The second generation

I have decided to change my Heir Law to First Born to make it easier as I messed up the random trait generation....oops.

So that means that Danica is due to take over as heir when Suzette dies. Danica is now a teen. I am working on memorializing Suzette still, Clive has his painting, to buy more time I gave her the potion of youth. Let's hope Clive can stay alive long enough to get his Guitar skill up to 8 so that he can write her a song.

Anders Legacy Family - the next Generation is born!

Soon after Clive moves into the Anders house they Try for a Baby together.... the first time she does not conceive, but the second time, boom! Preggers.

It's at this point that I start doing some serious remodelling of the house as I realised that the house needed to be in the centre of the lot. Blame my OCD for that. So I have wasted some cash but hey, Suzette's pretty high up in the Painter track now and can make $1500 from selling a masterpiece. So no big.

Before I know it Suzette has dropped her first sprog. It's a girl which they name Danica.

Soon after she gets knocked up again and this time it's a boy, Sawyer. Who will be the heir of Generation 2? I made a mistake and didn't use the Random Trait Generator for Danica, giving her the Music Lover (?) I think ... aspiration and Creative trait. I think that will automatically make her the heir this time but must make sure not to make that mistake again.. it's my first attempt at a Legacy family so I am learning as I go along.

The house now looks like this:

Danica is now a child and I really love this pic of her and her Dad.

Suzette the Homewrecker

Finally Suzette got some walls and a roof on her house. This is her first shed house. Compact and bijou. 

She worked her way up the career track with Painting. Soon bashing out the masterpieces with the best of them.

Once Suzette hit Adult, she set out to find herself a mate. Unfortunately the list of available suitors wasn't great. Some guy called JJ became a friend however he had the "Non-Committal" trait which I felt was probably a bad idea. She cultivated a few other friendships but the only one that kept ringing and calling round was Clive Lewis, a very sexy townie, but married to Somebody or other Spencer-Kim.

I decided to go with it as it seemed to be that they were establishing a real connection. So I had them go away on holiday. They were hitting it off well and had the first kiss soon followed by the first woohoo.  Strangely Clive suddenly went home in the middle of the getaway so Suzette decided to go home as well but she called him when she got home.... but he was busy!

However she called him again later and he came right over... A few more kisses and a woohoo later and she encourage him to leave his spouse. He did, but was then Very Sad for about two days.

He soon got over it.

Sims 4 Legacy Challenge

I haven't posted anything gaming related in quite a while so I think it's time!

I have been struggling to get into the Sims 4 but am not really sure why. I think what I need is a good Challenge to get me into it. I've heard a lot about the Legacy Challenge so am going to go with this. I'll update here on how it's going and post pics.

The basic rules of the Legacy Challenge are here:  http://www.simslegacychallenge.com/the-sims-4-legacy-challenge-rules/

But in a nutshell, you create a founder sim and move them into a 50x50 lot, and start from abject poverty. You then have to play through 10 generations of the family, handing the title of founder down to each successive generation.

My rules of succession will be as follows:

Gender - Equality.  Both males and females are eligible for the title of heir.

Bloodline - Strict Traditional.  Only naturally born children can be heir.

Heir - Exemplar. At the beginning name a single trait, which must be one of the founder's 3 traits.  Any eligible heir that has this trait will gain the title of heir.  If a single generation has no children with this trait,  or more than one exemplar, follow the First Born rule. **edit - I changed this later to First Born as I messed up the Random Trait Generation**

Species - Tolerant. The species of the child has no impact on their eligibility  for heir status.

Here's my founder Sim, Suzette Anders:

And this is her starter home. Walls are overrated.

Cash is tight right now.. I only just bought her a shower. She started with just a bed, fridge and toilet. She has the Painter aspiration, and the Creative trait which will be my Exemplar.  I have her in the painter career track so should work well. She's selling paintings every spare minute and working hard in her career. Once she gets to Adult I plan to get her married off, but for now she's cultivating a few friendships with men, hopefully one of them will be suitable!

State of the blog

I haven't posted on this blog properly in quite a while but I am going to start blogging again. I have a lot to say, it's all about finding the time to say it!When I'm not looking after my new little girl, and my two boisterous boys, I'm either doing my Scentsy thing, or I'm gaming. I want to get a review up of my latest game of choice - Guild Wars 2! This has been SO long awaited for me it's not even funny. I played the original and it was just awesome. Until later, here's a gratuitous baby pic!

Kara Louise birth story :)

It's been a really long time since I updated my blog but in case anyone reading doesn't follow me on twitter or facebook, I had another baby!

This is the story of her birth...

The day before my due date, 13th March I woke up at around 8am, dh had already been up and taken the kids to school bless him... now I am not one for a lot of false labour so when I noticed I was having mild contractions I stayed in bed for a little bit thinking maybe something was happening but didn't want to get up yet in case they stopped...well, about 9 dh got back and I went for a walk on the treadmill to see if the exercise would help. Definitely stronger and they were coming around 10 min apart.
Now typically for me I get quite a few hours of early labour so I figured I would just get on with my day and see what happened.

Well, I tried timing the contractions but they were all over the place - some 15 min apart, some 4 min. So I waited until I started to feel them coming a bit stronger, which was early evening about 7pm. Rang my mum who we had planned would be my birth support, Noah (my 7yo) was already sleeping over at hers so we got Seamus (5yo) ready and over there too so that when we headed over to hospital my Dad could stay at home with the boys.

Well, stayed at home and watched some TV but around 9pm I thought the contractions were definitely getting stronger and around 4-5 min apart at about a minute each. So Mum came over, and we headed to the hospital. Planned to deliver at the Dolphin Suite which is a special unit intended for low risk mums to be - rooms have a birthing pool, sofas, gas and air only for pain relief - it is intended to be like a home from home for those that want a "home like" experience but not actually at home.

So when we got there the midwife said I could have a cervical check if I wanted but it was up to me - to let her know, I said I'd wait a little while and see how I felt. She did say they would like to check before I got in the pool as if mums get in before 4 or 5 cm the water can slow labour. So about an hour of me sitting on the birthing ball she checked me.. and I was only at a 2. It was 11pm and I had been in labour all day.. I was tired. So she said I could either stay, but as it was the dolphin suite there are no beds for me to rest in, I could go to the central delivery suite and try and get some rest there but my mum and husband would have to go home as there is nowhere for them to stay over - or go home and come back when I felt my contractions were stronger, she didn't think I was in established labour YET.

After a while I decided to go home. Got home about 1am and attempted sleep but about an hour after getting home and getting into bed my pain started to really ramp up in my back. Dh slept in the boys room and mum stayed in with me and got a hot water bottle for my back. took some paracetamol. Didn't really help. About 2.30 we left again to go back to the hospital. Started to wish at this point I was having a homebirth. But we weren't so that was that. I just wanted to stay at home.

Got back and this time they didn't check my cervix at all, just put me straight in the pool & started using the gas and air. Just as with my last birth, it was not long after getting in the pool that I started feeling pushy and my body started to spontaneously push without my input. But nothing seemed to be happening. Midwife started talking about breaking my water as she felt that the bag of waters was bulging and once they broke the baby would soon follow. But soon after she said that they burst with a POP and the pain became unbearable. They had been monitoring baby's heartbeat with each contraction via the handheld doppler underwater and it had been >140bpm the whole time but at this point something started to go wrong. Heartrate dipped to 80bpm and wasn't recovering. They told me I needed to get out of the water RIGHT NOW and hoisted me out. I was not at all coherent at this stage and was pushing the whole time as I had no control over it. They got me onto a bed and wheeled me fast into the delivery suite. Getting crash cart for baby and everything ready. They took me into a room and there were lots and lots of people. I could hear them talking about using the ventouse but just as it turned out - I didn't need it. Baby was coming all on her own and fast. I pushed so hard to get her out she shot out like a bullet all at once. They took her away as she was not crying and started stitching me up, I was asking about her and they said she was ok but they needed to get some fluids out of her lungs and were having some difficulty.. dh went outside to heck on her. after a few min they brought her in to me, she was wrapped in a white towel and they said to try skin on skin to see if that helped her.. put her on my chest and within a few minutes, she was absolutely fine. Once they had stitched me up I latched her on which she did right away and has barely stopped since :)

I am sad that I did not get the waterbirth that I wanted this time, it was not the peaceful slow birth that I had with Seamus 5 years ago. But she's here and none of that matters to me now. I asked afterwards what happened and the midwife said to me that when my waters broke, her head hit my cervix hard and at a funny angle, this sent her into distress and they think her head may have been malpositioned slightly so then she had to turn a little in order to come out although she did come out facing the right way.

Anyway. Presenting Kara Louise. Born 14/03/12 at 4.50am. 8lbs 4.5oz.

Joy of Love week one!

I'm taking part in The Joy of Love which is a free online photography course for the month of February. I'm very much a beginner when it comes to photography and can't afford a lot of expensive equipment so I'm doing it with my iPhone 4, my bargain Sony Cybershot that I picked up on Ebay for £26, and free online editing tools from Picasa and Picnik. So don't expect professional quality photos, but I'm doing this to have fun and learn!
I'm going to post the week's photos each weekend, hope you enjoy.

Day 01 - What They Do

This can apply to anything your loved ones “do”….what do they do for work? What do they do for play? What chores do they do around the house? Find something they “DO” and document it.

Seamus is a complete boobaholic. Apologies for the poor quality but this was taken with my iPhone4 as my cybershot battery broke a few days into the course! The lighting was poor so it's a bit grainy.



Day 02 - How They Look

Capture your loved one at their best (or at their worst). Or both. What you’re trying to capture is the TRUE essence/expression/attitude/posture that SCREAMS your loved one!

This is Seamus showing off his beautiful smile. He wasn’t feeling awfully smiley today due to being poorly so it took a bit of coaxing (and some tickling) but we got there.



Day 03 - Then and Now

How long have you known your loved one? What has changed since you first met him or her? Try to capture this change in photos.

Seamus at minutes old in the first photo, and last week (almost 4 yo) in the second.




Day 04 - What they Wear

Photograph your loved one’s clothes (either on him or in the closet). This can be when they are dressed up or dressed down.

Seamus is obsessed with Star Wars at the moment and owns lots of apparel like this! This is probably his favourite (and also captures his personality well,I think!)



Day 05 - Love to Hate

Hate is a kind of strong word for this, but I always swore I wouldn't buy toy guns for my children. then I gave birth to 2 little boys and learned that if you don't buy guns for them, they make their own.



Day 06 - Who They Love

Besides you, who is the apple of his eye? Is it your dog, the kids, his parents, his sibling? Document them with their loved one! If the loved one is not close by, then have them hold a photo of their “beloved”…this can also work for loved ones who have passed away.

They may fight, but Seamus adores his older brother, Noah.