It's hard for any store toy to be unique although many toy stores have something only they carry. You can get playful dress up clothes year round at Display & Costume, Champions and Top Ten Toys. Seasonal craft fairs can have more unique had made toys. My 4 year old likes puzzles and Plan City stuff.

Apples to Apples, Ticket to Ride, Patchwork and Spot It are possibilities. Happy New Year!

Contrary to one of the other answers here I have to first say that while Top Ten Toys has sometimes brought people in to test toys at great expense, neither we, nor to my knowledge any other store, can afford to test all their product. What we mostly do is rely on information from the manufactures that they meet current standards. Even if a toy met current standards, those standards keep changing. What I tell my own wife is, if one of our kids is chewing or sucking on any toy a whole lot, eye ball it closely for it's ingredients and find out more about it. If the paint is wearing off, I would take it away. That's probably extreme but on the safe side. I find "all" sources of information on toy safety biased so research with caution. The government site is cpsc.gov, the environmentalist's site is watoxics.org. the manufactures site is toyassociation.org and the retailer's site is astratoy.org Do remember that a child's greatest danger is choking. Balloons and small powerful magnets present the most lethal danger. I would keep all pure sources of lead like fishing weights, or cheap heavy costume jewelry locked up.

Allen, Top Ten Toys

I was a big fan of Pretty Pretty Princess...

If you mean boardgames: when my daughter was that age, her favorites were Sorry! (great if more than 2 people are playing, lame otherwise), Battleship, Connect Four, and Kid's Scattegories. If this is your child, Scattegories is awesome, because you get to find out what's going on in their weird little brains. Totally revelatory. We also used to play a lot of "no points" Scrabble, because she was just learning how to spell, and it was entertaining and educational.

Five is a fun age for boardgames, because they're just starting to understand the concept of strategy, and it's really fun to see them push themselves. I think a slightly challenging game is preferable to a too simple game.

cootie bug.

don't break the ice.

call of duty- the war collection

...your choice.

Candyland.

It depends what she's into, but I always loved outdoor running around games. Dress up was another favorite. If you're looking for something to buy, I seem to remember this being pretty awesome as well:

http://www.enasco.com/product/SB19677J

If you want to get the inside scoop on games go to the source -- the folks at Blue Highway Games on Queen Ann Hill. Here's what Scott at Blue Highway has to say on the matter:

"There are several party games that I would suggest:

Who, What, Where is a drawing game,

Time’s Up is a get people to guess things game like charades, and

Wits & Wagers is a trivia game where you don’t have to be a trivia expert to play.

You're always going to have that challenge with the "has everything child" but it's not your fault the child has everything so you need to let go of that concern and just take a chance. I probably have the largest independent toy store in the northwest and I can assure you, my kids don't remotely have everything. At the young side of two one of the Chunky Melissa & Doug Puzzles can be fun for about $10.
An older two might like one of the varieties of extra large crayons shaped like blocks that are easier for small hands to hold $6-8. The younger kid Playmobil line called 123 has some reasonably priced toys and a variety of bath toys in that age range can be reasonable. Pick something you think you might have liked yourself. As always, with that age pay close attention to and stay away from "Not for under three" choke hazard labels.

A tough question! Duplo is one of the few construction mediums starting at 1 1/2 and even most Duplos aren't rated below age 2. Once you hit age two there is Kid Knex and Bristle Blocks. At age 3 There are Gear sets and Zoob Jr. My boys liked foam blocks before they liked wood blocks. The choking hazard issue is the main restriction requiring close parent supervision for anyone pushing the age boundary. After that it is a question of dexterity. You're probably tired of hearing this but patience, he'll be older all too soon.

What we get everyone on the staff and a favorite of my boys on the changing table was the "O Ball" around $7.50. At that age tears always seam right around the corner and anything that can momentarily distract them to help them shift out of that tearful moment can be a blessing to the parents. Along the lines of the Jack in the box, music boxes, something that can attach to a stroller or a mobile can be distracting.

Apples to Apples!

Mexican Train (dominos)

Rummikub

Tripoly is our favorite family game, soon as they can understand a poker hand (and face!) Playing with pennies instead of chips makes it a bit more exciting for the kids.

Music - Seattle has a great kids music scene. I recommend anything by Recess Monkey (which my kid loves), Caspar Babypants, or the Not Its (all from Seattle). Or, They Might Be Giants has wonderful kids albums, and as I suggested to someone else, Elizabeth Mitchell has the loveliest CD's for children, and your sister will appreciate her as well - just lovely, gentle, toddler friendly music, great for decompressing kids and moms both. Perfect music for a 2 year old. A great gift for around $10, and completely unique and special.

And maybe have someone take your picture doing something goofy and in Seattle, like feeding seagulls on the ferry or eating mini-donuts at Pike Place Market, frame it, and the next time they come to visit you can take him to that special place.

Babylegs, hands down. We love these and use them all the time. http://www.babylegs.com/

Oh, now I'm conflicted - You Are My Flower by Elizabeth Mitchell - OK, THAT'S the best thing ever for a baby.

And a starter block set - blocks are THE fundamental toy for children throughout their early childhood - 7 months is when you build the tower and they get to knock it down, or bang the pieces together.

But no, the Elizabeth Mitchell CD for sure. FOR SURE. Just listen to song #7 - this was our families favorite for months. That and John the Rabbit.

http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Flower-Elizabeth-Mitchell/dp/B000067VOO/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1292671420&sr=8-6

Someone suggested this for me, and I'm passing it on: A marble run - my 4 year old can't get enough, and I think it will help with building concentration (and I think they have one at Costco right now). Also: Lincoln logs and tinker toys.

If s/he loves dressing up, get him/her some dress up clothes, and ignore gender stuff - my son loves tiaras and fairy wings as well as capes (velcro neck closures only - my friend found her 3 year old hanging from a tie one luckily shortly after leaving him), varying hats, nerf swords, masks, etc.

Also, my son is a HUGE hit at the park when he brings his stomprocket - I think we got ours at Top 10 toys. http://www.stomprocket.com/

Everybody writes down 2 things they love and puts it in a basket in the middle of the table. Pull them out one by one, and everyone guesses who wrote it - the person with the most correct answers wins.

This sounds dorky, but I've played it with lots of people, and it's always a lot of fun.

Homemade blocks. Then you can always build on top of that present each year with different lengths sizes shapes. My grandpa made my 2yr old son this. This year is circles. All you need is a cabinet grade 4x6 plywOod,dowl rods(largest size available) and sandpaper. Just cut them to different sizes and shapes and sandthe edges reall good. No need to color or seal them makes them neutral for anybody to play with.
If you don't have the tools to cut the wood. I'm sure any nice neighbor would love to do it if you bring them some christmas goodies.

gender neutral=Legos
make-believe=Legos
building/disassembling=Legos
dressing up=dolls or legos (hats n hair)
minute attention span = TV
________

(so the tally is 3.5 votes for legos, 1 for TV and a half for dolls).

For that ratio, the Lego-brand video games might work nicely in a few years (lego star wars, lego harry potter)... in the meantime, Regular or Duplo lego brick sets, in various 'themes', should be a good fit.

D&D for the smartypants

Jenga for the rest.

I got my 4 mo old niece a pair of pink glittery Toms. They are more for her mom, but I think they were aborible and semi practical

When I was in the 11 to 16 age range my famly played Password, Balderdash, Pictionary.
We played very fun games of Apples to Apples and Scattergories with kids ranging from ages 9 to 14 -- these games are easily scalable to the 16-year-old range as well.

If you have at least 6 people, make two lines (it doesn't matter if they are even). One person stands in front and chooses a category, like "Cars", "TV shows" "Movies," etc. Now you quiz the two people at the front of the line - you point at one at a time and they have to go back and forth naming one think in that category - Audi, Honda, BMX, etc. If that stall, or repeat something, or give a crappy answer, they go to the back of the OTHER line, and the person who "won" goes to the back of the SAME line. Choose a new category for the next two people in line. The game's over when there is no one left in one line, and everybody wins!

The faster you do this the better - kids get really into it.

We recently rediscovered our old domino set, a large one (double fifteens, 136 tiles). In particular a game called "Mexican Train" is easy and fun, for up to twelve players. It's fun, kind of like a card game but with more clacking.

The rules take some explaining but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy; you can play a domino end on an end with the same number of pips, and you just have to keep track of which trains (lines) you can play on -- your own, any Mexican trains, and other players' trains if they're open.

The only thing weird about it is the stupid name, which sounds as if it might be racist (but I can't imagine how)!

Toy stores and game stores sell double-twelve and double-fifteen domino sets. We got ours at Top Ten Toys in Greenwood.

my friends have an alternate version of Charades you might try (I think they call it 'Charadenary.' I only played it once, but it was really fun). The game is played in teams of 2 and has three rounds. Like Charades, you'll need a time keeper and a score sheet.

Round 0: Everyone comes up with 5 or so person/place/things and writes them on little pieces of paper which are then combined into a hat/bowl.

Round 1: you are allowed to both act out AND describe your person/place/thing using words (except THE word obviously) with your partner guessing. Complete as many as possible in the allotted time (90sec? 2 min? somewhere in there). Each team goes once, then goes again with the partners switching roles (now you guess while your partner acts/talks).
* After everyone has completed their turns, throw out any leftover person/place/things remaining. Return all the used words back into the bowl.
**Its important everyone pays attention in Round 1 because only the already acted out/described words will be used for the next rounds!

Round 2: you are allowed to act out and are allowed ONLY ONE WORD to describe your p/p/t.

Round 3: you are allowed to ONLY ACT OUT your p/p/t.

Team with the most correct answers after all 3 rounds WINS!
(It was a bit of a long description, but hopefully you'll enjoy it!)

Monopoly is a good choice. The rules are easy to understand, and keeping track of the money helps younger kids learn math skills. Just be sure to set a time limit; kids get bored if the game stretches out too long.

Very non-exciting, but DIAPERS! I'm sure a 7-month old could seriously use them. And maybe one of those baby books where the kid can chew on it and stuff. They tend to love those! :)

Go to SkyHigh (Bellevue) and play on the trampolines. Or go to SANCA and learn trapeze.