Grayswandir ----->

<----- Baby Bloodflower

      Grayswandir's first pony toy was a fakie named Rainbow -- but her first real My Little Ponies were Baby Bouncy, Scoops, and the Slumber Party Gift Pack, which she got for Christmas in 1987, when she was four years old.
      As you can see, just moments after being unwrapped from their boxes, Bouncy and "Party Time" (Nightcap) have already become sister and brother. It's probable that Pillow Talk and Scoops are already as good as married, too.

      Baby Bloodflower doesn't remember a time without My Little Ponies. She was under two years old when the first ponies entered the household, and she's never been without them since. Here she is with Bouncy, Pillow Talk, and newborn twins "Rockabye" and "Shirtsy" (Sleep Tight and Sleepy Head). Oh yes, and Secret Bear.

      Grayswandir's first My Little Pony -- Baby Bouncy. Obviously, this was long before our Bouncy received her trademark hairdo, which is somewhere between a mohawk and a mullet.

      A month later, it's Baby Bloodflower's second Birthday -- and she sure has a lot of ponies! Banana Surprise, Sugarberry, and Princess Sparkle are in there, as well as the pony sewing machine. Addicted already!

      Ever wonder how those flutter wings get broken? We've had to buy all new ones from Nora.

     This is Baby Bloodflower with "Love Melody" (Wingsong).

     (If you're wondering what all the parentheses are about, well, a lot of our old ponies have different names from those issued by Hasbro, because our parents sometimes forgot to read us the names on the boxes, or we forgot what they were. A symbol with chimes shaped like hearts? Wingsong she may be, but she looked like Love Melody to us.)

      Grayswandir was probably five or six when this photo was taken, and you can see that the collection had expanded. New ponies include Sandcastle and Shovels, Buttons, the Party Pack, Locket, "Daddy Gusty" (Hippity Hop), Cloud Puff, Megan and So Soft Sundance, Night Glider, Sweet Pop, Salty, Peppermint Crunch, BBE Cuddles, and a My Pretty Pony. The pink fakie in the middle is Rainbow.

      Baby Bloodflower, though very small, already loved playing with ponies. The little cardboard pony house was something our mom made, with wallpaper and pony stickers on the outside.

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Another Christmas means more ponies for Grayswandir. That looks like Twirler's box. Check out the Sweet Stuff sweater and My Little Pony pants, too.

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      Here's Baby Bloodflower in a Lickety-Split shirt and purple pony pants.

      Another collection shot with Grayswandir. Tic Tac Toe, Dancing Butterflies, Bright Eyes, Steamer, and Speedy seem to be the latest additions.
      Although they aren't grouped together in the photo, our early pony families had already been formed by this point. Tic Tac Toe and Dancing Butterflies were the parents of Bouncy and "Party Time"; "Daddy Party Time" (Celebrate) and "Candlelight" (Best Wishes) were the parents of "Sleepy Head" (Frosting) and BBE Cuddles; and "Rockabye" and "Shirtsy" were Scoops' and Pillow Talk's babies.

      More ponies for Baby Bloodflower! That's Sunspot in her hand, and a Merry Go Round box at her right -- Flower Bouquet's, maybe? -- and another pony box behind her. She's also wearing a pair of pink Sniffles and Snookums pajamas, which you can see better in the photo at the top of this page. (The pajamas were adorable, but very itchy.)

      Grayswandir and Twirler, and the Sniffles and Snookums pajama shirt.

      This was around 1990, a couple of years before we built our first town, but Twirler was already the pony barber, just as Flowerburst and Flower Dreams were already the bank tellers (keepers of the pony points). All of our boy ponies were surgeons.

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Lemon Treats! (Or "Lemon Cakes," as we named her.)

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      Our dad helps Baby Bloodflower to get Streaky out of her packaging -- but he's not exactly sure what she's for...

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Grayswandir in a pink Rainbow-Curl Ringlet shirt...

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      ...and Baby Bloodflower in a red and white Yum Yum shirt, hunting Easter eggs. It must be Spring of 1990 or '91.

      Grayswandir coloring in the My Little Pony All Day Long coloring book... and getting all the colors wrong.

      In 1991, we moved from Arizona to Hawaii, and of course we brought all of our collection with us (although somehow Baby Stockings and newborn Shovels were lost during the move). In Hawaii, we built our first pony-town, Baby Ponyland. Alas, we have no pictures of it... but we still remember all the babies' jobs!

Our collection before we moved to Hawaii. Well, some of our collection.
The babies seem to mostly be missing, and there are a lot of ponies hiding in the back.

      A wide shot of Ponyland, circa 1992. On the coffee table at the right are Ponyland Grocery and The Lunchbox (where Locket and Lickety Split are having crumpets and tea, as usual). Night Glider is on police patrol near the toy store, and the newborn boys are playing cops and robbers on toy cars. The Bar & Grill is the tent in front of the blue trunk (Palace), and the Orphanage is to the right of the Ice Cream Shoppe. You can see Banana Surprise there. Beside the Palace is a pink car -- that's "Daddy Gusty"'s taxi.

      The other side of the town. The Ranch was under the coffee table, and some of the larger horses were tied up outside. At the right, beyond Bouncy's Clothes, is the bank: a shelf full of labelled drawers with pony money in them, run by Flowerburst and Flower Dreams.
      On the far left side of the counter in the background is the barber shop, with Twirler near the little heart-shaped mirror. Beside that is the Ponyland Inn; you can see Angelfish, and Magic Star is making the bed. Moondancer ran the pony baths -- the sink.

      At Christmas, the ponies sometimes took over our living room. Here, the newborn boys are chasing the train, and Baby Bouncy and a toppled Baby Gusty are looking on. "Sleepy Head" (Frosting) and our poorly painted custom babies "Trucker" and "Chance" are playing pool in the lower right corner -- Chance is the dark blue one; he's wearing casts for two broken legs and several cracked ribs.
      If you look really closely, you can make out Baby Bows playing a huge game of Chinese Checkers, and the Teeny Tinies playing a giant tic-tac-toe game, supervised by Lemon (a fakie) and her friend "P&B" (Sweet Celebrations boy). Woolly, Ribbon, and "Paradise" (Palm Tree) are together as usual.

      The town grew and improved dramatically over the following few years, but alas, it seems we never took any photos of it. This is the most recent picture we have of us playing with ponies -- Baby Bloodflower on the left with "Thunder" (Baby Firefly), and Grayswandir on the right with "Miranda" (Baby Ember). The photo is from around 1995; the following year, we tore down the town and started trying to act like teenagers. The ponies haven't had proper homes or workplaces since.
      Until now. :)

Grayswandir ---->

<----- Baby Bloodflower