Surrounded by Family - My First Walkthrough!

[Pam]

Hi y'all!

My first walkthrough is now posted on the Carl's Sims 3 Guide site.  I had so much fun playing the Surrounded by Family Lifetime Wish!  It was chaos, but controlled.  Heh.  I hope everyone will take a look at it.  I put plenty of pictures in it to help tell the story.  I love the toddlers!  They're so cute!

http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/lifetimewishes/surroundedbyfamily.php

UPDATE!

I have outtakes and deleted scenes from this walkthrough posted on my personal blog.

http://spoopssims3world.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/outtakes-and-deleted-scenes/

[wildredchild]

Awesome job on the walk-through Pam.  I love the fact that you used the names from the Dragonriders Of Pern series of books!!

[Pam]

Thank you!  I wondered who would be the first to recognize the names!  Haha!  I'm going to post "outtakes and deleted scenes" in my personal blog.  I'll put a link here when I get it done.  There were lots of funny things that didn't make it to the final cut of the walkthrough.  LOL!!

[Kreathyr]

Nice walkthrough, I like the final pic with the whole family together.
Have you noticed they tend to make their homework together? That's really nice.

[Derenic]

yeah such a nice work! i love the effort you have put on it!
GOOD JOB PAM!
and i love the way the Girl is proposing with the ring!

  ( dosn`t the ring cost? where is it comming from? lol seems everyone has it with it self afer they are born)
at least in sims 1 it costed 1000$
wish we could send the gems to a jewels to make rings or such things for you... for even proposals... a pink diamond ring! would have been nice!
there is no give a gift option in this sims unfortunately

[Kreathyr]

That would actually be a nice option.
I also miss a ring on the finger of married sims.

[Honeymooners]

Pam -  How the heck do you pick the names for your sims?

[bshag]

Great job Pam!  Wow, that's something I have never tried and would be not good at.    Surrounded By Family is not one LTW I will be using. 

You can put wedding rings on their fingers Kreathyr...takes awhile but all you do is go into "Plan Outfit" and in the accessories section there are rings, three different color bands.  I just put same color band on both sims, going to every single outfit.    It takes some time to do both but I love the effect. 

[Pam]

Thanks everyone!  I appreciate all the kind comments.

I put rings on my married Sims, too.  I've even made a custom color for them.  It doesn't really take long.  Just click on a dresser and use Plan Outfit. 

Honeymooners:  Those particular names were from a series of books called The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.  My favorite books of all time.  I choose some kind of theme for all of my Sims.  I'm not good at coming up with random names, so I find a theme.  I'm working on the International Super Spy walkthrough now with Jack Bauer and his wife Jill.  They have two daughters named Peanut and Pickle.  Lol.  Not much theme there, but they made me laugh.  My Legacy family had themes by generation.  Like, one generation had Summer, Spring, and Winter.  Another generation had Aquarius, Libra, Capricorn, and Gemini.  Yet another had Mars, Neptune, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury.  I'm going to run out of themes soon.  Lol.

[Carl]

I am so happy to have Pam helping with these guides. She has a lot of experience writing them herself. I love how it evolves with tips for caring for children in general, to juggling multiple kids in different age groups at the same time. All while keeping it honest. Moving in with Billy was a clever way to get that bump to allow for such a huge family. Otherwise they would have been doomed to digging themselves out of poverty for quite some time.

I'm with bshag, this one isn't for me. I am glad she offered to do it, or this one would have definitely been the last. And it's likely one people will need the most help with.

[Kreathyr]

yeah, taking care of babies and toddlers is (in my opinion) the most difficult thing in the game.
Kudos for Pam on this amazing achievement.

[Pam]

Thanks, Kreathyr.  I'll admit it took a good deal of concentration and deep breathing on my part.  Lol.  Any full household with 8 Sims will be an enormous challenge, but it seems even moreso when they are toddlers and children.  You've got everything riding on how well they turn out.  If you miss something, you won't be able to chose their traits and who knows what you'll get!  It was fun, though.  I'm really glad I did it.

[Kreathyr]

With 8 adults or even a few teens I never had a problem.
Teens are just adults who can't wohoo.

Children can't cook for themselves, so an adult sim still has to do stuff for them.
How many times have you used the pause button?  

[Pam]

I mostly clicked pause to get a picture of something.  I didn't use it much during the actual gameplay.  True that kids can't cook for themselves, but they can make muffins on a toy stove.  Mine did that for breakfast many times.

[Kreathyr]

Nice, I'll remember that for Brandon's kids