Need Toy Recommendations

For my boys' 3rd birthday, we're getting them a digital camera & my parents are getting them a train set.

SO, I need help on which ones to get!

For the digital cameras, I've read that the VTech ones are nicer than the Fisher Price. There are 2 different VTech ones, one is more high tech & pricey, where as the other seems geared more towards little ones & is cheaper. Should I go with the cheaper, geared for younger version...or the pricier, geared for older version & let them grow into it? Any experiences you can share with me?


For train sets, I'm not sure if we should go wood or plastic. I've heard Geotrax is pretty cool, as well as a lot of the wooden Thomas sets. Recommendations??

Thanks in advance!!! I'm reading soooo many reviews online, but figured I'd come ask the pros here!!!

 

We have the wooden Melissa and Doug trains and my girls love them. They're compatible with the Thomas trains but much cheaper. I don't know if plastic would be better, but we do love the wooden ones! As for cameras, we're getting the girls the more expensive VTech ones. I played with one of the cheaper ones from VTech and they take awful pictures. I tried to print one of the pictures out and it was all fuzzy. I know that would disappoint my girls since they want to take pictures and hang them up. The cheap camera is definitely easy to use and geared towards toddlers, but the pictures are so bad that I'm going to try my luck with the more complicated camera. I figure we can use only the point and shoot features until they're ready for the other buttons and functionality.

Edited to add: These are the cameras I think we're getting. They seem the same as your second link (the older kid camera) but the name is slightly different and they're $20 cheaper. http://www.amazon.com/VTech-Preschool-Kidizoom-Digital-Camera/dp/B000Z4RKSQ/ref=pd_sim_t_2

 

My boys LOVE the wooden Thomas trains and tracks....they are very $$$ though. We also have some Take Along Thomas sets that are plastic and I HATE them. They fall apart easily which leads to a lot of frustration and tantrums and me constantly having to put everything back together again! I like the die cast metal trains that they come with just not the tracks.

 

We have wooden tracks and have generally been happy with them. You get what you pay for, though -- we have some Thomas track that's really nice and smooth and sturdy, and some from Costco (which came with our train table) that doesn't fit together well, is scratchy along the edges, and has lost a couple of the little round pegs. (I haven't tried Melissa & Doug track -- I like their quality in general, though.)

One hint -- get at least a couple of pieces of wacky track. The price is kind of ridiculous, but it's worth it because it makes building layouts, even simple ones, SO much easier.

 

Those wacky tracks are so cool!

I saw a 120 piece train set at Target tonight, the Circo brand. It was only like $30. I can't tell if it comes with trains, though, but it said it's compatible with all name brand tracks...so I'd assume that our Thomas trains would work on it then?