Round Five: Graduation!

Our final round is the kids' graduation! Like the round before, the mini-theme comes first. You can't graduate high school without going to Prom! Well, technically you can, but it isn't any fun. You can choose whether your kids are graduating high school or university/college. I wanted my teens to graduate high school because I wasn't ready to breeze them through college. And that's why this is late, I spent most of my day doing age conversions from the Uni grad wear to teens - and I'll be uploading that soon for you all to use as well. Anyways, find your teen a sweetheart, buy her a dress or rent him a tux, and send them to the dance! Usually these dances take place in a decorated gym or cafeteria, but my senior prom was at a University Ballroom that my class rented. Now, it's not just a dance. Most Proms have an 'after-prom' and an 'after-party'. My after-prom was Casino Royale themed, we had fun pretending to be James Bonds and secret agents all dressed up fancy playing Texas Hold'em. Our after-party was a three hour bus ride to an amusement park, beginning at 6am after a completely sleepless night for all of us. Sleep deprived roller coasters are an interesting experience to be sure.

Round Four: Birthday!

Kids just grow up so fast don't they? This round I need you to throw one of your kids a birthday party! This should be their Child/Teen birthday, so invite lots of kids over and have lots of child-friendly activities going on. I don't actually want to see many teenagers at the party cuz it's kinda weird how they suddenly grow 3 feet taller and are now 'so much cooler'. We are pretending that it's their 12th-ish birthday, they are still kids - give them a bouncy house and hire a clown to do balloon animals before they are suddenly too embarrassed to be seen with you. The bonus round for this one comes a little out of order, you'd have to do it before the main spread. It's the first day of school. There should be lots of nice September scenery and cute back-to-school outfits. As long as you have one spread in on that Friday/Saturday/Sunday that I award extra points for, it doesn't matter which spread you have up - you still get the points for it. After you are done with this round, get your kids about half way though their teen years.

Round Three: Vacation!

Round three will be a Vacation spread. Send your family out to have some fun in a strange new place! Your kids should be child-aged at this point. If you don't have BV, then send find a cool community lot to have a grill-out, or go to a really cool looking pool/water park place. You don't need to go all the way to Takemizu for this. The bonus spread for this week is Holiday. I'm American and I'm using the American versions of these words, a Vacation is when you go someplace, a Holiday is a date on the calendar that you celebrate. Any holidays are acceptable, but there needs to be a change of weather between the two. If you go to the beach for vaca, then it needs to be a snowy winter holiday. Or, going skiing for vacation, and celebrating the Fourth of July.

Round Two: Baby!

And the next theme is..... BABY! Officially "And Baby Makes Three (or More)". I need two pages showcasing your family becoming a family. Some interesting ideas for shots include mom being pregnant and belly rubs, actually giving birth (faked to look like a hospital, I don't want to see any of the typical birth animations plz), dad being proud, grandparents looking on, whatevs, make it cute! Here are two hospitals that have birthing suites: sunni's Mercy Hospital and my Apox Hood Hospital. The mini theme for this round (optional to complete) is "Firsts". This should be pictures of baby's first words, first steps, first time sitting up, rolling over, whatever you can think of. Photos can range from this child being an infant up to a toddler. Don't age them up to kids in these spreads.

Round 1: The Wedding

Whew that was close! We just barely got our 10th contestant so we are good to go!

Start planning your weddings! Hire a GOOD wedding photographer. Officially you need at least 2 photos, but you may have up to 6 to put on 2 pages. Be creative with it! Everyone will likely have that nice shot of the first kiss, but what about other wedding traditions, like the cake, throwing the bouquet, best man's toast, the flowergirl and ring boy. The mini theme for this round is their Honeymoon. Take them someplace exciting before kids ruin everything! 

I'm Hosting A Contest!

I'm really excited to get this contest rolling! I've wanted to do this for a while now, but school keeps me busy.

The idea here is to make a Sim Scrapbook. Contestants will create a family within the guidelines and then take photos of them at 5 specific Life Events and scrapbook it all together as their entries.

Judge a Book by its Cover: For the application stage, you need to prove you can take a decent photo and do some basic image manipulation. You will be submitting a ‘scrapbook cover’. Place a photo of your two starter sims, and some words along the lines of ‘Our Family Memories’. Make it look nice, as it will be setting the tone for the rest of your pages. Keep in mind things like image borders, word plaques, and nice fonts. You will not receive a score for this page, but it will be judged on whether you are qualified for this contest based on the same things as the rest of the pages. Contestants should start with 2 unmarried sweetheart sims. This contest will create for them a scrapbook of their future family. They will, in the course of the contest, have at least one child. You must use the same family the entire time, but not every family member needs to be in every photo or page spread. Grandparents might be handy to have, but are not required. You may use one of your preexisting families that you’ve been taking hundreds of photos for your legacys or whatnots.