Eh, my sim has mastered gardening, but she's only at level 3 in cooking, 5 in fishing.  I just had her start eating a life fruit every morning, and I've noticed that once the life fruit is at excellent or better, she gets a random amount of days back, instead of just one day for each fruit. Heck of a lot better than going through that ambrosia rigamarole.

So that could be an option for you to explore.  I just had a thought, how about turning aging off, keeping track of the days on your sim children and sending them to the cake and/or using the grow up cheat?

Weird, I registered yesterday and everything still works for me.

Not true, I registered using my Sims 2 username and it lets me use the forums and other things (user pages, stories, movies, etc.).   Under User Settings on my Sims3 page, I can plug in the registration if and when I get the game.

Batbox = ffsdebugger
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/ffsdebugger.zip

You can clearly see that it is Mary Sue Pleasant enjoying part of her divorce settlement from Daniel. 

Actually there is a boolprop you can use.  I found a tutorial attaching a garage to a house with a foundation that is very well written and photographed and easy to follow by SimSherry2.  She also includes how to build an arched carport as well.  And you can download the house she used for the tutorial (it has 3 or 4 wall recolors and the green glass tile she uses for the carport), if you wish.  I found I didn't need it though because the tutorial was so well designed.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=53552&asset_type=story&user_id=370