Sylvia's Playroom

OK, this is game of spot the difference:



Spot it? Right, one of these cute girls has TWO monkeys in each hand!

One of Sylvia's latest games, which she seems to find rather comforting, is to climb into a beautiful handmade crib which Grandpa Brad made years ago for Noel, then ask for all her stuffed animals and dolls to be put in with her. Deb took the perfect shot of this yesterday in the evening light, as we played in Sylvia's room.

Halloween

After the visit to the pumpkin patch, the hinkypunks couldn't wait to dig into their pumpkins. Mattias had to give his impression of a mad scientist doing experiments on pumpkin guts. Bleah!


Sylvia's cute little pumpkin was the perfect spot for Deb to carve the perfect face, and Sylvia was thrilled with the results.


Then on Halloween evening all the pumpkins went outside on a dinner table bench and lit up the night while everyone made ready.


And after much face painting, sword finding, hair fixing, and costume tightening, the band was ready! The hinkypunks went out with our friend Maritsa and her two boys.


We would post pictures of the loot piles they received, but we don't want to shock you, gentle reader. Needless to say, candy rationing went into effect at 12:01 AM, November 1st!

The Pumpkin Patch

The hinkypunks took a trip to the pumpkin patch about a week ago. In the west, we had never actually seen one, so this was quite the experience. The picture below may not show it, with the size we use to send to Blogger, but there are pumpkins as far as the eye can see!


We visited the barn area first, where they had picked out the roundest and best pumpkins. The boys were so excited to stop looking for the perfect pumpkin to pose for a picture, that Asher gave one of his best cheesy grins ever! Right here for your enjoyment.


Noel, on the other hand, almost instantly had her pumpkin picked out from the field and was happy to show it off for the camera.


After picking out all the pumpkins, everyone was ready for a visit to the animal pens, where they had donkeys, goats, pigs, sheep, and a huge Saint Bernard farmdog. The animals all ate well that evening, and the grass got a good clipping with help from these three!

Aztalan

In about 900 A.D., a city was started which would grow to about 15,000 inhabitants. This city was built along the shore of a large tributary of the Mississippi river. It had watchtowers, temples, many houses, and a huge wall. They withstood disease, crop failures, and invasion. But at about 1300 A.D., something made them leave.

I think it was the mosquitos.


Whatever the answer, the place is interesting to visit. It was called Aztalan by its discoverer, who hoped that it had been made by Aztecs. And with the step pyramid mounds it certainly looks similar.


The postholes for the walls were uncovered by archaeologists, and new posts have been added around part of the large site.


The grasses were very tall here, so one of the hinkypunk games was hiding in the grass and jumping out to scare Sylvia, who seems to enjoy the thrill of any scary game. The above picture is Sylvia hiding in the grass with Noel as they plan to turn the tables on Asher and Mattias!

Electric Hinkypunks

Asher and Mattias recently decided it would be interesting to see how well electricity moved through water. They discovered that water isn't very good, but water with salt in it is a great conductor. They also found that the walls of batteries are made out of cardboard. They found this out by mistakenly soaking the battery in water and then watching the top fall off later.

The boys were a bit disappointed to discover that this didn't automatically lead to battery acid eating a hole through the school table all the way to Mongolia. We worry about the fate of their high school chemistry professors.


Sylvia wasn't terribly excited about pure electricity, but she was pretty amazed with the electric pencil sharpener. It performs horribly, but it makes quite the noise when a pencil goes into it!

Pet Acronyms, Hinkypunk-Style

Asher and Mattias have guinea pigs, named Alexander and Bucephalus. Recently Mattias was holding his guinea pig saying "Nice guinea pig Alexander". Then, with a hinkypunk-ish look he began chanting, "A G.P.A., a G.P.B., all we need now is a G.P.C!"

Down at the Quarry

A few days ago we had a fine fall day here. On that day the hinkypunk quarry was in full swing, with four workers and one visitor.

The guard at the entrance to the hinkypunk quarry.

The quarry workers were carving intricate designs into a few of the rocks in the yard. The high precision tools (hammers and screwdrivers) did a fine job.

Sylvia did an excellent job as assistant quarry worker!

New Hat & New Living Room

Sylvia's new hat...


...and the living room, for anyone who was curious what it looks like without toys strewn from one end to the other. This is such a rare sight, we who live in the house may look at this picture to remind ourselves what it can look like.

Sylvia Style Skin Care

The Hinkypunk Ball World Cup 2007

By wild coincidence, the Hinkypunk Ball World Cup tournament (HBWC) occurred at the same time as the Rugby World Cup. Though not nearly as famous, the HBWC still boasts a great lineup of talent. The opening rounds saw everyone eliminated except the best in the world. Three of them, due to an unfortunate bracketing error.

The first game pitted the grizzled veteran Asher against the young but springy Mattias. It was a cracker! It was a cracker because they kept cracking their HB sticks! Asher won by the smallest margin after blocking this penalty shot by Mattias.


But there was no rest for Asher. He was immediately flung into a contest with none other than Deb the Mighty. Using all the tricks in the book, Deb took an early lead with shots like this. Where's the defence?


In the end, there was only one winner: the squirrels, who kept burying nuts on the pitch during the proceedings. I took a picture of one of them engaged in this activity but they ripped the film out of the camera. Honest.

Jumping Castle

Today the hinkypunks went to a homeschool party at which there was a jumping castle. For those who haven't seen such a thing, this is a very large air-inflated building with springy floor. Everyone had a ball throwing themselves around.



Poor Mattias was invited to the picture but couldn't make it due to his heavy schedule commitments (i.e., continuing to jump after being told ten times to get in the picture). We hope he makes it to the next hinkypunk photo session.

Norwegian Socks

Now that fall has come to Wisconsin (meaning that the temperature has plunged from an average of 78F to an average of 74F) we thought it would be good to dig through fall clothing boxes. One of our finds was a pair of beautiful wool socks knitted in Norway by the mother of our good friend, Thale.

They fit perfectly. However, we put them on and Sylvia refused to take them off for hours.





If they're not off by next week, we'll just make sure to dry-clean Sylvia instead of bathe her.

Purple Pegasus

Today we discovered that we have a horse living in the house. Ever since she was old enough to point, Sylvia has been fascinated with horses. This started when we lived at Grandma and Grandpa McMullin's house. Every morning she would wake up and want to go see where the horses were who lived across the street.

This was all well and good until today, when she showed her true colours.


Purple, to be exact. With wings.

We took this in stride, knowing that children change and develop in their own special ways. However, it wasn't long until she wanted to go outside, and we soon discovered why.


Flying was not exactly traumatic for our purple pegasus, as you can see.

(In reality, Sylvia will be wearing this for Halloween this year. We plan to take lots of pictures and show them at her wedding reception.)

New Glarus Visit

Do not be alarmed! The hinkypunks in the following picture are not preparing to take over the world.

They are, instead, visiting a very famous swordsmith hidden in a tiny town in Wisconsin. Mike at Albion Swords was kind enough to invite us down for a visit and tell us all about the history of the blades they make. We even got to meet Peter Johnsson, the lead designer/researcher for Albion, who lives in Uppsala but was visiting for a couple of weeks.

Asher was a bit dazed by it all. I could tell, because he even smiled for the picture.


Following this adventure, we visited a village square set up to show off this little town. New Glarus, Wisconsin was settled by immigrants from Switzerland's Canton Glarus, and they have a very well-made museum about the early days. The favourite parts of the place for the older hinkypunks were in the blacksmith's shop and the farm shed. Sylvia, on the other hand, seemed to like the leaves and the colourful bee landing areas on the beehive. Swiss bees know their colours!


We also sampled wonderful local cheese, salami, and bread for lunch, with home-made fudge to top it off. The wasps tried to eat Mattias' lunch. Luckily he didn't still have a sword in his hand or his frantic waving would have knocked all our heads off!

All in all a fun outing to a town we will surely visit again. For the fudge mostly.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Cap'n Asher says: "Shiver me timbers, it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day! So what are you landlubbers sittin' there for readin' this here blog? Get back to swabbin' the deck, or we'll be keel-haulin' ya before morning! Arrrr!"

Hinkypunks At Work

Some may ask, "It's fine that hinkypunks exist, but what do they do all day long?" Well, here to answer this is our experienced reporting staff.

Mattias spent the day playing with electromagnets and trying to keep brother Asher from magnetising his head. Then came soccer practice. I could tell that this was a stressful time for Mattias. He was expected by the coach to run up and down the field at least twenty times chasing a small ball and stealing it away from everyone else! No wonder once he got home all he wanted to do was curl up in bed with a good book.


Asher's day consisted of trying to magnetise Mattias' head (see text above) until fencing practice. Fencing is the art of poking people with very sharp pieces of thin metal. Asher is quick on his feet and likes poking people, so he excels at this. The picture below shows him on the left behind the tall fellow in blue, as well as some of the people from Asher's local fencing club crossing swords.


And finally, Noel's day consisted of doing difficult algebra problems in her head, and then going off to swim team practice. She and Deb decided they would bike to practice through the crisp Wisconsin air (see this entry if you think I'm serious) just for fun. Luckily she (and Deb) survived that outing, and Noel went on to help Sylvia organise a very large pile of thumbtacks. The picture below shows the two happy workers.

Hinkypunk Ball

Yesterday was the blog writer's introduction to the game of Hinkypunk Ball. I won't explain the rules (because they change regularly, depending on whether Mattias is losing or not). Instead, a couple of pictures:


There are long sticks involved, and a large pink ball, and the side of a building (in this case, the shed). It is not a team sport. The goal is for the person who controls the ball to hit the shed with it, however he can.

Editor's Note: I would say "he or she" except this seems to be a male-dominated sport. We will have to work on that.


And here is a penalty shot. Asher seems to have violated some rule (offsides?) and Mattias now gets to whack the ball away from the goal however far he can.

More exciting Hinkypunk Ball news when the World Cup of Hinkypunk Ball (WCHB) begins!

Hinkypunk House

The blog writer keeps forgetting to post this picture of the hinkypunks' new house. Apologies to all who were waiting for it.

Our New Cook

Sylvia has decided that she will be a cook someday. She helped Noel make cookies yesterday.


She thought the oven mitts were so comfortable, she would keep them on all day. This is her riding her horse, Geck the Second, to the kitchen to help out some more.


However, Geck The Second steadfastly refused to ride into the kitchen, so Sylvia decided she would rather read with brother Asher. Asher usually plays games to see how much he can make Sylvia scream, so the following is a rare piece of photographic history.


We expect a return to normal operations tomorrow.

The Start of the Hinkypunks

The Hinkypunks are online. Look here in the future for updates about the McMullin children and their adventures in the flat land east of the Mississippi. Oh, and watch out for the mosquitos.

To those of our friends who do not know what a hinkypunk is... oh dear have you missed out! Noel, Asher, and Mattias have created entire worlds populated with Hinkypunks, Smalos, Babushiens, Waterskippers, and many other creatures. As a group, these are all known as "Unknown Creatures" because they don't appear in text books or on Google.

The hinkypunks are the most beloved of these groups. Noel, Asher, Mattias and Sylvia all have their hinkypunk names (which the writer will not reveal, lest he be put in hinkypunk prison). Sylvia cannot quite pronounce hers yet, but that will be coming sometime in the next few years. And for now, the other hinkypunks are content to wait.