He knows if you've been bad or good

On Sunday we celebrated St. Nicholas Day and the boys woke up to find our new house guest for the holidays - Ernie the Elf.

For those of you unfamiliar Elf on a Shelf is usually an Elf who is sent by Santa. The elf hangs out and each night magically returns to the North Pole to report to Santa about how everyone is behaving. The elf returns by morning and can be mischievous so you never know where you will find him the next morning. There are lots of variations of the tradition, but that is how it plays out here.

So Ernie arrived Sunday morning - we explained that he was helping report back to Santa for his Naughty or Nice list and less than an hour later this is what I walked in on after taking less than 2 minutes to go to the bathroom:

And later that afternoon:

Because I rushed out of the bathroom when I heard the crash that brought the recycling can down I forgot to shut the bathroom door! Thankfully we were toward the end of a roll.

Needless to say there were a few things in the Naughty column on Ernie's first report!