Wednesday, September 19, 2012

1.10 - Salad Days

The days have started to blend together - a nice tossed mix of idyllic family life salad ...

 ... and lack of sleep.

This is how a typical day in the tiny Twist house (house of twister!) goes:


"Ugh! ... It's ... 3 am ..."

Emma gets up for the middle of the night shift.


Crying pink larva! 

Then she gets a couple more precious hours of sleep while Cupid takes his watch over the baby sleeping in her swing Grandma and Grandpa sent as a gift.


Cupid is the best babysitter!

 Then Dad gets up and has his turn as the sun is coming up.


Awww... she's reaching for Daddy!

Simon is developing a playful bond with his daughter.


"Toss the little larva in the air!"

Then Emma comes downstairs much more cheerful after some more sleep and makes breakfast.


"Sul Sul!"

The happy little family spends their early mornings in the garden. Isabel absolutely loves being outdoors. Emma found she would cry less if she moved her swing outside and Isabel could gently swing and watch as Mama and Daddy tend to the garden.


Cupid keeps on constant alert for prowling ghosts!


Grandma and Grandpa also sent a matching stroller, which Emma takes full advantage of when they go out on their daily rounds of visiting friends around town!


Social Hour! (Isabel really likes riding in the swing or stroller and being outdoors!)

First stop is the Steele's Horse Ranch, where Emma's been invited to come and watch Susannah train race horses and let Isabel play with her youngest son Chase.


Isabel: "Aaagh my eyes! That horse is kicking up dust in my tiny face!!"

Isabel gets to listen while Mama and Susannah chat and catch up on all the latest gossip around town.


(For some reason everyone's thinking about ghosts lately)

Isabel is still too tiny to play yet, but Emma lays her on a brightly colored blanket to enjoy the beautiful day, which makes Isabel happiest.

Little Chase Steele crawls over to give the 'baby' a sweet little toddler hug.


(This is probably one of the single cutest screenshots I've ever been lucky enough to catch - no posing mod!)

But Chase finds the larva baby's toys a lot more exciting than her.


"Hey I don't have a dragon toy!!"

And Mama gets some relaxing time while watching the horses in an old antique rocking chair Susannah brought down from their horse barn attic. Susannah later had her husband Marcus bring the rocking chair to Emma's house as a surprise gift for their tiny front porch.


Mama rocking baby. <3

Simon comes over right after work because Marcus called him with some concerns about one of his mares who is expecting her first foal, but acting lethargic. She checks out healthy to Simon, but he recommends a full horse vet exam just to be sure.

Simon's excited to announce his new promotion at work!


"Along with more field research, I get to start running some of the lab equipment testing now!"

Emma's of course thrilled for the pay raise to their meager income, though she hasn't yet let Simon know about her secret credit card bill ... she's hoping she can sell her vegetables soon and pay that off before he finds out!

Along with more responsibility at work, Simon's got more skills to learn. Handiness is necessary for dealing with all those 'useless contraptions' at work. The toilet at home and constantly breaking shower head isn't enough, so Emma asks her friends if Simon can make upgrades to their appliances.

But Simon ends up doing more repairs than anything else  ...


"Getting sprayed in the face was NOT in the job description!"

While Emma chats with Melody Barnes, who just found out she's pregnant with another baby right after having one just before Emma did!

Melody's husband is a very wealthy businessman in town, and their house is really big.


"Well hey, at least your getting your money's worth on the maternity wear!"

Finally the day arrives Emma's been waiting for - her first batch of crops are ready to harvest! She's doubled her plantings in the past weeks, and has a bountiful harvest. Appaloosa Plains, along with generous donations of horse manure fertilizer from the Steele Ranch, seems to make amazing crops and is the ideal farming land!


"No more raking and weeding, time to make some simoleons!"

She dresses up nice and has her first load of fruits and veggies delivered to the grocery story the very next morning and makes her very first big check!


"YESS! Promotion to Clodhopper!! ... "

Now she can finally pay off those pesky overdue shopping bills!


"Oh I hope Simon keeps forgetting to check the mailbox ..."

Back at home again before Simon has to go to work for the day, Emma is thrilled to celebrate little Isabel's first aging up day!


Cupid stands guard as a cute little toddler erupts out of her pink larva blanket!

One of those strange dolls arrives as a present for Isabel from a faraway relative no one's ever heard of before ...

And of course Isabel goes straight for it!


"Hey Cupid... Pal can TALK to me and he says you're a bad dog!"

But Cupid sees right through this evil disguise and lunges for the doll before it can get up off the ground where Isabel set it down ...


Isabel:  "I don't think Pal likes you very much Cupid"
Cupid: "Stay here Isabel, Pal and I are going to go out in the cow pasture and have a little talk... "

And that's the last anyone ever remembers seeing Pal.

Good thing toddlers have such short memories!

As a toddler, Isabel looks a lot like her Mama, with pretty honey colored hair, streaked with gold, and dark blue eyes. Her tiny nose and mouth suggest more petite features ... but only time will tell!


Awww. Another Cuteness Overload shot! 



Read on to Ch. 1.11 "Lets Sleeping Dogs Lie" HERE !


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Notes:

-  I got soooo many great screenshots this round it was hard to trim them down to just one chapter!!

- Tons of babies being born around town (start of a brand new town always has a baby boom!)

- Kanoa is looking for somewhere else to live now that Imogen cut him off too. Apparently she's now seeing that Booker Singleton guy, who previously knocked up Sofia Martingale who was also one of Kanoa's lovers... so those two are just swapping women I guess. Eww! Small town, not a lot of strumpets to choose from!

- Jazlyn Parrott is now dating Benjamin Schmidt, who seems like a nice boring fellow. Perfect.

- Emma's being a bit unrealistic about hiding her credit card bill. A girl raised in luxury and city life is also somewhat naive about how long it takes to grow crops for profit. haha.

- Cupid is amazingly wonderful (loyal) and really does tend to stick around Emma and the baby a lot, following them everywhere. The tiny micro house is starting to be a pathing nightmare...








10 comments:

  1. Cupid doing away with Pal was hilarious. Good job, Cupid!

    Isabel is very adorable, I can't wait to see her grow up!

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    1. Haha thanks Hayley - I had to get rid of the doll, but had taken most of Isabel's first day with the doll in there, so I decided to give it a small cameo appearance. I cannot stand the imaginary friend when they get older and start following the kid around everywhere acting weird - so it had to go immediately! A lot of people think they're evil, so I figured Cupid would know this right away. Good boy!

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  2. Awww! Poor Pal! Bad dog, Cupid! Isabel is darling.

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    1. No, I think Cupid did Isabel a favor there ... those imaginary friends end up being a nightmare for the kid 9 times out of 10!

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  3. I can see where they'd get get old quickly. They're still a bit of a novelty to me; I usually have the kids on a treadmill of study and skillbuilding but with deadbeat parents, they've had plenty of time to do imaginary friends.

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    1. Yes that's a good point! I actually just rolled Deadbeat parents for Isabel's generation - which means any children she or siblings have (if they're the heir) would be under the deadbeat parents restriction ... so perhaps Pal will come back for his revenge! =P

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  4. Warning! Benjamin Schmidtt is as bad as Kanoa. He fathered the other 50% of AP's bastards that Kanoa didn't father, in my legacy.

    Cupid is my favorite dog ever! those IFs are pure evil, it is known. Even w/out deadbeat parents, I avoid the skill treadmill for toddlers. I do teach them walk, talk and potty train, but let them alone to play with whatever toys, skill or not skill, as they choose. So I would be fine with them obsessing over a doll. The evil of the IF really manifests if it ages up with child and starts following them into the bathroom. You'll never finish a pee or a shower if you have a live IF in the house....*kills IF with fire*
    Isabel is just adorable. =D

    And that toddler hug pic was awesome. Great shot!

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    1. Oh GROAN, another one? AP seems full of these terrible womanizers! I mean, it would be different if they were actually HOT or something, but yuck! :P I'll keep my eye on that rather unassuming looking Benjamin from now on. I'm already thinking of moving a couple of them onwards to bigger towns they can better infest than my small gene pool in AP haha. Surprisingly, Booker settled down and married one of his victims, but I'm not expecting that to last.

      I love Cupid a lot too and just had to take the opportunity (with some screenshots that were accidental but fit the moment) to use him to get rid of the doll. I only wish there was a real command to have a pet destroy it the way they can furniture!

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    2. In my town Schmidtt knocked up both of the Oriole sisters, who he was shacking up with.
      And a few others, too.

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  5. Isabel is a doll! I love that picture where you have the whole family in the garden, even baby Isabel swinging in her swing. So cute! :)

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