Indoor play with Webkinz when mom's sick

There were no outdoor adventures this week at the Almeida homestead. I was sick and in no shape to do more than our basic weekly schedule (which was hardly restful) so the kids spent more time than usual on the computer.

Both girls received Webkinz stuffed animals for Christmas from their cousins in New York and have been consumed with their animals and its virtual "room" online.

Basically Webkinz are small stuffed animals that have an ID tag. Kids log onto the Webkinz website and register their animal's ID number. The website hosts a virtual room for that animal and gives the kids virtual money to decorate their room and play with their pet. When the kids run out of money, they are prompted to play games (some more educational than others) to earn more for their pet. (The whole concept of Webkinz is quite clever; basically by purchasing the stuffed animal you've bought a subscription to a website.)

The other component of the website is the Kinz Chat, a way kids can virtually visit their friends who also have Webkinz. But the kids have to know their friend's Webkinz user name to "chat" which I really like; I can easily monitor who they are talking to. 

So this week the girls were in Webkinz bliss because both of our home computers were available for them to play with their pets and visit each other's rooms.

G. had talked to me previously about making a video of her pet online to share with her Webkinz-less friends for her YouTube channel. As I was recording G., L. decided to spice things up as only she can do.

L., while visiting G.'s room through the Kinz Chat, had her pet tell G.'s pet "Looks like this room isn't decorated yet." This prompted G. to gasp and yell into the other room to ask why L. thought that.

"Because you're room is naked!" L. replied.

I caught this bit of "action" on the video clip but as you can see below, L. has a very different idea on decorating.

G.'s room with its calming color scheme yet has a little fun thrown in with the little trampoline (lower left).

L.'s room - and although a bit hard to detect with the busy color scheme is the big giant white bunny decoration (white blob just left of bottom center). It sort of speaks for itself.