Happy Webkinz Day!

OK, I'll confess. One of our dirty little secrets is that we have Webkinz. Lots of them. And most of them belong to me.

I tried. I resisted. I thought the last thing my children needed was another excuse to stare at a screen. When my mother-in-law asked if she could get my kids Webkinz for Easter one year, I looked down from my high horse and said "no".

Then when Katie Grace turned 7, she was given one for her birthday. We registered it and were hooked.

I get the arguments: the dolls themselves are dust collectors, the site encourages rampant consumerism, online relationships with pretend animals isn't healthy, if the tiger's favorite food is a zebra dog and you adopt a zebra, aren't you putting the zebra in a potentially hazardous situation... believe me, I've thought of them all. And yet here we are, proud owners of a herd of Webkinz.

Sigh.

My kids get 30 minutes of screen time a day. That's 30 minutes of computer time OR television OR a DVD OR a game. Frankly, I'd rather they spend it playing Webkinz than zoning out with Little Bear.

All of this serves to introduce our pictures from the Webkinz Extravaganza at Gustonian Gifts downtown on First Friday. The kids played tons of games and won tons of prizes. Daniel even won a coloring contest, which I find hilarious. But most of all, they loved the children's singer who came and performed. Michael, of course, was too cool for it all and hung out with Daddy at Otto's.
Here are Katie Grace and Nicholas, pretending to be fishies. Check out the awesome puppy face painting!

And Katie Grace loved playing the frog scraper.

Even Daniel enjoyed dancing (and drooling) to the music!

And since we had Mother's Day gifts, a birthday gift, and a baby gift to purchase anyway, we even got to buy one or two (OK, 4) of the special $1 Webkinz. Everyone wins!