It’s not Christmas without wine, Chinese food and banana cookies.

(Notice Santa is sporting Carolina Blue…)

We spent the first weekend of the month celebrating Tommy’s birthday in western North Carolina.  A big thanks to Grandma Barbara and Aunt Laura for watching Kaya for the weekend.  Here’s Tommy showing off the overcast skies and overcrowded landscape that we experienced during our stop at the Biltmore.

Happy Birthday Tommy!

A swingset!  Built by the fabulous Travis Sorensen and Tom Rose.

Many thanks to Grandma Barbara and Aunt Laura for helping to watch Kaya over the last week.  Kaya and Grandma had a great time!

Laura, however, spent her week getting to know North Carolina intestinal illnesses.  Thank you daycare!

Carry them around in bags!

Travis is the best (pseudo) uncle ever!  Thanks for Kaya’s new airplane – hold on tight!

We had a feast for Thanksgiving with all the usual nosh.  Our first extended family-less Thanksgiving (thanks to the UNC heme/onc department) was actually quite nice.  Travis and Tommy cooked all day and then a bunch of the other first year fellows and their significant others came for dinner.  The fried turkey was to die for.  Overall a great day!

The obligatory leaf pile pre-Thanksgiving picture