First Family Prepares For Spotlight

Nov. 5, 2008— -- The nation's new First Family will be a family of firsts. For the first time, an African-American family will live in the White House. And the Obamas will be the first family since the Kennedys to bring the laughter of two young children to the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Friends often describe the Obamas as a regular, down-to-earth American family. There's Mom and Pumpski -- that's one of Michelle's pet names for the president-elect. Malia is 10 and Sasha is just 7.

Yvonne Davila is one of Michelle's closest friends. They do everything together. Just a few weeks ago they took their kids shopping for Halloween costumes at Party City in Chicago on a Saturday morning. Yvonne told Michelle it might be more practical to simply order costumes online this year. But Michelle wouldn't hear of it. She insisted they keep their yearly tradition of hauling their kids to the store to pick their costumes.

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"They still go to soccer. They still go to ballet on Saturday mornings… that hasn't changed," said Dalia. "If that were going to change, it would have changed by now."

The Obamas have worked hard to maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible for the girls during the campaign. Barack Obama stepped away from the campaign to drop his two daughters off for their first day of school, and took them trick-or-treating in Hyde Park, Chicago, with his Secret Service bodyguards trailing behind.

But preserving their childhoods -- one complete with carpools and sleepovers -- gets trickier as the family moves to the even brighter glare of the White House.

Michelle Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts in August that she has sought guidance from women like Senator Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore, who have experience dealing with an invasive press, on how to protect her daughters. Chelsea Clinton had kept her life private, still choosing not to grant interviews during Clinton's run for the nomination.

"Part of it is, is keeping them, keeping their worlds very much their own. So we're learning and growing and figuring it out," Mrs. Obama said.