Flooring

I'm in one of those weird I-want-to-rearrange-something moods.  I think it has more to do with the fact that I didn't do the dishes or straighten up last night and waking up to a mess throws my whole day off.  Anyway, it got me thinking again about the flooring in my kitchen and dining room.  We have white/cream colored carpet in our dining room and old linoleum in our kitchen and it's basically a disaster.  It's impossible to keep clean with young kids spilling on light-colored carpet all day long.  Our hope is to put new flooring in soon.  It's based a lot on our tax return, but if we are able to do it this year, I thought I'd better get some suggestions. We're trying to decide between tile, hardwood and the fake hardwood stuff (laminate flooring or whatever).  We may end up doing whatever is more affordable when we start pricing it, but I thought I'd try to get some suggestions anyway so we could go into this a little more informed. Also, the dining room leads right to the stairs that go to the family room.  There are 4 stairs there.  If we did hardwood, we were thinking of continuing it down the stairs, but I don't know. Kids falling down hard stairs scares me more than carpeted stairs.  Any thoughts, friends and family?