Wow Bob that's a mouth full.  Suzie... We have used our Sony for both still and video and it works alright. The video isn't as great as I would like.  But really as a parent I only find myself shooting a few minutes of video anyway as after that I have to start chasing a kid anyway.  Unfortunately ours is such that the video box ends up only being a 3X3 square on my computer because of the quality.  I know there are some digital video cameras that also take stills, which might be a better option.  We have these at work and they are pretty nice.  If I had to do it again that's the route I would go.