Many birthdays.

Yulia sat and waited for Derek to come home Thursday afternoon, continuing to study Cooking. The home sports venue reached Rank 4,

and Yulia picked “Power Network.” She didn’t care about instantaneously meeting all the acquaintances of another Sim, but she did like the “powerful starting bonus” to those relationships. So, if there was someone in particular she wanted to meet, she figured this might come in handy.

It was a warm, late fall evening, so when Derek arrived back from the hospital the family put Yevgenya’s birthday cake out on the picnic table, so that their customers could join in the celebration.

After (another) quick makeover, Yevgenya sat down to read “the yummy book”, her mother went to bed,

and Derek played soccer in the front yard with Ivy.

Yevgenya climbed into bed in her newly redecorated room.

Yulia awoke suddenly at 5 a.m. Friday, and gave birth to twins!

The couple named their new daughter Yanastasia (from the Greek for “resurrection” and “upstanding”) and their new son Yedrek (a Polish name meaning “warrior” and “manly”). “And it’s kind of like 'Derek' spelled sideways,” Yulia teased her husband.

Yevgenya came sprinting in excitedly to meet her new siblings.

She was delighted with both Yanastasia and Yedrek

(though she seemed to prefer her new sister to her new brother).

Shortly thereafter, the child left for her first day of school. “YAY!!!” she cried.

“What a little character we seem to have,” Derek observed with amusement. He headed off to the hospital, and Yulia fed both babies and put them down in a hastily constructed nursery,

and resumed her study of Cooking. She reached Level 10, and for this received 8,000 aspiration points.

She used her points to pick Knowledge as her secondary aspiration,

and went into the kitchen to continue practicing cooking.

Yevgenya brought a friend home from school and the two girls had a fun time in the bowling alley.

Derek came home, and fed the babies while Yulia continued cooking. “Hey, honey, what’re you making?” he asked his wife. “Smells great!”

“Macaroni and cheese,” she answered. “Yevgenya says the one she had at school today wasn’t very good.”

Derek put the twins back in their cribs,

taught his daughter to do homework,

and the two sat down to dinner. “This is sooooo yummy, Mommy!” the girl squealed.

Yulia cleaned up after dinner while Derek put Yevgenya to bed and checked on the twins and, as she was waiting for her husband, her home sports venue reached Rank 5.

The only Business Perks that Yulia had left to pick were the 5 Wholesale perks, in which she had no interest, but she picked the first one, anyway.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Derek asked Yulia once he had come to bed.

“I think I’ve got to decorate the bowling alley,” she answered, “or at least do SOMETHING else to get this place to Rank 10. We’re going to have to move again--we’ve got WAY too many kids for this small a house!”

Derek smiled. “There’s no such thing as ‘too many kids,’” he chuckled.

____________________________

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

Does anyone know why Yevgenya’s relationship would be SO much higher with her sister than with her brother, esp. since she performed the exact same interaction with each of them?

BTW, Yevgenya seems to be the kind of very neat child who can never leave a bed unmade…. Both parents are only Neat 6, and I’m dismayed by her extreme fastidiousness.

The Wholesale perks are useless to anyone with a Gold Sales badge. Since Yulia’s sales skills allow her to sell merchandise at extreme markups, the (relatively) tiny Wholesale discounts don’t do anything for her businesses.