Family Letori-Doyle: Busy, busy, busy!

This may be a looong post!

Christmas was great. It was wonderful to see our families again and to have Grandparents willing to amuse Inara for a while! We started off flying to Manchester to see Mark's Mum, step-Dad (Ronnie) and his Grandparents. Inara took the flight in her stride, I fed her during take off she fell asleep and didn't wake up until we were about to land. Her face during touch down was priceless though! I wish I'd thought to get the camera out, her eyes were huge and her jaw just dropped when the engines kicked into reverse.

We were thrilled that Ronnie had given us his car for Christmas now he has a new one. It's 7 years old, but in fantastic condition. More importantly, we can get all three of us in it, plus the pram, woo! The Z3 is parked up under Mark's work, and there it will stay for a while.

Christmas Day was spend with Mark's family (as above) plus his uncle, Jimmy, and later his aunt, Helen, and cousin, Hannah. We stuffed ourselves on Ronnie's awesome cooking, then played Scattergories and Buzz in the evening.

Just before Christmas Day, we drove (in our new car!) to see Mark's Dad and step-Mum, Jan, for three nights. It was lovely to see Inara's cousin Josh with her. He's only 2 and he can't pronounce Inara, so she gets called 'Inana', like 'Banana'! He was obsessed with her, always asking where she was, wanting to sit with her and give her kisses, so sweet!

Inara was fantastic, slept wherever we plonked her at bedtime just like she was at home. She slept in a single bed in the spare room at Mark's Mum's, then in a cot in the nursery at his Dad's, and finally at my parent's house, 3 nights in our room in a travel cot as my sister and her bf were in the other spare room, then 4 in the spare room once they'd left. I was so worried she'd either not sleep as we'd disturb her, or she'd get used to us being there, but we didn't hear a peep from her! She had a few 'stranger danger' crying moments when she first saw a couple of Grandparents again, but she was tired and they were a bit in her face.

The looooong drive home (14 hours!!) was a real test for her. She slept in the car for her morning nap at about 10am, just drifted off peacefully for an hour. She got tired while we were waiting for the ferry and had just nodded off in my arms when we had to board, doh! I think being in the car at night freaks her out a bit when she's tired. She couldn't see me as much and cried quite a bit before sleeping for an hour. She then was good as gold when I changed her into her PJs in a service station (classy!), and then went to sleep at about 8:30pm and stayed asleep until we got home at 12:30am.

The house was FREEZING cold. I'd turned the heating off, but thought the taps to the rooms had been left on, so all Claudi had to do was turn the main tap on again...but Mark had gone and turned the whole system off! This meant turning on the main tap did nothing at all, and because it's underfloor heating, it took forever to heat up. It took 2 days to get back to normal. Poor Inara, her bedroom was 8 degrees when she went to bed on Sunday night!! I had to put 2 duvets and a blanket on her, and then set my alarm for 4am to go and check on her. She was fine though and slept through until 7am, when she came into bed with us for a snooze until 9am.

I'm sad Christmas is over, but Inara scored big with presents. Lots of things that drive Daddy mad with their flashing lights and repetitive music, hee. He favourite things are stacking cups, Sophie the Giraffe and a taggie blanket we bought her.

Here are some of my favourite pictures taken over the holiday period: