Chapter Fifteen: A Place to Grow Into

Warning: This post is rated PG-13 for scantly clad Sims.

About a month after the twins were born, Chuck came up to me with a serious look on his face.
 

“Amanda, there’s something I want to talk with you about.” Normally I wouldn’t have thought much about it but he had such a serious look on his face.  I had never seen him this serious before.

 

“You know you can talk to me about anything, Chuck.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and…well, you know that I grew up on a ranch. As much as I like my job I was thinking that it would be nice if I could quit working at the precinct and work on a ranch full time. I could be home with the kids as they grow up and I would be doing something I love.”

 

I was relieved that it wasn’t as bad as my imagination was making it.  I had often wondered about Chuck working at the precinct. He seemed okay with it but it wasn’t something that he was excited about doing.  Sometimes at night he would talk about living on the ranch with his uncle and aunt and how rewarding he thought working on a ranch would be.

 

“Well, you know I’m a big believer in following your heart so if that’s what you want to do, I think you should do it. Do you want to turn this ranch into a full working ranch?”

“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.  This is a great house and I know that this is the house we brought the twins home to, but I was thinking it would be nice if we were able to build our own ranch. One that we can pass on to future generations and…grow into.” He smiled when he said the last part.

 

“Grow into?! The twins are barely older than a month and you’re already talking about adding more?” I joked with him. But he was right, if we were going to have any more children, we were going to need a bigger house.

 

“Where is there a piece of land big enough to build this ranch?” I asked him.

 

“How about the lot where you’re old house is.” Not long after we had gotten married, a young guy bought my old house and lived there for several months before being transferred out of town and putting the house back up for sale.

“Do you really think we can get it? It’s one of the larger lots in town and Honey lives right next door.”

“I can contact a realtor and see and then we can contact an architect and contractor. Does that all sound okay with you?”

 

“I would definitely be sad to leave this house but I think the idea of building our own ranch for our children and their future children is a wonderful idea!”

 

After making several phone calls and meeting with several people we were able to purchase my old house and the land. We soon demolished the house, which didn’t take very long since it was so small, and got to work with an architect. We told him what we needed the ranch to have and he quickly drew up plans. 

From start to finish, it took around ten months to build. We were in the process of moving during the twins first birthday.  We weren’t able to have a birthday party for them but we did celebrate with the four of us at our old house. 

By that evening, we were ready to head to our new home.  I picked up Bridgette and Chuck picked up Charlie. We headed out the front door and down the driveway. 

I got a little teary eyed as we walked and I called to Chuck to hold on a minute. We both turned around and took one more look at the house. 

As excited as I was to be moving into our beautiful new home, I was also sad that a chapter in our life was coming to an end. This house had so many memories for Chuck and I.  I fell in love with him while staying here, Chuck proposed to me in the barn, we came home from our honeymoon to this house, I found out we were expecting twins living in this house, and we brought home the twins to this house. I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye to it, but I was surprised by how hard I was finding it to leave.

 

“Hey, I know it’s hard. I’m going to miss it too. “ Chuck tried to reassure me. “We better get going though if we want to make it to the new house before dark.”

I turned around and looked at him and nodded. We walked down the drive to the cab that was waiting for us and rode to our new house.
 

 

As we pulled up to the house my sadness was replaced with happy thoughts of us making new memories in this house.  One of the nice advantages of being a composer for movies was that it allowed us the opportunity to build a beautiful ranch.  There was more than enough room for our growing family and for more horses.

 

The kids soon adjusted to their new surroundings and loved playing in their new nursery.  By this point it was obvious that they both inherited Chuck’s eye color and split hair color with Charlie having Chuck’s and Bridgette having mine.

 

I was also enjoying our new kitchen. I had finally learned how to make Chuck’s favorite dinner, baked salmon and liked making it for him on a regular basis. 

 

Chuck and I spent our time teaching the twins to walk, talk, and use the potty.  The kids really seemed to enjoy learning to walk at Cinnamon Crest Falls.

 

I was surprised when the twins were three to be contacted by the same movie producer to write the soundtrack for the sequel to the first movie I scored.  I was honored that he would ask me again and quickly got to work writing. 

 

One night Chuck and I were lying in bed and I was confessing my reservations about composing a new soundtrack while juggling taking care of toddlers.
 

 

“Am I taking on too much? I mean I’m exhausted from taking care of the twins and now I’ve added composing this score on top of everything. I don’t know how I’d do any of it without you being here.  I really do appreciate your help! Maybe I should just pull out of composing the score. We’d all be a lot less stressed.”

“Hey, we’ll be fine. I’m here and you know I don’t mind spending time with the kiddos. There’s going to be times when I’m not able to spend as much time with you all once we get the horses settled. Don’t worry, we’ll make it work.”

 
After Chuck and I talked I decided to continue writing the soundtrack. I felt the uncontrollable urge to finish it quickly.  I felt like I was on an unknown deadline.  I soon became suspicious of what that deadline was one morning while I was feeding the twins breakfast.

 

I had just given the twins their food when I felt like I was going to be sick. I ran to the bathroom and got sick.

 

I knew this feeling all too well and I had little doubt what it meant.  I went to bed that night thinking about whether I should tell Chuck my suspicions when I was hit with another wave of nausea.  I ran to the bathroom and prayed that it wouldn’t last long.

 

As I got back in bed I decided to wait to tell Chuck about what I suspected, at least till the next morning.

 

I heard her get up and get sick in the bathroom.  The last time she had been sick like this, she was pregnant with the twins.  I laid in the bed for a while after she got back and tried to go back to sleep. It was no good. My mind was racing with thoughts about her possibly being pregnant.  I waited for her to go to sleep and then got up and sat in one of the chairs. I sat there and watched her sleep for a while and thought us having another child.

 

When she was pregnant with the twins I wasn’t stressed. We didn’t have as many responsibilities or demands on our time. I knew  this time we’d figure out a way to make everything work ,but I needed some time to wrap my brain around the thought of having another child.  I got up from the chair and went into the nursery. I stood there looking at each one of them sleep thinking about how the day they were born was one of the happiest days in my life. 

I couldn’t imagine my life without them now.  One thing I knew we needed to do was hire a maid. There was no way that I could run a ranch, Amanda write music , us take care of three or maybe four children if we had twins again, and take care of the house.  I decided to ask our friends for recommendations for a maid starting in the morning.

I went back to the bedroom and climb into bed feeling more excited about being a father again.

 

Credits:
Chuck and Amanda's House: Oaklea by orlov
(some rooms were changed to accommodate the family like kitchen, barn and some decorative items)

Poses:
Affection by Aeon 
Third Couples Set by Mypalsim