Baby blessing

Sunday we had Gavin's baby blessing at church, and it was great to have both sets of grandparents here for it! We love his cute outfit, which you can see better below. The tiny tie is our favorite. After the blessing we had everyone, including our good friends Becky & Mike and their new baby Michaela (as well as Becky's mom Wendy and grandma Marge) for dinner. Here's Gavin making his first move on a girl--she's obviously not impressed. Gavin is such an awesome, cute guy, and his blessing day was really special!

Our handsome son

Ely Cathedral

Today we visited Ely Cathedral, a huge and beautiful cathedral not too far from our house. It was a fun experience for Gavin because he faced out in the Bjorn for the first time.

My Dad and I took a tour of the octagonal tower, which is not the taller tower, but I think it's the more beautiful one. Below is a view from the floor looking up into the tower. You can kinda see the paintings of angels below the stained glass; then there's a couple of photos of the angels from up close when we climbed the tower.

They wouldn't let us take Gavin on the tour because of the narrow, steep passageways to the top, and that was a good call. The next photo of my Dad descending shows how cramped that spiral staircase is.

Here are a few additional photos from our day. (I'm standing next to a statue of Saint Etheldreda, the founder of the cathedral. And that's just the romanized version of her name. It's really something like AEthelthryth.)

jumperoo

Jacob's brother Jon and his wife Micaela gifted Gavin a jumperoo when he was born, and it's pretty cool. He's been a bit short for it (even though he's 90th percentile for height), but last weekend we removed the book we were using under his feet (you can see the Shakespeare book in the above photo). Below, the first time we put him in the jumperoo he fell asleep, but he's started to enjoy it, as you can see from subsequent photos. He gets fixated on some of the characters, like the next two photos where he's loving the blue frog.
His most frequent object of earnest obsession is the red bird (below). He's pretty intense about it.

Here he's talking to the blue elephant.And the yellow monkey. And sometimes he notices I'm still there. :)

This week (he's 12 weeks)

Gavin is continuing to enjoy all the attention from grandparents. I think the enjoyment is mutual, and I'm not sure what I'll do when my parents leave!

Gavin had his first immunizations last week, and it was traumatic for all of us. When the doctor tells you the baby will take his cues from you and be ok if you're ok, she's lying. He'll scream his head off from the moment the needle hits his leg and for several hours thereafter. Yesterday we went to Lavenham to see the cute old buildings. (Jacob and I visited Lavenham in 2009.) Grandpa carried Gavin in the Baby Bjorn and loved it. Gavin mostly slept. Below, we stopped at a little tea room for hot chocolate. Gavin woke only briefly (hence the binky). When I was a kid my brothers and I loved to climb on Dad's lap for his animated readings of Dr. Seuss books. Below, Gavin is enjoying just such an event. Very cute. A friend gave Gavin these slippers. At first I thought he'd never wear them, but Grandma put them on a few weeks ago, and he's basically been wearing them ever since. I'll be a little sad when his feet grow out of them!

And since he's such a busy guy, Gavin still takes lots of naps. To be fair, so do Grandma & Grandpa.

Three years

This weekend marked our 3-year anniversary of living in England. I know it's risky to make such sweeping statements, but we really have loved every second of it! We've tried to make the most of our time over here, and we're not about to stop.

Here's a summary of a few highlights from the last 3 years:

• Number of blog posts: 237
• Countries visited: 27
• Continents visited: 4
• Stage productions seen: 12
• Castles visited: 23 (at least)
• Art museums visited (we're not counting non-art museums): 12
• Visits from friends & family: 11





• Prize for most visits & longest visits: Rachel's Mom Sheri


• Christmas markets visited: 11
• Times we wished we lived anywhere else (including the USA): 0
• And the absolute best thing to come from the last 3 years:

Grandparents galore!

Gavin has now met all of his grandparents, and I'm sure he doesn't realize how lucky he is! Jacob's parents arrived Friday, and here they are with Gavin. They're in Scotland right now, but we'll be sure to post more photos with them when they get back.