Chapter 13.1 – January 2024 – Patriks birthday

 -- Morning Routine --

A new year, a new beginning of new years resolutions, hopes and dreams and other such things...
Everything was as usual in this family living in the old Frumpenheimer residence on the outskirts of town as the parents sleep was once again interrupted by a screaming toddler.

Actually, make that two. Both Silvia (in the blue vest) and Lillian (in the yellow t-shirt) were hungry and needed feeding..

 

Christmas and New Years was definitely over now and it was back to all the same old routines. Mom and dad didn't have much time to prepare breakfast for Rune with two screaming toddlers in the household, but he was old enough to take care of himself before going to school.

-- Back to work --

Solvej sweet talks with Silvia and tells her to behave nicely for the babysitter while daddy is at work and mommy goes outside to tend to her plants in the greenhouse. No making a mess or playing in the toilet..

If only the kids would listen. ;)

Solvejs little greenhouse gardening is carrying fruits and it is time to collect the harvest and sell it to to the local grocery store to get paid.

 

A greenhouse is handy to ensure that she can have an income all months of the year...

She sells off her harvest for 1708 simoleons which earns her an additional bonus of 500 simololeons and the title of "fertilizer spreader" by the local chamber of commerce. Success! ;)

Time to head back before Patrik finishes his shift at the police station to prepare for his birthday party later this evening...

Patrik left work with the positive message that he just received a promotion to "Office Worker", as well as a bonus of 480 simoleons. He now makes 47 simoleons per hour. Not nearly as much as he made in his football career, but his paycheck seems to be slowly getting bigger again..

-- Party preparations --

Back home Solvej was busy on the phone making the last minute arrangements before the party by calling the guests to give them a reminder that the party was happening tonight. ;)

Just in time for Patrik to come home. Now its time to clean up the house, put the kids toys back in the toy box and get the house ready and decorated for the party. ;) It was still another two hours before Rune would come home, as he was on his after school activity with the other boy scouts.

Solvej focused on picking up the toys, while Patrik picked up Lilian to put her in her crib. You know, seeing as how she was very tired and needed to sleep. Solvej wanted to do the same with Silvia, but there was no time. The guests arrived to soon, and she had to welcome them in.

-- Welcome to the good new old times --

Solvej shaking hands with Chansa Klinemann. The guy standing behind her is one of the towns bartenders. He wasn't invited to the party, but likely has made an acquaintance with Patrik when he was out on the town celebrating his wins (or drowning the sorrow of his losses) when he was still in his football career.

Patrik inside reminiscing about old times with another uninvited bartender. I didn't bother to take note of any of their names, since I don't care to much about the bartenders.

Solvej asking Leya how her day was. Leya answers politely that her day was good, of course. Her husband Gaute was also invited, but decided to not show up. Someones gotta watch the kids back home, and it looks like it was his turn this time.

Then its time for the main event. Patriks birthday. His son Rune was very cheerful when checking out the birthday cake. Cakes are always exciting, though it wasn't Runes turn this time. It will be soon enough though, as he is about to turn 13 in just a few months time...

 

Patrik blows out the candles and almost everybody cheers. The ones that didn't cheer are Christoffer Vaddelmyr in the pink suit who bends down to pick up Silvia and give her some attention too, as well as local politician Baturney Flansbarne and the old doormat military man Fagidi Froosh. The two latter ones are not in this picture.

Patrik is now and adult, hooray for him. Unfortunately this later led him to a midlife crisis that seems could last for quite some time. 7 years and then some, it would seem... Hopefully it will treat him nicely. ;)

-- Vegetable cake and dance --

Time for cake. Fagidi and Baturney have now made it into the picture to cheer for Patrik, however it's debatable how much that helps the mood with Silvia now impatiently letting everybody now she is tired and wants to go to bed...

Old man Fagidi is letting loose, which is well deserved from being always hazed by everyone else at his job, and from having spent several years living with that old witch of an ex-wife of his... who was not invited to the party, but did show up only to stand outside for a while in the snow with her usual discontented frown..

Baturney is in the front stealing Silvias toy doll house. However, I don't think she would be to interested in it at the moment.

 

Patrik doesn't let Silvias crying kill the mood though, as he goes to dance with Leya. Chansa can't take the wailing anymore and becomes the first guest to leave the party.

When Solvej notices, she finally picks up Silvia to put her in her crib. She wants the party to be enjoyable, as well as her little baby girl to not be crying, so she can't really have this happening... When its Solvejs turn to celebrate her birthday, and the kids will be a little older, maybe they'll hire a baby sitter (or have Rune babysit his younger sisters), and arrange the celebrations out on one of the towns bars instead... completely free from any crying children.. She considered it this time too, but she wasn't comfortable leaving her baby girls alone, even with a babysitter.

Rune was patiently waiting for his father to finish dancing with Leya so he could give him a gift. He didn't have much to give except for some tickets he had won at the seasonal festivals in the park, but it was still a very meaningful gift to Patrik. ;)

Fagidi is the second guest to leave the party. It's tiresome for an old man to party this much.. he needs to save his energy to go back to work the next day.. Funny thing is, he was retired. After divorcing his wife, I guess he still feels he has something to prove to the world.. or himself... or maybe he is finally doing what he always wanted to do...

Solvej finds time to sit down and eat some cake, too. Baturney there is a clown, and he knows it. Can you believe that this guy is the towns mayor? Well, you'd better, because he is. ;)

Leya is a popular woman, and when Patrik was finished dancing with her. Christoffer was next in line, until he felt like the partying was over for him. His girls were waiting for him at home, because someone in his household would also have a birthday party just for them..

 

When Leya finally became available Baturney thought he would have his chance, so he went over to her and asked her for the next dance.. He felt optimistic about it, because she seemed positive at first, but..

..no, no, no. She didn't want to do that.. Baturney was definately not her type to dance with. This grown man, acting to much like a child... and maybe somewhere in the back of her mind she was wondering if he was atleast just a little bit vegetable.. or if the birthday cake was of the vegetarian kind, which is not unlikely, since this is Solvejs home...

He was gravely disappointed by the rejection, which made Leya feel bad for a while.. she didn't mean to hurt his feelings like that..

..but there was hope as Solvej was finished eating her piece of cake.. If he could just get one bried dance with her as the host of the party..

..that would be all he needed. And it turned out to be a brief dance indeed. The song wasn't even halfway through before he figured he'd had enough of this partying and decided to go home to his own wife and children. ;)

Well, I'm glad you finally enjoyed yourself there, Mr. Flansbarne. ;)

Leya, who has gona back to dance with Patrik, gazes at Baturney from across the room as he leaves.. "Hmm, maybe I should have given him a chance and danced with him if that's all he wanted..."

A distant sound of a toddler in a bedroom downstairs yelling for mommy and daddy because she's hungry is heard, and Leya as the last remaining guests, takes this as a clue that it's probably time for her to leave the party as well. She thanks Patrik for the dance and Solvej for the invitation and the party before heading down the stairs. She's got a husband and a couple of kids waiting for her back home too. ;)

--- Family time ---

With the party now officially being over and all the guests out of the house, it was time for a little bit of family time before bedtime, which meant Solvej reading bedtime stories for Rune while Patrik took care of the twins. ;)

Patrik upstairs feeding Silvia, while Lilian is downstairs in her crib waiting not-so-patiently for her turn..

In the meantime Rune had gone into his room to check under his bed for monsters. Though he didn't find any, he wanted mom to read him another bedtime story to make sure he was calm and ready for sleep.. Solvej then chose to read from her logic skill book to hopefully bore him to sleep so that he wouldn't come back and ask for yet another one... ;)

..and just to make sure, while Patrik was now upstairs feeding Lilian, she told him to go to bed and go to sleep now. Two stories in one night had to be enough.. mom and dad needs their time to rest too.. ;)

It worked and he found his bed, and everyone went happy, but tired, to sleep.. except one of course. Lilian wasn't ready to go to sleep yet as she spent some time babbling with Mr. Teddybear.. and Patrik was dreaming sweet dreams of criminals being put behind bars where they belong...

Good night.. ;)

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-- Other --

Of course, Patrik wasn't the only one to celebrate his birthday. I got a couple of notifications of other birthdays happening as well, and it's like I said, every sim and every household is a main household here, so.. ;)

The first one was of this little girl. She just aged up from a baby. Her name is Randi Ås, and her parents are Odin and Frigg Ås. They are the richest family in town, because every town needs atleast one wealthy family. 

Her parents are Odin and Frigg (names from Norse mythology) and they live in this house called Bilskirne (= the hall of Tor, or Thor if you will, the thunder god). I have taken som liberties here, since Tor is their son, so technically it's not his hall.. yet, perhaps. ?When I first made the town I made only adult sims, with few exceptions, the Ås family being one of them. So...  most of the children in this town are either made autonomously by the sims themselves, or through story progression. The toddler Randi is such a sim, but the other kids of the Ås family (who were all made as teenagers) are not.

The second baby to age up was this one. Her name is Rebecca and her parents are Christoffer and Selma Vaddelmyr, both of which are friends of Solvej and Patrik.

Selma in the front and Christoffer in the back to the right, with Rebecca crawling on the floor.

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