DSLR Camera

I have 4 kids under the age of 6, and it seems that there are a lot of times that the point and shoot camera I have just can't keep up with the kids. I've tried several brands and models, both personally and in the store, but they all seem to have too great of a shutter "lag" to capture the kids the instant I hit the button. This has caused me to consider a consumer level DSLR. I don't know much about photography, but my understanding is that you basically buy into a system of lenses, Canon or Nikon, for example, and then you upgrade bodies down the road.

This seems like a reasonable system, although since I don't know much about photography, I'm forced to do a ridiculous amount of research to make an informed decision. As near as I can tell, the two biggest players, Canon and Nikon, have followers akin to Ford or Chevy.

Anyway, so I'm coming into a small windfall in about 2 weeks, and I think I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on the Canon XSi. I suppose one can double think this into infinity, but I'm sure that it is more than sufficient for my needs. It really doesn't hurt that the price is down something like 40% from this time last year...