Nolan's 1st Christmas

As with all holidays around the Riley household, traditions have already been established and this year it was so much fun to share them with Nolan. We started off with two Christmas Eve church services - the first one at 3:30 at All Saints Episcopal Church with the entire Riley clan and the second one at 5:30 at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church with just the three of us. Next year, it'll be tough to make two church services with an 18 month old in tow, but for this year, it was wonderful.

(Nolan and Grandma after Church)

(Nolan and Poppop after Church)
(Nolan with Aunt Meg and Uncle Greg (UG))(Nolan and Tia E)

Following church, we headed to Grandma and Poppop's house for the traditional tamale and burro dinner. Soooo incredibly yummy and I even decided to break my Nolan-diet and eat some cheese & gluten products. A tortilla with cheese and meat never tasted to good!

After all this, we were in a nice little food coma and headed home to put Nolan down for the night and begin to prepare the food for Christmas morning. I made the usual Egg strata that is a Krautmann Family Christmas morning tradition that I've brought over to the Riley's, but also added something new this year - Creme Brulee french toast. Now I don't like to brag, but it was delicious (as I was told by numerous family members) and I think it's going to become part of our Christmas morning tradition. Brian also started preparing the roast that he was going to make for Christmas brunch. After all was done, we headed to bed for a few hours of sleep.

Christmas morning, we rose early and loaded up the car with gifts, Nolan and Sullivan and headed to the Riley's house. This is where all the fun began - stuffing each other's stockings, drinking coffee, eating food and sharing gifts with one another. Of course this year there was the added entertainment of Nolan. In summary, I'm not sure if Webster got the memo, but "spoiled" now has a new spelling...N-O-L-A-N. Here are just a few of the many pictures we took on Christmas. Nolan was buried in presents and wrapping paper. He LOVED opening every gift and is already enjoying his presents. He got some super-cute clothes, his first pair of Vans shoes, an airplane spoon, finger puppets and his first toolbox. The funniest part is that his favorite toy thus far is the empty Airborne tube that Poppop put in Nolan's "guy stuff" toolbox. Nolan loves to talk into the tube as well as bang it on the metal toolbox. I'll try to capture this on video so that you can enjoy it, but for now, here's plenty of pictures of him tearing open his gifts.

And just in case any one forgets, opening presents is VERY hard work and is quite taxing on your energy. Nolan (and Tia E) was no exception to this rule, and took a nice nap on Tia E shortly after opening all his gifts!