I know most of the toys they make these days are pretty much the same as what we had as kids. I see them in the stores – Fisher Price just updating their toys to be bigger so kids don’t choke on them. When I was a kid, we had tons of toys. My mom had an in-home daycare and thought it was very important that we had plenty to play with. And we did. Here are some of my all-time favorites:
The day Amber and I got this kitchen was one of the best days of our lives. Still, to date, actually. My favorite plastic food was the cupcakes: I loved how the frosting would come off and transform them into muffins (that cake, however, sucked).
We loved Marble Works. We would race our marbles down, hoping not to get stuck in the red funnel.
We had all of the little people, except the airplane set. We stored the people in the silo of the barn. I thought this dog was stupid, even as a young kid. Why would the dog be as big as the people? What is it, a great dane?
I don’t think most people know what these are: they’re called Construx. We would use the Construx to make houses when we ran out of places to put our Little People or our Legos. I tried to make my houses look as nice as I could, but gray and blue never looks too good for an exterior or interior.
These were cute because I liked dogs and they weren’t great danes. Chad had the mom who fit three puppies inside her belly. For some reason, that seemed pretty cool. Anytime you can store something in a toy, I liked it. How very practical.
I loved cash registers. Even as an adult, although I never worked retail, a couple restaurants I worked at had cash registers, and I found ringing people up to be delightful.
This was one of the coolest toys of all. You could pretend you were a cashier, and the conveyor belt was battery operated and would even slide the groceries up to the scanner. Awesome. Toys that made me feel like an adult were the best.
I want to own all these toys again. I want to go find every single 70s and 80s Fisher Price toy ever made and own it (my mom was really big into Fisher Price – said they were good quality). Maybe one day we’ll even have a kid or two I can share my toys with.
holly pelesky 
i want a toy room… i love toys. my senior year of high school my friend chelsea and i were on a toy buying kick. we woudl go to target, just to search the toy section and buy toys we had when we were little, or toys we wished we had when we were little…
i could go on one of those kicks any day.
We had all of those except the construx, and the second cash register. I liked the marble works a lot too. Overall though I think Legos were my favorite.
we had the first cash register, i remember the little tokens that went in it. we ave that cake and muffins too. my pound puppy was more brown. i don't remeber it having puppies though. i still have a toy room with all my play food and pots and pans. i used to play house and then take my cabbage patch dolls upstairs for my mom to babysit. i'm so glad my mom saved all our old toys. including the ugly ken doll that i drew tatoos on with a sharpie.