With Bella being pregnant again, she decided to take the relationship matters into her own hands. She gave Max an ultimatum - marry her, or leave!! Yikes! Being brought up in a fairly old fashioned way, Bella didn't believe in kids before marriage but had let the first birth slide as she was terrified of Max leaving her at the time. Now, things were different, she wasn't afraid to go at it alone should be chose to run. Two pregnancies and a 3rd child on the way, it was time for Max to step up and do the right thing, or she'd find another man who could.

Thankfully Max is just as smitten with Bella as she is with him. I don't know why Max insists on still seeing Melani if he's so in love with Bella, but at least he's doing the right thing here. That, or he's doing what ever is necessary to keep her.

Now remember yesterday's blog showed Max having the wish to propose to Bella, and yet the video shows it the other way round? I didn't manage to get a screenshot for some odd reason (I'm sure I took one), but Bella also had the wish come up to ask Max for his hand in marriage. I figured this might be a bit more believable coming from her - how many of us would have trusted Max had he been the one doing the asking?

Even though Bella was already pregnant for the wedding, I had thought ahead enough to pre-plan her outfit, so she was able to wear a proper wedding gown. I'm still disappointed that poor Emily had to get married in a simple summer dress because you can't "plan outfits" when already pregnant. But you can change into one... so I just made sure Bella already had her wedding dress ready and waiting. I couldn't watch a sim as pretty as her get married in her house clothes.

And what a beautiful bride she made!!

Stunning!

I decided to have a simple home wedding as the twins were still just babies and they would either be left behind, or left on the ground! Neither of which was an acceptable option for me. They were just as much part of the family as Bella and Max and deserved to be present at the wedding, even if it was just in the Nursery. This is where I'd LOVE to have swings or bouncers in game as they could have been out with everyone else.

Max and Bella also have a big enough house to make a wedding there a possibility - a bonus side effect of the house being designed around lots of parties for Max.

Like all weddings, there were nerves and I will admit to watching Max like a hawk as I was really worried he might do a runner. He doesn't exactly depict the pillar of stability here does he?

Then again, neither does Bella... I just put it down to all nerves and hoped the wedding went without a hitch. It was an uncomfortable start to the day which wasn't helping my nerves any.

I'm still disappointed there is absolutely nothing special about a wedding - no cut scene, no ability to really "walk down the isle" etc. I realise Bella's dad is no longer with us, but perhaps Michael (her brother) could have given her away or something a bit more wedding like? Instead, they all just loitered around until rings were exchanged...

I have to give props to Max for not answering his phone. The whole time it was ringing I was waiting for him to answer it, and waiting for it to be Melani or something equally bad. Then again, she's not called Max at all since Eric had a go at him, nor has Max really had any new wishes come up to see her so who knows what's going on there.

The wedding went without a hitch, and without a wedding cake which is another pet peeve of mine. I mean c'mon EA - you KNOW this game is played by a majority female and gay audience, you KNOW we want to have dream weddings and you can't even give us a wedding cake? Poor form...

Still, cake or no cake, Max and Bella are now husband and wife. Because Bella asked Max, all surnames changed to "Bachelor" which bugged me as I didn't even have the option to choose which surname would be used, but I'll live with it. I could go down to town hall and change them all to Amillion which was Max's surname, but meh... not that worried lol.

Here's to a happy marriage!! *chink*

Needing a bit of a break from all the drama that Max is bringing to his world for a moment, I decided to pop on over to The Waters Family and see how they were doing. The last time I played them, Emily was picking herself back up by changing careers, trying desperately to meet a man and in the process met Rainer. It's good to see her moving on, I don't think Adrian will be too upset as we saw in Ghosts at Play...

Fast fowarding to now, I came in the day before Emily's birthday. I can't believe how quickly time has passed!! Taking her from young adult to an adult, it's now time to grow up. If I was to compare the sims to real life, I would put the young adult stage up to around 30, then the adult stage from 30 through to 50 where they then become an elder. So I look at Emily as an early 30's at the moment, which is still young enough to accomplish things... such as the rest of her family. (Her lifetime wish is to raise 5 children and she's 3 short...)

Since Adrian's passing, Emily has been coming out of her shell more, getting out in town and generally making more friends. This is a great thing as she really never left the house when Adrian and Grandpa were around, they didn't like her being anywhere other than at home doing her chores and making sure they were both looked after. Because she has been getting out though, there were lots of good friends and neighbours at her birthday party - the house was packed!

Like sands through the hour glass... these are the days of Max's life. Scratch that - the hourglass is nothing more than a countdown until this love rat gets busted!! Have you been following the story line so far? How Melani was pregnant, then Bella was pregnant, then Max went over to Melani's house, made out with Melani while Bella made friends with the toilet bowl, etc etc?

Well... it gets worse.

Max had the wish pop up to throw a house party. Nothing unusual there, he's a party animal after all. I figured I'd just use it as a "welcome to our twin girls" kind of party. Bella had a wish pop up to get a massage, and really, who could blame the poor girl - twins on your first shot? Ouch. I decided to send Bella off for a massage and let Max get ready for the party while looking after the babies.

Bella also had an opportunity to teach an art class at the local school pop up a couple of days ago, so I decided to make her stop past to do that before then sending her on for a good rub down. Making sure she was getting from one place to the next safely, I switched back to Max to learn that the party was already getting started. That wasn't the shocker though... I right clicked Max's profile to zoom across town, landed straight on him, and this is what I saw!!

I find it really amusing that The Waters Family, who I created to be a simple side distraction while I worked, has not only turned into the most interesting family I have, but is making my other families, the ones I created to play properly seem.... well, boring. I've been playing "The Banks" family the past few nights (Melani) and have found them mundane, easy and, really boring!

One of the kids had a birthday, woop dee do! Of course, my own daughter is fast approaching her second birthday, but that will only make her two. In the sims however, a third birthday makes you a 'child' and looks to be around the age of about seven instead of three... Baby Ricky as I think he will always be affectionately known, had his third birthday and aged into, well, a bit of a nerdy child - he wears a tie!

I did get a bit worried when I saw him eating his birthday cake. The position of his wrist just doesn't look normal! So far that seems to be the only anomaly I've seen, so I'll just put it down to him getting used to his larger body.

Apart from that though, the party went without a hitch and nothing even remotely interesting happened.

*sigh*

The same day as the party Melani got another promotion. I've already mentioned how she's a "super sim" and all that, so it was no surprise. I didn't realise it was the max level of the medical career promotion though - it was so easy to get there. It's still impressive to see her as a World Renowned Surgeon given she's never had a day of medical training in her life. She was in the Police Force prior to being poached over to the hospital from her forensic science expertise.

Sorry, but being able to examine dead guys doesn't exactly qualify you to work on the living. Still, I can't argue with her income. $631 an hour? Yes please!

Then again, the new work outfit raised an eyebrow for me. I get the white coat... I don't get it needing to be buttoned up to her chin, but I get it. The Dr. Evil gloves and boots however make me a tad concerned...

Unfortunately, an odd outfit and a dislocated wrist doesn't really qualify as excitement or even that interesting anymore. I've experienced the thrills of watching my sims being electrocuted or time-warped with their age. I've danced with the grim-reaper, thrown funerals and quit my job out of utter trauma.

Rubber gloves? Please. I need more than that now...

One thing did cause me to sit up last night though. It seems I went a bit 'building crazy' after Ricky's birthday party. I expanded the upstairs area to include a new bedroom for him and decided to add the bathroom and living area while I was up there. The next morning however, I didn't have enough money left to pay the maid who had to come and clean up all the mess.

And we'd been messy too I tell you. I let everyone go nuts and there were plates and spoiled food all over the place. I understand being a tad ticked off at not being able to be paid after having to work that hard, but they should also know I'm good for it. I've been using the service for a while now.

Unfortunately, loyalty is not a word that the maid service seems to know too well. In order to pay for the cleaning job just completed, the maid was going to help himself to some of my possessions. Fine, I'll cop that.

But what does this low life take? Remembering there is an entire house full of items he could choose from, this scum bag goes upstairs and takes this....

That's right, the KID'S BLOCK TABLE! I'm sorry, I don't care how much money someone owes you, when you're in a house of someone who is clearly doing ok with her life, don't go and help yourself to a child's possession. That's beyond low!

For the first time in the past 2 days of checking on Melani and household, I got angry. Not impressed with that! Grrrr lol

I announced last night that Susie had her birthday and aged from a happy toddler into a grumpy child right? Well apparently she had a fair bit to be grumpy about - she was not going to have a childhood!!

I had logged out during the middle of her party the other night after she aged up. I had seen all I needed to, so left the party in progress to get some much needed sleep. I logged back in tonight to the party still in progress. Not 30 seconds into play and my camera jumps from Emily over to Susie and I see everyone whirring the party things above their head. This brings on much confusion.

Confusion is quickly replaced by shock and bugged out eyes as Susie ages AGAIN! That's right, this is what I'm staring at right now...

That right there in the middle (in front of the fat sim looking looking to eat her) is dear little Susie. Oh. My. God!! What a bloody annoying glitch!!

What am I going to do?! I've googled till I can google no more and there is no real answer to rewind her age. There are mods I can install to do it, but from everything I've read of them, not only are they a bit tricky to install (and can override default files), but can also be tricky to use. I was hoping for some itty bitty little cheat to rewind it, but no such luck. Ironically, this glitch happens 24 hours after I had to use my first sim altering cheat ever (to set Thomas' trait I missed). Coincidence or Karma?!

I'm really stumped as how to continue with this. Susie is the baby of the two kids, the second born that now towers over Thomas. It's thrown everything out of whack!

I've got a couple of options that I can see...

1. Just go ahead and continue playing as is - that is with Susie now a teen and completely skipping her childhood. I could blame it on the trauma of half her family being zapped into oblivion and the need to grow up quickly. After all, she was only 2 days behind her brother in age anyway, so wouldn't be too hard to accept I guess.
   
   
2. I could use another cheat and age up Thomas as well. Completely skip their childhoods and continue playing from teenage years. Of course if I do that, then I've kinda got to age up Emily from young adult to adult them as it wouldn't really be realistic to have a young adult with two teenage children.
   
   That of course brings in a snowball effect. One bad cheat doesn't deserve another...
   
   
3. I could kill of Susie... or at the very least move her out of the house. My gut feeling goes against this however. I don't like purposely killing off any sims, and aren't ready to just disown her yet....

So, what do I do? I need LOTS of help with this please lol.

Kids age so quickly don't they? My daughter is turning two in October and I can't figure out where the time has gone. Emily must be feeling a bit the same way as Thomas has his second birthday and moves from being a toddler to a child. It feels like only last week he had his first birthday! Actually, it kinda was lol - August 23rd for us... I do have the life span setting on long for The Waters Family, where as I play on Epic on all my others, which is why it's come about so quick. I thought it might be interesting to have things churn a long a little quicker with this family and see what that's like.

I couldn't imagine having any shorter life span though, how do others even get to know their sims, let alone have them live long enough to achieve anything significant or tell a story?

Unfortunately, Emily couldn't afford any presents for Thomas. She is so broke at the moment, poor Thomas was going to have to test the comfortability of the sofa to sleep on, but thankfully a child and parent sim can share the same bed, so Thomas just has to sleep with his mum lol. His bed will have to be purchased after Emily's shift on Monday. Sorry Thomas.

The good thing though is Thomas FINALLY got some hair! Thank goodness for that. Two bald toddlers was bad enough, I didn't want to imagine a bald child as well. That said, he's still a very ugly sim LOL! The hair did not help his cause...

Like all my sims, I video record their milestones. The Waters family is no exception to that little luxury. Nothing really interesting happened for poor Thomas. In fact, nearly every guest had a go at the "stand in the way" game... grrr.

By the way, you'll notice a long silence gap at the end. I forgot that you can have the ability to pick the childs traits, and the window that popped up through me. I'm actually surprised I got to pick them for Thomas since he only learned to walk yesterday LOL, so Emily is hardly a model parent. I've also not read him any books and mostly left him to his own devices when it came to keeping himself entertained.

I also ended up stuffing up and exiting out of the window and didn't end up picking any trait at all. Another thing that surprised me - I didn't think you could have a child Sim with only two traits... Thankyou to @mcCutcheon on Twitter for helping me out with the testingCheatsEnabled true cheat that allowed me to pick Thomas his third trait: Computer Whiz. Although looking at his face, perhaps I should have followed in Adrian's footsteps and chosen Evil?

For those interested, here's the video of the "big day"... the big let down if you ask me. Poor guy.

I've said it so many times you're probably all sick of hearing it. My theory that there are certain Sims who are just meant to be together? I collected more evidence last night!

Before I jump into this new evidence however, let's quickly discuss Blair Wainwright again. Max and Blair hit it off very well as was obvious to anyone with in a 10 foot radius. I don't know if you read it in my last post, but she is now an Elder!! Town sims are just aging WAY too quickly it's unfair. I shared their first meeting, and followed that up with a screenshot how they were romantic interests to each other after that first 5 minute visit. Clearly meant to be together! And yet now, an age gap is keeping them apart. It's almost cruel really.

So far, everyone Max has found attractive is now too old. Everyone that is, except Melani. And of course who happened to gate crash Max's party last night? You guessed it. I didn't invite her, but I've noticed that invited sims can bring friends, or people just gate crash Max's parties as there are always way more people than I invited. Call it fate or just a coincidence, either way, Max wasn't going to waste this opportune meeting.

Warning: Lots of pictures incoming... well it does speak 1000 words.

When the party was starting to wind down, Max approached Melani to ask if she'd like to spend the night. Now remember, Melani is married to Eric who she has two children with... five if she has lied about the conception of the three she had with Max. I have no idea what she's told Eric, but if they're still together (as her info panel says they are), he's either a very understanding man, or being lied to. Either way, that's a lot of kids to be left at home with while Melani not only attends Max's party, but may or may not stay out for an entire night.

There may be a question mark above her head after Max asked, but the body language pretty much shows her answer...

Melani does agree to spend the night and I feel a sudden pang of guilt at poor Eric and the kids that are wondering when mummy is coming home. Still, she is the only sim that I can see Max luring into bed without worrying about brittle bones and my vomit reflex. Sorry super aging granny sims.

After all the party guests have left and the terrible two are left alone, it doesn't take long for them to... um, get down to business. It's quite clear what Melani is thinking of, but Max's thought confuses me a bit. He's either remembering the new kitchen and how shiny and new it is, or he's thinking that Melani makes for appealing decoration in his home. Not too sure on that one...

These next two images however, serve no confusion and are quite clear with their meaning.

There's those expressive facial features that my hubby has commented on in the past. Quite clear with his thoughts there, we don't even need the thought bubble.

Melani's feeling appear to be along the same line and it's not long before I'm taking screenshots of a different kind...

So I'm left wondering - is Melani, aka the "me" sim I created, just really easy? Or are Max and Melani so meant to be together that even after a lengthy break from contact, it only takes a few cheek strokes and a kiss to reignite the flame into a raging bond fire?

For the record, that was not the only time that night I had the opportunity to catch the torrid affair on camera... I'm just not that kind of gamer lol.

What was interesting however, was that Melani fell asleep at Max's place. I should clarify it wasn't surprising given the peep show I was given, poor girl must have been exhausted. But it was still interesting because she does have a husband and kids waiting at home.

I don't think my hubby would appreciate me staying over night somewhere... then again, I can't exactly see Melani ringing home to Eric and informing him of where she was planing on spending the night.

I did have to chuckle at the vacant spot in the bed as soon as dawn broke...

Nothing like an early sneak out to avoid the uncomfortable morning after haha.... well, I'd assume. =p

I am a bit torn when it comes to these two. Max had the option to ask Melani to leave Eric last night which got my mind thinking. I mean, they do have three kids together already, so Melani is more than just a groupie to him. But still, is Max ready to settle down? Especially into a pre-made family unit? Questions, questions...

I tell ya what though, if I do move her in, I'm changing her name! It's getting confusing for me seeing Melani in half my stories. I keep nearly saving the screenshots to the wrong family folder and attaching the wrong post tags when she's involved with Max.

At a party that Max was throwing last night, I happened to glance over and noticed that Max has some moves. This boy can really dance!

Blair Wainwright. That's the cop chicky that hit it off with Max so well the other night. Ever since their meeting, Max's has had wishes popping up all over the place to do with Blair - call her, hang out with her, MAKE out with her. He is one love struck puppy that boy.

I decided to end his torture and invite Blair over. Picking up the mobile, I noticed this:

Love interest? They had ONE five minute meeting!! Dayum. This is yet another mark towards my theory that there are some sims that are just meant to be together. I've tried so hard to get Max and the little trampy Nicky to hook up (another member of the first house I created), and I've tried to get Michelle interested. Both of those were a LOT of effort with zero reward. Melani over in Riverview? I tried to get her to hook up with a Dr and it was impossible.

Yet here, we have Max and Blair, who spent 5 maybe 10 minutes together, and already he considers her his love interest. With out ANY interaction from me at all.

Is the feeling mutual however? I'm going to think yes. Max threw a party as an excuse to invite Blair over (he's playing it cool...) and not only did she attend, she walked in the door and directly over to Max who was making some food in the kitchen. This is what I saw...

That's some pretty intense staring right there. She did not move at all. She walked in, parked herself as close to Max as possible and just stared at him while he made the salad. When he walked off, (apparently to go to the bathroom, I'm not sure if he really did need to pee or was just feeling a little put off by the stare down), this is the thought bubble that appeared over Blair's head.

I'm really hoping that's a "I'm glad I'm not at home" or a "maybe I should go home" house picture there. Not a "gee isn't THIS a nice house to move into..." kinda thought. Eeek!

I found out tonight, that after someone has died, you get another option show when you wish to throw a party....

It makes sense, I just didn't think of it myself. I was actually wanting to throw a party for Thomas' birthday as it was today. Poor little mite, not his fault his father passed away the day before. Which of course, poor Adrian for not being able to see his babies age up into toddler hood and dying less than 24 hours earlier.

So Emily threw a funeral. It really didn't go as I expected either. Adrian didn't have a lot of friends, so she just invited everyone she knew, which wasn't a lot. Apparently Adrian really wasn't friendly with many of them as no one hugged or consoled Emily - I know this because I was following her around trying to capture a picture of it to include in the post. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not even a "you'll be ok dear" mandatory pat on the shoulders.

Emily actually spent most of her time standing outside looking in the windows. I kinda felt sorry for her because it's not her fault she had no friends. Of course, the people that were there were a bit nuts themselves because they all had the thought bubble of balloons over their head.

Now, I've not been to many funerals myself, but remembering back on the ones I have been to, I don't ever remember having to fight my way through masses of BALLOONS!! Crying people, wads of tissues but no, no balloons. That just brings a whole new meaning to 'celebrating their life' doesn't it?

Even sans the balloons, the party just scraped through as acceptable. Because that's your biggest concern when mourning the loss of a loved one right? That everyone has a good time.

Apparently it's all just too much for Emily to take. The marriage ending, Adrian's death, being stuck with an insane Elder who she doesn't even like and being left as a single mother to raise two young children. Without a single prompt from me, Emily quit her job!! I didn't even know Sims could make such big changes without our influence. All I noticed was the mobile phone icon and I wondered who she was calling. When I moused over it, I saw...

Given it was her wish, I clicked ok. Who am I to stand in the way of a life falling apart?

So now, Emily is not only without husband, she is also without job. Hopefully these two factors won't also make her without children!! There is now no income coming in for the house bar the few fruits and vegetables Grandpa will harvest and sell. Emily did take a writing class a week ago (she was looking for a hobby to replace the together time with Adrian) and had made a start on a fiction novel a few days ago, so perhaps she can take all these life experiences and write a best seller...?