One concern with a bigger house is the potential for spending more time house cleaning. Several people warned me that this is a common pitfall when people move into larger homes. I was prepared for the worst.

So far, it seems that housekeeping has actually decreased. At the old house, there was only one real family room where we did most of our real living. With everybody always in that one room, it was always dirty. Even if I just cleaned it, it would quickly become dirty again. As a result, I was almost always cleaning it. Same with the bathroom. We all used that same bathroom, so it was always dirty and always in need of a scrubbing. Now, with more bathrooms, there are more to clean, but they aren't taking the same beating. I feel like I'm actually spending less time cleaning, and when I do clean, it's more fulfilling because it doesn't get dirty immediately.

So how are we utilizing this new found time? We're doing lots more puzzles, games, and science experiments every day instead of spending that time cleaning.

Christopher is apparently a budding entrepreneur -- his new passion is Monopoly Jr. It actually is a decent educational game -- dealing with money, making change with the bank, adding different amounts of money, counting the dice, reading the chance cards -- it all provides a chance for him to practice some of the basic things he's learning at school. And like his father, I think I have a little entrepreuner on my hands. Monopoly Jr. is getting more play time than some other games he got for his birthday including Scrabble Jr. and Clue Jr. All that money is pretty exciting to my boy.