Meet Miguel

If you're not familiar with "Elf on the Shelf" and you have kids, you should definitely become familiar with it. (You can go here to learn more about it.) Mum-Mum bought the elf for us last year, but we didn't think Micah was quite old enough for the tradition - and we knew Liam wasn't.  But this year, we thought Micah could really grasp it.  And has he grasped it.
Meet Miguel.

Miguel is our elf on the shelf. The children who adopt each elf are supposed to name him/her.  When you go to register your elf online and get his official adoption certificate and letter of congratulations from Santa (yes, you can really do this), you can see the top twenty elf names.  Among the top names are Buddy, Elfie, Charlie, Snowflake, and Jingle.
Miguel is not one of them.
Micah has a friend in daycare named Miguel and he must have been on Micah's mind when we talked about naming the elf.  But we're all about encouraging creativity and that's the name Micah chose, so Miguel it is.  After all, this is the boy who named one of his action figures Sloppy Joe.  Not after G.I. Joe. After the actual sandwich.
So if you're not familiar with the tradition, Miguel sits out of reach of the children all day and watches them.  Kind of creepy, I know.  He then flies to Santa each night and reports on their behavior before flying back and resting in a different spot for the next day.  So the fun part is to find Miguel everyday and be extra good so that Miguel tells Santa only good things about Micah and Liam.  Also, if Miguel happens to fall from his perch, the boys know that he is magic and if they touch him, he loses all his magical powers to report back to Santa so there is no tampering with Miguel.
Here's Miguel, next to the Treasure Bucket of stuff we keep on the off chance that Micah stays dry all day and gets a reward.  Interestingly enough, that bucket is Frankenstein, leftover from Halloween, and I didn't notice until I went to post these pictures that it seems like Miguel is making googly eyes at Frankenstein and Frankenstein looks pretty happy about it.  Again, kinda weird.  Thankfully, Miguel is in a different position tonight.