Favorite Toys

While watching my sister's kids on Saturday, I was taken back to memories of when I was a kid.  When the oldest kids were little, about the size of the ones in the picture, we would take the big bag of blocks someone had given us, dig out the toy cars and the Fisher Price Little People and play for hours on the tomato-soup-orange or (later) chocolate-milk-brown carpet in the living room.  We'd build buildings, make up stories, fuss at each other for knocking down what had been created, or about who got which blocks/cars/people.  It was great fun!  Memories like that caused me to stock up on wooden blocks before I moved out on my own, in hopes that some day, either my children, or my nieces/nephews would play with and enjoy them.

The girls also dug out my old dolls and played with them a while.  I had fun telling them how "old" the dolls are and things I remember about getting them.  The yellow-haired pseudo-Cabbage patch doll on the left is on Grandma Chancellor made for us one year for Christmas.  Another Christmas, I got the honest-to-goodness Cabbage Patch sitting next to the yellow-haired doll.  (My niece was amused when I told her you can tell a REAL Cabbage Patch doll by the signature on it's backside.) :-)  The red-headed Strawberry Shortcake Kissing Baby doll was one I got for Christmas when I was 8.  Grandma asked me specifically what I wanted, and I wanted that doll.  I was thrilled to get it that Christmas.  The small Fisher Price doll was a doll I received when I was a year old for my birthday.  It's held up pretty well, all things considered.  The larger doll on the right is a doll I got when I turned 2.  It's seen some abuse (my brothers delighted in tormenting us girls by putting our dolls on the ground and jumping on them from time to time) and lots of loving and could use a new cloth body.

Other favorite toys were:

• Adjustable, old, metal roller skates that we used to learn to skate on the sloping part of the concrete driveway.
• Bicycles - especially the blue 9-speed I got for my 9th birthday.  But just about any bike would do. :-)
• Books (or can't you tell that from the pictures?) :-)
• Balls - basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, tennis balls... and sometimes our brothers even let us play with them. :-)  Horse, 4-square, and catch were probably my favorite ball-games.  I did (a long time ago) learn how to throw a football, but am long since out of practice.
• Board games

What were some of your favorite toys, or favorite memories of games?