1.9 Changes Take Time

Have you ever experienced a flash back? Well I had one the moment I saw this little boy standing there across my daughter. The memories of my past had been put away a long time ago, the trying to get out of this town and figuring out what happened to everybody had been pushed to the background when life got busy. But when I saw this pale looking boy standing there, with his glowing eyes, I had a flash back of a little girl with the same pale skin and the same glowing eyes just like he did. She eventually married my brother after he knocked her up when they were just teenagers. Staring at the little boy, I knew what he was, or at least what he would be, I just didn't know how he got here.

After sending away Cathe and Luke, who had responded to her yelling just as I did, I decided to get to the bottom of this, and perhaps figure out what the hell happened to me in the process as well. But when I asked him who he was and how he got here, all the little boy did was look up at me in fear as tears started to form in his eyes. "I'm Sebastian," the boy sniffed after wiping his tears with his sleeve, "and I don't know how I got here." When I heard his little voice breaking down, my heart broke and I instantly knew he had to be going through the same ordeal I went through when I got here, the only difference was, I had been an adult, more or less.

"It's okay Sebastian, don't worry about it, I bet you're tired, let's go find you a bed okay?" We decided to put Cath in our bed, and have Sebastian sleep in hers until they gave us a new bed for this little boy. I just hoped they would also provide in his growing needs towards his destiny.

After Rudger, Cath and Sebastian were put to bed, I went outside to talk to Luke. "I don't know what happened dad, I know it took me longer to create this potion, and I might have mixed up one or two ingredients, but nothing like this could be explained by that." My oldest son was truly at a loss with what happened here, and I felt guilty for dropping the issue of my own arrival here so easily. I felt as though I didn't try hard enough to figure out what was going on. The children never questioned where our money came from, nor did they question the appearance of items we needed over night without seeing anyone. They grew up in this situation and I doubt they will ever question it.

Over the next few months Sebastian grew accustomed to living with us, though whenever we tried to ask him about his past he would shut down and stop talking all together. We are not sure if he just can't remember anything, or if he misses his previous life. He must have had parents after all, and perhaps even siblings and friends. It did take Sebastian longer to fit into this busy household. Perhaps his hotheadedness was a cause for that, cause every prank that got pulled on him threw him into another fit.

No matter how many times we scolded the teens in this household, the pranks never stopped. They weren't aiming for Sebastian, we all got victim by it, but Sebastian just couldn't shrug them off like we did.

With some guidance he did manage to find a hobby for himself that would help him cool down. After the arrival of the telescope Sebastian cooled down considerably and without his reaction the pranks seemed to occur less and less as well.

Even though Sebastian has never actually been Cathelijne's doll and thus their bond was not like her siblings had with their dolls, they grew a relationship very quickly. Perhaps it was even more of a relationship than her brother had, not that I doubt their love, but sometimes it feels like those girls were made for them. With Sebastian and Cath it felt different, even to us. It was more like they both were still their own being, in contrary to Luke and Levi and their dolls, they just seemed to complete them. They would never get mad at each other, or envy their dolls. Cathelijne did...

"Damnit sebas, how come you always do everything ten times as good as I do?" I swear I didn't teach her to swear! Okay, she might have overheard me swear when the hammer would hit my fingers instead of my chisel. "I don't know Cath, I just look at it, and do it...I guess...doesn't it work that way for you??"

I've mentioned missing out on some stuff because of the amount of children in this household, I blame this on that as well. I always assumed Sebastian knew what he was, and I missed the signs that he didn't know it at all, this was one of those signs. If perhaps I only had noticed it at that time, I could have prepared him for what was to come, and spared us from the pain that followed.

I think it was 2 years after the arrival of Sebastian when he came rushing in to tell us he noticed something through his telescope. As a matter of fact, he had noticed some changes starting to happen several weeks ago, he just never thought about telling us. But now that it was finished he just had to tell us to know if he could go and check it out.

Of course he couldn't, I had to make sure it was safe first. The children might think nothing of stuff appearing over night when we needed them. or stuff we want to sell disappearing over night and money found in it's place. And even though we had grown accustomed to it, the appearance of a complete building without us actually noticing it, I blame the busy life again, still freaked me out. When I talked to the man that was standing behind the counter I soon felt as though I had been here before. Without him telling me so, I just knew this was a consignment store for us to bring our salable goods to, and for us to buy the stuff we needed. 

Just as it was with Donovan the mailman, whom I hadn't seen in quite some time, they replaced him when we got to close, I simply forgot what I was there for and chatted with this friendly guy. I complemented him on his store, and promised him we would come by with some of our artistic produce. The questions I wanted to ask him about where he came from and how he got here were never asked.

We soon realized that the consignment store was build to make things look "normal". With the arrival of this place there was no need to take our produce from our home, or to leave the stuff we need or wanted there over night. We could just go to the consignment store and bring our stuff there, when we would return a few days later he would hand us our money that he made from selling our stuff. And how much we wondered to whom he was selling our stuff, we always seemed to forget when we would step a foot inside that store. It had been quite a while since something had appeared in our home. So when the sound of Maddie yelling me woke me up a good six months after the arrival of the consignment store, I didn't anticipated her yelling over the appearance of something we apparently needed.

What freaked us out was not that there were two cribs, again. It was the fact that we didn't even know Maddie was pregnant when they appeared, we assumed her period wasn't coming because she was getting older. Lets face the facts here, we weren't that young anymore, we were actually waiting for the children to start calling us oldies. We never expected to have more children then we had now, let alone another set of twins.

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Yay! I finally managed to create my consignment store, actually, I could have done it a lot sooner, but I don't know, I just thought I wouldn't have enough money. I build the store myself, so here are some more "show off" pictures:

It's not that big, and it's on a very small lot, but I like how it looks.

Then the disclaimer I forgot in my previous chapter...Sebastian! This hot little vampire (wait until you see him as a teen, he is so smoking hot!) is actually Sebastian Fierce from the random legacy of Jessica found here.

I'd suggest reading it because it is a very good read!

Ehm and yes :) more children...for people who are wondering how I keep that in one household, I'm far passed the allowed 8 after all. I have Twallan's mods to allow me to exceed that number. Mind you, I will never ever do it again though! But I couldn't resist the opportunity to get another girl.

1.8 Different Doll

Did I mention live became quite hectic? Though none of the children needed bottles or diaper changing any more, giving all of them a proper meal became quite an operation. Usually the first one's that started diner would already be finished when the last one sat down. 

And though the youngest twins were still very much in love with their dolls, they were quite happy to entertain each other as well. They played a lot of tag together, and it made us believe that perhaps we didn't have to worry about their dolls coming alive.

But when we noticed the boys taking some real liking to their dolls, we weren't sure if the youngest one not having their dolls coming alive was a blessing. Growing up with someone you share all your secrets with, all your desires, it must grow a bond of some sort. And even though the girls had pointed ears, they were the only ones around. 

It's not like we never thought about this happening, the moment those dolls came to live and turned out to be girls, pretty cute ones with that as well if I may add, Madeline and I discussed this outcome. So by the time we noticed the first sparks flying around, we already had grown accustomed to this idea. We decided to just be happy that they didn't have to spend their lives without a love like ours, because how big is your chance of getting a hot firefighting female after all?

I just blame the fact that we had six children in our household, of which four were hormonal teenagers, but we missed all about the conversations Cathelijne had with Levi. As Levi explained to us later on, it turned out that she had been asking question about where Doll and Lucky came from, and how come her doll Pat was not coming alive. When Levi informed her both he and Luke had put the doll down at some point, Cath just had to try it out for herself.

After which she manipulated her other brother into creating another one of those potions under her and Pat's watchful eyes. I guess being their only sister gave her some perks, cause Luke was working at his laboratory for a few weeks in a row again. I think time must have make him forget the exact ingredients, it took him considerably longer to recreate the potion this time around.

It wasn't until I noticed a potion bottle floating through the air that I realized there were a lot of things we were missing about our children's lives, and though I wouldn't want to miss any one of them, I do sometimes wonder how it would have been with less kids.

When Pat turned out to be a pale looking little boy Cathelijne was surprised, her brothers dolls were nothing like her doll, this boy seemed different.
"Pat?" The little boy shrugged before he responded, "Pat? no, I'm Sebastian."

1.7 Real Life Dolls

Did I mention live became quite hectic? It seemed like all we did was revolving around the children. Little did we know that our family was about to get even bigger, without either of us having a say in it. Sometimes you can't help but wonder who pulls the strings in the family. It sure as hell ain't the adults.

And I swear that Maddie wasn't always happy with me either. At times she must have felt like I only added to the chaos. I'm just happy she knew just what to do with fires. So it was around this time my son decided it would be a good thing to add to the chaos.

Luke had a thing going on that provided him with the "gift" to just know how things will work. I never knew how he did it, I still don't, but he just looked at something and knew how to make it do what he wanted. So even though it took him almost his entire childhood, he managed to create a potion for his friend.

When the potion had done its work, Luke's friend had turned from a doll into a girl. And when she hugged Luke to thank him for creating that potion, Levi stood there and watched the accomplishments of his twin brother.

When decided to go and find out what all the commotion was about, I walked in on the three of them discussing what had happened. At first I thought the girl was the newspaper kid, that still came by every day. Perhaps she needed children her age before she was opening up to talking. But it became quite obvious that she wasn't. 


"What did you do Luke?" I swear the boy sounded jealous. I never noticed sibling rivalry between the both of them, so this was a surprise for me to hear Levi talk like this. "I told you so didn't I? I told you I could make her real! You just wouldn't believe me." Luke's response made it clear they had been bickering before and I started to feel guilty for not noticing this before. Perhaps we had been to busy with the youngest twins to pay any real attention to the boys. Levi didn't respond to his brother, he just stood there, glaring at Luke and his real life doll and I was wondering if I had to step in. But when I was about to say something, Luke started to talk again. " Look, it's no big deal really, if you want to I can create another potion just like it for your doll." I could see the tension dissipate from Levi's body, "Could you do that? For me?" Relieved that the boys were able to solve their quarrel without me having to intervene I walked on, pretending I never payed any attention to their conversation.

It took Luke a few days to recreate the potion, but when he finished it he was very happy to give it to Levi. Thinking back to those days sometimes made me wish I had indeed payed more attention to our boys. 

I often wondered what the boys must have went through, they were very attached to the dolls, and it was quite a risk they were taking by giving them this potion to drink. What if something wasn't right, it could have gone wrong quite easily.

But everything went just as it should, and it didn't take long before Levi could give his real life doll a hug as well. 

With the arrival of both girls we were happy with our backyard. All the worries we had at first about the girls tearing up the brothers, having them separated, not spending any time together any more faded away within a few weeks. The girls fitted in perfectly and weren't to shy to spend some time together without the boys either. It took some adjusting from our side, but soon enough we went on as if we didn't know any better.


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So...YAY! ehm...6 children.... :D


In response, yeah it gets quite busy, but I just give them enough to do one at a time, or not...it sure helps they don't have to be anywhere at certain times :P like school, or work...

1.6 Puppet on a String

With four children in the house time went by very quickly. Before I knew it Luke was with me dabbling with the science set that showed up so many years ago. I tried my hand at it once, and when Luke started to show some interest I tried to show him how everything was supposed to go, but it didn't take him long before he outsmarted me. Half of the time I don't even know what he is creating at that table, and what I do know is because he keeps talking to his imaginary friend that seems to always be with him.

At first the dolls were everything to the twins. We thought it to be pretty normal behavior, but at one point we never saw the dolls. The boy's would be talking to thin air, but their dolls were never to be found. Except at night, when they were sleeping the dolls would be just sitting there, by their beds, as if they were waiting for the boys to wake up again.

Cathelijne and Rudger still seemed to have their dolls, which made it even stranger.

When we asked Luke what had happened to his doll, he told us that he didn't do anything to the doll. More questions soon made clear what had happened that day that Luke had been standing in he yard all by himself.

When he had sat down Doll to get them both some drinks, he heard a strange noise behind him. It was at that very moment that Doll had started sparkling and turned to life. 

Apparently Luke figured out very quickly that he was the only one able to see doll, but we grew accustomed to him bashing pillows at thin air very quickly.

Though Luke was very sure of his story, we were not entirely sure if it wasn't just a figment of his imagination. So we questioned Levi about what happened to his doll. His story came out much the same.

The moment he put down Lucky she started to spark and came to life. Only difference was that Levi did saw that whole process, and that he was quite sad to see his doll go. It took Levi a bit longer to adjust to this new form his friend had taken.

We never doubted their stories, mostly because it became a common thing to see a mop cleaning up the floor all by itself. We soon came at peace with the sort of dolls they gave to our children.

And while we discussed taking them away from our youngest ones, we could not see the harm in them. So we decided to let them keep them, because well, it would feel like stealing candy from a baby to take those dolls away from them.

The moment Doll came alive, Luke started to spend more time then ever mixing potions and searching for ingredients. He was always accompanied by his doll, we never saw it, but we knew because Luke would be talking to her constantly. It took him several years, but one day we could hear him rejoice all the way in the kitchen. We realized that whatever he had been working on, had succeeded.

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Just pretend you don't see the beginning of next chapter coming okay??

1.5 Get Me Some Sleep

Don't get me wrong, the boys are super sweet, we don't feel we have children that are very busy or very attention needed. We were either lucky like that, or perhaps our method of raising just made them so easy going. But if I was thinking this second pregnancy through to much, I just couldn't help myself but freak out. Having twins is busy no matter how easy going they are, and yes, the only place to actually get some thinking done, is while your at the john.

It speaks for itself that waking up one morning, still in our first trimester, the discovery of the addition of again two new cribs had us standing still for a minute. All we could do was stand there and stare at each other, what else was there to do?

As we went from the first into the second trimester, and from there into the third, it became quite obvious by the size of her belly that they were not mistaken, as we had secretly hoped for. We were expecting twins again, and even though we both expressed our wish for a little girl, I could not shake the feeling that it would be two boys again, after all, my family has not had a girl for many generations.

I could have never expected Madeline to take care of the children as much as she used to when she was nearly due. So it was not a surprise to me that she went into labor while working on a painting again.

I kept the boys entertained in the nursery while Maddie was on her own this time around. She did a very good job and I felt a jolt of joy going through my body when she yelled that our firstborn was in fact a girl.

Only a few minutes later her brother was born. We placed Cathelijne and Rudger in their cribs, accompanied by another set of dolls we got delivered by Donovan the mailman. They fell asleep right away.

We were both stunned about how quickly the old routine returned.

And as with their older brothers, it became more and more easier the older they got. When the youngest twins would need attention, a bottle or clean diapers, their big brothers would entertain themselves.

When Cathelijne and Rudger were asleep, we'd give the boys some much needed attention. They kept us so busy that nearly a year had passed and the painting Madeline started in her last trimester, before giving birth to our youngest spawn, was still standing there on the easel, as unfinished as she left it that day.

The only time we were able to spend together, was when we were sleeping ourselves.

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So YAY :D I got myself a Ryan and Maddie female spawn :D 

As for the dolls...I went crazy when I got the message telling me these twins got the dolls as well! I have a mod that makes sure I am supposed to get them less. And in my other legacy it has worked like a charm...but here....perhaps this is the games way of trying to solve the lack of population in this town :P