March 2009




We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary this March! We couldn't have had a better one. Granted, we were a little more sleep deprived than previous years and our anniversary fell during spring break so a babysitter was nowhere to be found. So Josephine just went with us to Bodean's Seafood restaurant where Tor had the delicious San Francisco-Style Cioppino and Clare had tempura Orange Roughy. Top it off with a nice white Riesling, stout brew and chocolate dessert and we had a wonderful meal, anniversary celebration and celebration of the first year of our marriage with Josephine's presence! We had a delightful time and enjoyed an EARLY bedtime to catch up on lots of lost sleep.

Here in Tulsa summer is on its way...with a large snow here and there. :) We are still laughing about our eight inch snow! We missed it, because Clare and Josephine packed up and went with Tor to sunny California for a business/fun trip. This was Josephine's first plane ride and she did wonderfully! No ear problems whatsoever and she didn't cry once unless Clare took too long to attach her to the boob when she got hungry. :)
We loaded for shipping two fantastic old coffee roasters that are now ours. We were in Chico, CA most of the time and enjoyed immensely the fruit, nut and olive orchards we passed on our drive from Sacramento to Chico. We passed thousands and thousands of beautiful, blossoming trees. These roasters, circa 1945, are vintage jewels that roast coffee better than any new roaster out there. We are so excited! Big Ben ( the Red one) can roast easily 3000 lbs plus per day. After finally getting them loaded and banded down we headed to Redding to Bill Johnson's church. It was really wonderful. We also drove around and ate like pigs. Since Clare is breastfeeding there is a very high calorie consumption on her behalf. However, Tor has had sympathetic eating pangs and has put on a justified 7 extra pounds to boot. Eatin' is great right now.



Josephine is two and a half months old now! She's a petite little one weighing in at 10 pounds for her two month Dr. appointment. She was droopy after her first immunizations and cried every time you touched her little leg. She had fun in California - getting lots of time with both Mom and Dad. She snuggled Dad in the mornings and hung out with Mom during the day while Dad worked. She LOVES showers! She just sits there and chills as long as she's in the warm water. She doesn't even mind her face getting wet and just lets the water run over her. Tor thinks she will be a good swimmer, and we're looking forward to giving that a go in the pool this summer. She has finally learned the pacifier has some tiny value to her occasionally. Thank goodness, I think it really helped her ears on the flight. She still isn't a huge paci fan, but will suck it for short periods of time and if we repeatedly stick it in her mouth.



Vanna girl is doing well and somewhat adjusting to not being the only baby. Big adjustment for her! Her bird dog skills are improving every season it seems and she is growing very obedient to Tor. Tor's training skills have alot to do with this I'm certain. It makes her even more pleasant to have around.


Josephine's Development:

Well, according to the books, Josephine should be smiling in response to our smiles, blowing bubbles, recognizing our voices, cooing and holding her head up for short periods. She does all these things and more! She smiles so adorably and we think she's close to laughing because when she smiles really big her mouth goes open wide and she gurgle coos in her throat. The bubble blowing she has down pat and she will talk and coo all the time. She's working on the three months developmental objectives by stuffing her whole fist in her mouth and sucking, turning to the sound of our voices and turns from her side to her back. No more couch laying without supervision!



We are really looking forward to the summer and the warm fun it will bring.

Official Pictures

Hey everyone! A photographer snapped some shots of Josephine for us to pick an announcement picture from...check them out.

www.brendahoran.com

Go to "client proofing" at the bottom of the screen.
Type in the password clarebear and voila.

Pics of Josephine are in her "babies" slideshow too.

Test Video!!

This is a test to see if video downloads to the blog. It's of Vanna when she was a puppy on our road trip home from picking her up.

For Mom, Dad, B.B. and Nadine - we're trying to get the videos from supper downloaded to the computer! Coming soon...

Here are more pictures!

Wow! Time flies so fast; my last post was Jan. 31st. We are all doing well around here. Josephine is almost 5 weeks old and has met both sets of grandparents and several other members of the extended family. She's a mover and a shaker. :)
After Pete, Joie and the rest of the family headed back to Seattle, Tor, Clare, Josephine and Vanna went to MarVal trout camp for a little bit of campfire and down home fun as a new family. Josephine was a good baby and as long as she was cuddled in her carrier right next to one of us, she was a happy trout camper. Vanna adored the fishing...she retrieved fish from the fishing line! She jumped in the water and swam all around - in spite of the frigid water temperature.
Valentine's Day was exciting as usual. We spent it with the Rice's, as we do every year, and made a meal fit for royalty. This year held added excitement as there were three kids to laugh, fuss, cry and play. We did have a casualty, though. Andrew Rice is at his peak in the crawling stage and found the rice cooker on the floor and thought the steam looked fascinating enough to touch...imagine the outcome by the time we could get to him! Poor guy. He is in the pic above looking quite put out. The Asian meal consisting of miso soup and sushi turned out well although an hour or so later than planned. Lydia Rice is quite the little baby caretaker - she loves to take care of Andrew and hold baby Josephine!
Tor is doing well and roasting ALOT of coffee. We are looking forward to a new espresso machine at the shop and to the website being almost finished. He is a fabulous daddy who adores his little girl. Josephine loves him as well - she can be in a deep sleep and when he walks through the door she'll wake up and fuss until he picks her up for a cuddle. She likes his songs and play times already.
Clare is still quite sleep deprived as getting up three times at night is just hard to adjust to. You can see from the picture above that the average morning finds me looking something like this. :) We just got announcement pictures taken, so Clare will be working on getting those out once she decides which one to use!! They are all adorable, of course.

Memoirs of Granny

January 29th around 6:00 pm Annette Nordstrom - aka "Granny" passed on to her heavenly home. She died peacefully in her sleep when her heart finally decided to stop functioning. Her 99th birthday was coming up in March. Tor and Clare have both had so many wonderful memories with Granny; she immediately adopted Clare as another grandchild and Tor would go spend many hours with her up in Kansas City where she lived. She was the first to meet Clare after Tor and Clare met, first to meet Vanna, and first to know that Miss Josephine was on the way. She relished her position as "family matriarch" she would say. She was a delightful little bohemian woman who was a school teacher in her younger years. She taught us Czech and Swedish words when we would come to visit. We are sad, but only a little, because Granny really wanted nothing more than to go home to heaven where she could trade her "wearing out" body with a healthy young one.

We know she died in peace knowing that Josephine was born safely and Taryn was engaged to the man she loved. She told us many times the only reason she was alive was to pray for the family and those were two very specific items of prayer for her! :) She was completely coherent and alert until the last couple of days before she died. In fact, the night she died Tor, Clare and Josephine received in the mail a handwritten congratulations card and check from her. Also, Pete and Joie received a box of Jack Stacks BBQ in celebration of their 41st wedding anniversary the night she passed. Amazing timing.

Thank you, Granny! You are in a better, more glorious place than we can imagine where your knees don't hurt and your heart works perfectly. We love you so much - Tor, Clare, Josephine and Vanna Nordstrom

Okay, here are a couple more adorable pictures when Josephine was a week old...also, I'm trying to replace the facebook link - it should take you straight to the album and not ask you for a login. Here goes. Copy and paste the link into the web address area. Love!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040648&l=85e6b&id=79102684

Josephine's first week has been wonderful. Joie, Tor's mom has been here the whole time doing dishes and cooking like a champ! The first two nights when Tor and I were unspeakably exhausted she stayed on the couch with Josephine in her little glow worm setup so Tor and I could sleep in between every hour and a half feedings. God bless her!!

Taryn, Tor's sister and her fiancee, David came in to visit for the weekend, so we have been having fun family and friend cooking gatherings and celebrations.

Josephine couldn't be more beautiful.

For more pictures go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040648&l=85e6b&id=79102684