you, Mom! :)

Emily and I went to Minneapolis to visit my sister and meet her new baby girl, Hannah. What a joy it was to spend some time with my sister and her family. Emily was a great help and she was a joy to travel with!

Luke has often said that he would like to be a professional colorer when he grows up. I have talked him through this and he agrees that being an architect would be fun. So I think that it's all settled. Luke is going to play professional baseball and then retire and be an architect. :) Well, wouldn't ya know! Luke entered a fall coloring contest at a local park and today we found out that he won! His winnings: big pack of DOTS and a gift card to Dunkin Donuts! I'm just sad that I never took a picture of his coloring exhibit.

Another festive Halloween: Emi and Alise are dice, Natalie is a Home Depot worker, and Luke is Darth Vader.

Posted by: Anita O.

Chicago Marathon

Hurray! I had a goal to run the Chicago Marathon this October. I had decided that training for the marathon would give me a chance to have more discipline and fitness in my life. I knew that if I was going to run a Marathon, I would have no choice but to routinely exercise. I had a rough last month of training because of a pulled leg muscle, but I just wanted to finish what I had started. I finished the marathon in 6 hours and 48 minutes! It took longer to finish than I would have liked, but my goal was to finish so I am very happy! I am so thankful to God for getting me through it! I can't tell you how many times I called out to Him. :)

My running buddy! Dave ran with me the last 5 miles and what a great help that was to me!

I was told that after they saw me at mile 5, Natalie announced that they were finished and it was time to go home. Good thing she had no idea how long she still had to wait. :)

This is my cheering section. I should have a picture of all of you cheering for me from home too! Your words of encouragement and prayers are greatly appreciated. Thank you all!

Quick Update from Anita

Natalie and Dave enjoying banana cream pie in Lake Geneva, WI

Luke, Emily, Alise, and Natalie at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Ostercamp and Bailey Cousins

The Family

Ostercamp, Lenz, and Bergmeier Cousins with the Grandparents

Yes, it's Anita again. Please continue to bug Dave to make more posts! I'll keep putting pictures on to keep the blog as current as possible, but Dave is the real writer! Anyway, here are a few pictures from the past months. We hope your summer has been great! Enjoy this last month before fall!

Picture Summary of our Past Month

In reverse order from May 28 to June 12, here is our summary. I tried to compact it all, but you can click on the pictures to see them better.

We had to say good-bye to Oscar and Lina. They went back to Sweden and will finish their studies there. We are so blessed to have had these friends here during our first two years at North Park. We will miss them greatly. (June 12)

Blackhawks Fever (June 11)

For our Marklund good-bye party, we went to play Whirlyball. So much fun! (June 9)

Dori and Sylvia came to visit us. We took them to the Shedd Aquarium and enjoyed having them hang around Chicago with us for a few days. Natalie and Sylvia even fell down outside the Shedd and scraped their knees up at the same time. True friends. (June 7)

Grandpa and Grandma O came for a weekend visit and we went to Lake Michigan. The kids are always up for a swim even in cloudy and cold weather! (June 5)

Alise ran a 5K run with her Girls on the Run group. She and I ran together and Alise was great! (June 5)

We enjoyed some Willmar fun in the sun over the Memorial weekend. Emily got to hang out with her friend, Kayla, all weekend. We also had a nice visit with my family, but I was a poor picture taker in Bloomington. (May 30)

Ahhh, the Twins! We enjoyed a game at the new Target Field. The Carlson's and William's joined us in Minneaoplis to watch the Twins. Our night was super fun!! (May 28)

The Pains of Losing a Tooth!

Look at this loose tooth! For weeks, no, months! - we couldn't look at Luke's smart face without seeing this dangling tooth that lived in his mouth. We tried to bribe Luke with extra money if he'd let us pull the tooth out. Even people outside of our family tried to convince Luke to let them pull his tooth. One night, Dave tried to yank out the tooth while Luke was sleeping! (Probably not a good parent moment, but Luke doesn't know because he never woke up.)

I got so desperate to get the tooth out of Luke's mouth and convinced him to tie a string around it so that he could easily yank it out of there (I took some tugs too). As you can see, that didn't totally go over well and it didn't even work!

Finally! On Sunday morning, Luke bit into a donut and out came the tooth. Who would have thought that a trip to Dunkin' Donuts would do the trick!

Posted by: Anita O.