Sledding

It snowed again here in Columbus, so we took the opportunity to participate in one of Owen's favorite activities: sledding!  We went with our friend Lindsey, affectionately referred to as "Inney" in our household.  Owen went down all by himself and climbed back up (almost) every time.

It was pretty cold.

We had races down the hill

Then we headed home for hot chocolate

Spaghetti & Meatball night

This is what spaghetti and meatball night at our house looks like:

How about at yours?

Christmas!

Christmas we spent in Utah with Casey's family.  It was great.  Here are the pictures (we all know that that's what everyone cares about).

Photoshoots

Time with Nana (always a favorite)

 Snow fun 

(Casey and I built a sweet sledding track to help people avoid the trees)

Casey spent four days on this igloo and was very proud of it.  (I helped to build bricks during Owen's naps.)

 We had some great family devotionals

Decorating Mamma May's 

(watch the progression):

1. Put on M&Ms (a favorite)

2. Wipe hands on new sweater

3. Decide cookie is complete

 4. Eat cookie

Christmas Eve

Santa pancakes (a Ditto family tradition)

Nativity 

(Probably my favorite picture from Christmas.  This is Mary sharing the baby Jesus with the wise men. Totally unscripted.)

Christmas eve jammies

 Christmas morning

The antlers were this year's present opener hat.  We're really excited about our new camera.

 Casey and I did the turkey.  We were quite proud.

Merry Christmas!

December recap

Sorry to get so behind.  Here is our December (not including Christmas).

For my birthday Casey and I went to this restaurant called Cap City Diner.  It is advertised as a gourmet spin on traditional diner fare.  Their most popular dishes are their meatloaf and their pork chops.  It was phenomenal.  We stopped talking for the first five minutes after our meals arrived we were enjoying it so much.  I found a copycat recipe online and decided to try to replicate it.  It's a meatloaf with porcini mushrooms and fresh herbs served on Texas toast topped with buttermilk mashed potatoes and a BBQ gravy, garnished with some crispy fried onions.  Our verdict was that we will probably continue serving our meatloaf in that way, but will stick with our old meatloaf recipe as this one was a little greasy. Here's the recipe if you're interested.

For a special December date Casey took me to Ballet Met's The Nutcracker.  It was such a fun night.

Two of our Christmas traditions are making and decorating Mamma May cookies (a sugar cookie recipe from Casey's family) and going caroling at a nursing home.  We combined those into one night this year and invited some friends to join us.  Owen LOVED all aspects of preparing the cookies: mixing, rolling out, cutting, eating (probably way too much dough).  We had such a fun time baking together, and look forward to many more Christmas baking memories.

Lastly, since we were flying to Utah for Christmas and didn't want to check more than one bag, we decided to have "fake Christmas" before we left.  We woke up, opened presents, went to church, and then had a big Christmas dinner.  We didn't get many pictures, but here's Owen opening a present!

Happy December!  (Christmas post forthcoming.)