Christmas Eve bowling

 That hair!!

 Someone found the jackpot; she's already way interested in candy...thanks to her sisters. 

 We have a walker! She's been moving around for the past three weeks, but I would confidently say that she's a full-fledged walker now. She really stopped crawling the Sunday before Christmas and hasn't found any reason to slow down yet. 

 These girls. So different, and yet so very similar. Elle had a minor meltdown at the end of bowling when we told her she had to give the shoes back. Now she wants bowling shoes for her birthday. 

Last year we went bowling on Christmas Eve for the first time. It was sort of a last-ditch attempt to not kill each other last year. I had raging nursing hormones, the girls had grumpy, impatient attitudes and Tim was just aloof to all of it. So in an effort to find something to do, we stumbled upon a bowling alley that had a lane available, and we jumped at the chance. 

We decided to do it again this year since it was fun last year. We met up with our friends from Wisconsin and bowled the morning away. It was way more fun this year, particularly because the girls were one year older and had a better understanding of what to do. V won the game, which made Mya steaming mad, but that's Mya, and we're all learning how to deal with her hyper-competitiveness and poor attitude when it comes to games. V was oblivious to the actual score; all she cared about was knocking as many pins over as fast as possible. Elle bowled about six rounds before calling it quits and searching for "nacks," which is typical of her. And Birdie was just everywhere. My main worry was that someone would bump her accidentally and drop a ball on her or that she'd pinch her tiny fingers between the balls, but none of that happened, and she loved the experience.

Tim and I have decided that bowling will be a fun, family tradition for us on Christmas Eve. While everyone else hits the stores for last minute gifts, we'll gladly opt out of that scene and bowl the day away.