Nightmare Before Christmas

Cora wants to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!! She is looking forward to opening presents later in the day, after our big Christmas Day feast. At the moment, it is early afternoon and she is taking a nap. That is a GOOD thing. But more about that later.

Here are three generations of Howards at the Kingsbury Episcopi church, where Stace was christened as a baby. We went with Gord's sister and her adult daughters and grandson for the Christmas Eve service. It was neat attending such a traditional service in a beautiful old church, very different from what we are used to.
Before the service started, Cora and Ben played with Sue and Gord. Ben is 2 1/2, and the son of Stace's cousin Karen and her husband, Martin.
The children were given special oranges with glo-sticks, since candles have been outlawed by Health and Safety. Lovely!
And back to the sleeping - and the title of this blog entry. Our dear sweet baby has been body-snatched and taken over by Monster Cora. She is wide awake every night for several hours, and last night spent several hours screaming. Literally, screaming, without console. Dean and Jenny had spent the night, so there were six adults kept awake all night with her. We're getting close to our wit's end with her. Advice, tips? We're open! Stace and I figure it's our due, since she's been such an easy baby for so long. She is tired enough in the day that she quickly becomes cranky and screams in the daytime, too. I've been trying hard to put her on her normal daytime eating/sleeping schedule, in hopes that she would then go to bed easier. She is going to bed fine, but then wakes up and starts screaming. Today I think I'll allow her to nap much more than normal, and perhaps she'll catch up on sleep and be better able to sleep tonight.

Oh, on a sidenote, while we're in England we're not downsizing the photos before putting them up. Please leave a comment if this is a problem. (If it's not a problem, maybe I'll stop spending the time to downsize them when we get home too.)