Growing up Gaines

When we last left the Gaines Althea was in for a very huge surprise.
 Although she had finally come to accept and even aticipate the birth of Serena Gaines.

 Celeste Gaines was completely unexpected. Althea was okay with having one baby but the thought of twins scared the life out of her. How would she ever manage.

 As soon as the two girls were brought home though Althea's fears were put to rest by Derick, he was a natural with the girls. He wasted absolutely no time making sure they were fed and tucked in for the night.

Although they were both thrilled to have their first children, Derick seemed to be the most excited of the two, all he wanted to do was cuddle with his two little girls.

It wasn't long until Derick finally got his promotion to a children's coach, he wanted to make as much money as possible so that he could give his little girls the best future possible.

While Derick was off at work Althea was still on her maternity leave, so she spent most of her day watching T.V and listening out for the babies when it was feeding time.

The Gaines settled in nicely to the routine of having children, they didn't think it was hard at all, Althea got some typing in for her book, while Derick enjoyed the paper on his day off.

Pretty soon it was time for the girls to grow up, Derick and Althea threw a massive birthday party for the girls and everything seemed to be going great..at first.

The guests appeared before it was time, and everyone got stuck in the living room, then right when it was time for Celeste to blow out her birthday candles, this little boy came in and stole away her party!!

Althea was exhausted, the backyard was a mess, and not to mention the girls were tired and hungry. The only one in high hopes was Derick who seemed to have massive amounts of energy.

Finally the girls were taken care of and things began to settle down, Serena grew up with hair and eyes like her father. Derick was thrilled

While Celeste on the other hand inherited her mothers hair and eyes!!

Althea and Derick quickly got to work on teaching the twins, all the things they need to know in order to be "big girls", they even had a small competition to see who the better teacher was.

Naturally Derick being the family oriented one managed to get Serena walking way before Althea got Celeste to. He was so excited to see his baby girl growing up!

"Say Paint brush for daddy Serena!"

"Paint Bwush"

After getting her to walk Derick got straight to work on teaching her to talk, he was amazed at how fast she picked up on things!

Unfortunately being on Maternity leave, and dealing with the kids made Althea a little stir crazy, so she went out on the town, while Derick stayed home with the kids. She went to enjoy a nice dinner for one, but was soon missing her family.

Back at home Derick had both girls under control, after teaching Serena how to talk, he started to work on Celeste, he even had Serena be a little helper for him.

When Althea got home they immediately put the girls to sleep, while she was out Althea couldn't remember the last time her and Derick spent some one on one time together. And that was exactly what she wanted.

Being the loving husband that he was, Derick was not one to disappoint so they both retired for the night.

It seemed that Althea got a little more than one on one time from that night, she was so caught up in writing her new book, and getting back to work she didn't even notice the symptoms this time.

With the prospect of a new baby coming in to the house, it was time for the girls to grow up!! This time they decided to make it a much smaller affair, seeing as how too many people in the house resulted in cake stealing!! Celeste was first to grow up.

Celeste was super excited about being able to be a big girl, and help her mommy with her new brother or sister.

Celeste got the ambitious trait when she grew up.

Next it was time for Serena to blow out her candles, Derick couldn't wait to see what kind of a girl she grew up to be.

Serena grew up to have the computer whiz trait, Derick always knew she was intelligent.

Being the ambitious one, Celeste couldn't wait to finally be outside and see what it was like to be able to be outside on her own, the first thing she wanted to do was learn how to fish.

Not to be out done by her younger sister, Serena raced to catch up with her so she could see just what all the fuss is about, with the great outdoors.

As soon as Celeste got to the beach, she jumped right in to the groove of fishing, it was so much fun for her, she didn't catch really big fish but mommy said that whatever she did catch she would have daddy make sushi for them.

Serena on the other hand was as enthused about fishing as Celeste was, so she stayed closer to land and even began chatting up the other people at the beach.

While Drake was at work and the girls were out having fun Althea began to put dinner on the stove, she was happy with her family, and not just because she was excitable either. She genuinely adored each and every one of them, and couldn't wait to see what would happen next.

*note* The girls grew up to look so angry, Im guessing that has more to do with the genetics than anything so I wanted to change their hairstyle so that they would look atleast a little nicer, I managed to get to Celeste but I couldn't make it to Serena in time, because she went racing after her sister. Now that I play her I don't know if I really want to now, so we'll see how that goes. Also I can't wait to see what Althea is going to have, I want it to be a boy so bad I had her eat plenty of apples so we shall see in the next update yea?!

It takes two

When we last left our newlyweds, they were thoroughly enjoying the honeymoon stage of their marriage....

It had been a few weeks since the sucess of Altheas first book, and she hurriedly got to work on her second. Both she and Derick were thorougly enjoying being married to each other. Althea had found that they both had found the perfect harmony living with one another. On her off days she would wish Derick a good day and then get straight to work on writing. This day however was just a tad bit different from all the others though.

Althea had noticed that she was feeling sick the past couple of mornings and she just couldn't figure out why. Anything she ate would absolutely refuse to stay down no matter how hard she tried to will it to.

When she went to visit the doctor she was absolutely floored to find out that she was actually pregnant. This was something that she was definately not expecting. While it was true that she was toying with the thought of kids, she still hadn't made up her mind yet, but now had no choice.

When Althea came to him about being pregnant Derick was postively thrilled. He loved big families and was excited to add father to his job list. He knew that Althea wasn't planning on having kids so soon but he hoped that she would come around once the baby started to grow inside of her. He had no doubt that Althea would make a fantastic mother.

As the days went by Derick noticed that Althea was constantly talking about chocolate chip cookies. He had heard from a friend of his at work that women usually suffered from cravings when they were pregnant, and that if you kept them happy, the baby would be happy too. So Derick decided that he would learn the recipe for Althea's cookies.

He woke up at about 3 in the morning just so he would have enough time to study the recipe.

Then as the sun was beginning to rise on Sunset Valley, he took out all the ingredients, and made his wife a batch of chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. It was his first try so he was hoping that they would turn out decent enough to make Althea happy.

Althea woke up to the sweet smell of chocolate chip cookies. She knew she must have been dreaming, she had been craving cookis ever since she found out she was pregnant, but she just couldn't figure out how to make them. When she finally realized it wasn't a dream at all she was delighted.

Derick had already left for work, but sitting on the counter was a full plate of freshly made chocolate chip cookies. Althea ate until her and the baby couldn't take anymore. It was a strange breakfast, but one of the best one's Althea had ever had.

After having her fill of cookies Althea got dressed and made her way to work.

On her way out the door, Althea's boss stopped her to tell her that she was now eligible to take maternity leave to take make sure that the baby was safe. Being a reporter was pretty stressful and the company didn't want to be responsible if anything were to happen to Althea or the baby. Althea glaly excepted she was coming in to her second trimester anyway.

As she made her way home Althea could feel the baby kicking inside of her, it was a little uncomfortable, but she was enjoying every single minute of it. Excited she felt she just had to tell someone, since Derick was at work she ran to tell the next best thing.

Cycl0ne Sw0rd was becoming Althea's best friend, they talked on the phone all the time.
So she rushed to his house to tell him all about her pregnacy

Cycl0ne simply listened to all the things that Althea had to say, he was a really great listener and Althea enjoyed having him as a good friend, and coworker.

"Oh wow Al that is fantastic, Congrats." he said as she bid him farewell that day.

 While on her leave Althea studied every baby book that she could get her hands on. At first she was a little apprehensive about having a child but now she was just as excited as Derick was. Everything seemed to be going just fine with her pregnacy.

Until one day...

She rushed herself to the hospital, since Derick was busy at work, again. All the men out front were panicked, they had no idea what to do. But  Althea just calmly walked into the hospital as if this was the easiest thing in the world. Remembering all of the things she had read in the books, Althea checker herself in and excited to meet her new baby boy or girl.

Settling In

When we last left Althea, she had decided to ask Derick a very important question.......

 It only took about two weeks for Derick to gather all of his things from his old house and move them into Altheas. He was pretty shocked when she had asked him to move in with her. He had been thinking about asking the moment after they spent so many hours talking on his front line, but he didn't want to come off as the old man preying on the young girl. So he had decided that he would bide his time and wait. He never expected Althea to be the one to push things forward, but he was definately happy that she did.

While Althea was away at work Derick spent his time doing his daily excercising routine. He loved doing anything athletic, he was a very big health nut. He never had a actual career plan when he was living alone so he also decided to look into that as well. He knew that Althea wanted to be a sucessul aurthor and that she would need to rely on him to help maintain a stable lifstyle.

As time went on both he and Althea became one step closer to gaining a stable lifestyle. Althea gained a few promotions,and she also got enough skills to begin writing her very first book. Derick was so proud of her as she worked so hard to make her book a good one.

Derick also ended up getting a job in the athletic career field, he figured it would be the perfecte thing since he was such a health nut, anything that had to do with working out he was all for it. Even with his fantastic Athletic skill he still had to start at the bottom, but he wasn't to down about it.

"So I sit in the crowd and yell WHOOO!!! really loud, and they pay me for it!!" he said excitedly.

Althea was so happy for Derick, he was so excited about his new job. Everthing between them had been working out so well, she never would have guessed that her unfortunate life would turn out to be something like in the books she used to read. Even though she was on the right path to living her dream, with added perks, Althea couldn't help but feel that there was one thing missing from her relationship with Derick.

"Hey Derick, can I ask you a question?" Althea said nervously, she was preparing herself to ask yet another question she wasn't sure how to ask. But she had hoped the outcome would be as good as the last time she found herself in this situation.

 Before she could even speak Derick cut her off..

"I know what you are going to say, and I don't want to hear it from you!!" he said putting his hands up to stop her.
"You jumped the gun before, and I went along with it but it's not going to happen that way again." he told her.

Althea could just feel her heart begining to crak into pieces. She thought that Derick was happy to be with her, but now here he was telling her that she forced him into it!! Althea tried her hardest to fight the tears that were forming in her eyes, she didn't want Derick to see her cry, she was so caught up in being strong she almost didn't notice what Derick did next.

 "Althea Fotia will you marry me?"

Althea was speechless she didn't know what to say, at first she thought that he was going to leave her but now he was proposing to her!!

"You were the one to have us move in together, but I wanted to be the one to have us spend the rest of our lives together. Althea would you do me the honors of taking my last name and being my wife?"

Althea didn't care whose last name she had she was just happy to have Derick as her husband now, not to mention that the ring was so huge, and shiny.

 Since neither one of them knew very many people, they decided to have a private wedding with just the two of them. Althea was so happy she could hardly stop from smiling as she said her vows with Derick.

In the next few days a new ring wasn't the only thing that Althea got to celebrate about, she had finished her very first novel and it had made a rather large amount of money. Full or nothing but excitement Althea called her new friend Cycl0ne Sw0rd to talk about it. They both worked at the same newspaper and so they had quickly become great friends.

While she raved on about her book, to Cy as she called him.  Derick decided to make some ratatouille to celebrate all the great things that were happening to them at the moment. He was so proud of his new wife that he wanted to spoil her in every way possible.

 As Althea went into her room to change into a nice dress, Derick dimmed all the lights and set the table for a nice romantic candle lit dinner. Althea could feel nothing but bliss as she looked into her new husbands eyes and ate the wonderful that he made just for her. She had never felt this way in her life before and was so excited that she had Derick to thank for it.

As she went to clear the dishes, Althea couldn't help but let out a wistful sigh. She had a blooming career, a nice house, and a fantastic husband. She never would have thought that her life would turn out to be so much like the stories she used to read when she was younger.

Once she was done cleaning the dishes Althea went to bed with Derick completely smitten to be his wife.

*note* I wanted Derick to be the one to propose because I'm old fashioned that way I guess. I don't know how this will work when it comes down to choosing an heir for this thing, I may not even have one seeing as how the way im playing isn't very legacy like, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.