1.5 – I’m Not Dead Yet – BOOM BAM: A ZANE BABY BOOM CHALLENGE

Hello everyone, new and old.

It’s been a really long while. Like two years long. So for those know knew me before, I would like to give a bit of an explanation before we dive into all of the simming goodness. If you Don’t care or would like to just skip it, please feel free. No hard feeling I promise!

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Around the time of my last update, my only grandfather was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer after we thought he had beaten bladder cancer and I had gotten a new job. That was Dec/Nov 2019. I’m sure everyone sees where this might be going. Three months later, after my grandfather had gone through a ton of extensive treatments and I had gotten settled with my new job, lockdown happened here in the US. Luckily, my grandfather was out of the hospital by then. Unluckily, I lost my job. I was really the only one in my family who got hit with the wave of unemployment. Before lockdown, I was my grandmother’s grocery pal and took her shopping. My role only expanded once I became unemployed. Two months into lockdown, after being told he was in remission, my grandfather had a sudden cardiac event and passed away. It hurt all of us. With my lack of work, I spent so much time sitting in my grief. The only thing I had outside of games and books was helping my grandmother get what she needed and helping her move out of the house where she lived with my grandfather.

For a while, that was fine. I had a lot of ups and down with my mental health, which I have been struggling with for years. I honestly didn’t play a lot of Sims, I hardly touched my computer for a while outside of using it as a TV/streaming box. Eventually, that wasn’t enough. It caused my depression to creep in on all sides and I needed to work on it. I started knitting and I FINALLY, after years of fiddling with it and skirting around it, applied to graduate school to get a degree to be a librarian. In October of 2020, I got accepted and I started at the beginning of 2021. Along with that, I picked up a temporary position at my sister’s job. It was kind of soul-crushing so I made it my goal to focus on my field. If I was getting the degree, I needed the job. So around my thirtieth birthday last year, I finally started working in a library! I was working on my Master’s and in a job that makes me feel like I have a purpose. I’m still taking my grandmother shopping when she needs so most of my limited free time is driving around or trying to decompress a little.

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But now I’m back! And HOLY MOLY is there a lot to catch up on. Besides the reboot of my Zane Legacy, this is kind of my main sims squeeze. It’s fairly straight forward allowing me to not check restrictions and rules over and over. I think I’ve mentally instituted more rules than actually exist. I’ve been busy tearing through the challenge. I’m nearing halfway through the challenge. And I’ve visited Boolprop since the update and I need to get myself some challenge bling! I think I need to dig out all of my backlogged stuff and get to work. I’m in the same boat with my WYDC. Anyway, we’re not here for some chat! So let’s get to it.

So last we left off, the Baby Boom challenge had moved to Isla Paradiso. Funny story. Besides the photos from the last chapter, this is the only other photo of the challenge from that world. A few months ago when I went to begin playing again, it glitched and siezed like crazy. It wasn’t functional as it was. It actually freaked me out a little. My laptop is mostly used for classwork and I was worried it wouldn’t hold up anymore.

No. It was just Isla Paradiso. So I plucked them out of there and off they went to Monte Vista. I like Monte Vista better anyway.

Situated on the far reaches of the town, I placed the house and immediately did a reno. I used to, and to some extent still do, like to make one level houses for challenges. I gives me a better control over where my sims are, but eh. We needed more room or I was going nuts.

Plus past me made some questionable choices.

And no, I have no overhead photos. So…sorry I guess. A quick note, I made sure to set the genders for babies through SP as random. No balance here. Bring the chaos.

Just a quick reintroduction to the current residents of the challenge. We have our mother, and the founding sim from my OWBC, Camilla “Cammie” Zane. Much like in my OWBC, Cammie is now a vampire.

Our father, and also part of my orginal OWBC, Bradley Zane. He’s been turned into a fairy.

This is our first baby of the challenge, Barth. Still have no idea where I pulled that name from.

Olwen

Orelle

Lysander

Phillipa

And the current tot, Ruprecht. He’s our first born occult sim. I can’t wait for further down the line.

As it stands we are a quarter of the way through at 6 kiddos out of 24 with an even split in genders. I doubt this will last. I’m not that lucky.

I didn’t realize when I booted the game up just how close Cammie was to maxing that painting skill. This leaves her halfway to her LTW.

Orelle hanging out in the new treehouse next to the new playground. The reno included adding as much fun stuff as possible because sometimes that kids have nothing to do. This is mostly because I forgot that I can earn points by having them complete skills and LTWs.

Whoops.

Seriously, for a good sim day, the kids just kind of wandered doing whatever. At least the twins gots some popsicles!

And I promise that Ruprecht, who’s name I really can’t spell, was taken care of!

See! He gets cuddles with mom!

I have so many random photos and I have no idea what to do with them. Even if I find some of them sweet! Like Olwen and Bradley playing ping pong. I love it.

First of MANY birthdays is Orelle into a teen!

I don’t know if I mentioned this three years ago when I last posted but all of our kids are dressing as per their fav colors. This helps me organize and will help a little but to idenity each kid.

Anyway, Orelle is lovely! I won’t be giving traits, if I was before, until they age to YA and are about to move out.

And here’s another. Ruprecht is turning into a child.

Funny story. I didn’t get a photo of him after aging up. I had to skip ahead 30 pictures to find a single good photo of him as a child. Unfortunatly, I didn’t really take photos of his childhood. So…whoops. You’ll see him maybe twice more before he gets to teen.

Extra whoops.

This is really the only photo of him. He’s a sweet little vamp.

Thanks to the help of the tabcast, Cammie has been double gunning her painting and writing.

She was doing so well, that I was shocked when this popped up. I hadn’t realized how well she was doing.

But hey, it works for me!

Twins being twins in a room a deeply regret decorating that way. Why are the walls brown?!

We have a triple header birthday that I only took a photo of one notification. The twins Lysander and Phillipa along with our first YA birthday for Barth!

We’ll be at five brithdays this update by the time this parade of sparkles is over!

Lysander is up first.

Phillipa next.

Our final birthday marks the most important occasion! Our first baby is aging up and moving out.

Barth is all grown up!

And boy does he favor Bradley over Cammie.

Also, I forgot to get his info on age up, but I do have his key stats.

Here they are! He is honestly, at least from his stats and LTW giving me silicon valley bro vibes. Like he can hack your system while drooling over a Maserati.

Anywho, Barth is kicked into the SP stream and I am going for those bonus upload points so I’ll add a link here right after posting so I can post an “adoption” page.

Of course with Barth out of the house, we need to fill that space. While I’m able to have more than six kiddos at a time, I’m restricting myself. So Cammie and Bradley head out to the fairyhouse and get busy.

All the teens are rolling wants for pillow fights. So I oblige.

At least I think this is what happens. My sims usually default to water balloon fights so I’m guessing this was wished for thing. The more points the kids earn, the more I can extort from them before they leave!

Or ya know, they’re happy or something like that.

New baby inbound.

Oh hey! Another Ruprecht photo. He got caught in a teen booby trap, so he’s looking a little radioactive.

Bradley is still plugging away at his career/LTW. This is proof.

Keeping all these kids and teens entertained is a real chore. I keep giving them more and more things to play with to keep them busy.

Again, I forgot I could earn points by having them actually be productive.

Speaking of productivity, I have Bradley start to learn more practical skills like handiness. I’m not allowing ANY services so I need someone to be able to fix stuff.

Honestly, there is a lot of useful stuff going on with sims other than my oldest girls. Lysander, as you can see in the back, is learning to paint.

Cammie is boosting her cooking and learning as many recipes she can.

Phillipa, I THINK, has the virtuoso trait so she keeps throwing wants for instruments. I gave her a piano and let her play away.

Despite the darkness and the fact that they are now expecting baby #7, Cammie and Bradley still constantly roll wants for each other!

So we get some cute pregnancy pics!

While we’re not completely at the end of the update just yet, we do have our last birthday for this outing!

Olwen is about to become the second baby to become YA!

She ages up wonderfully, even if she’s a Cammie clone with Bradley’s colorings.

Her stats. She wants to follow in her father’s footsteps so that’s nice! If you want to download her, she’ll be found at the same link that I put up with Barth.

Not long after Olwen leaves, Cammie has our next bundle!

This little boy is Osiris. Why did I name him after the Egyption god of the dead? I don’t know. I think it’s just whatever fits and is in my head at the time.

He is special though!

I usually don’t get hybrids in TS3, but I was baffled when he had a new color I didn’t know. So I had to check! I love it!

I need to go make dinner so I have to leave it here! I hope you all enjoyed my welcome back post! I really hope to not go for years again. I miss this!

Thanks for stopping by!

❤ Jess

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