Love the Babies

I’ve discovered that I absolutely adore the toddlers in the Sims 3.  Mostly the girls with their cute longer hair and little dresses.  I’m the reigning queen of the baby challenges at the moment, although some are trying to de-throne me.  Heh.

An odd thing is that I’ve recently started having lots of triplets.  I played for weeks and weeks without ever getting any at all, even with both parents having the fertility treatment.  Now, suddenly, they come all the time unless I don’t have room in the house for three more kids.  Three are definitely a handful, and six is nearly unmanageable.  But they’re just so dang cute!

January Osmond

February and March Osmond

Lily, Rose, and Daisy Dreamweaver

 

Osmonds: July, August, September, October, November, and December

Falcon Dreamweaver

 

Hawk Dreamweaver

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Outtakes and Deleted Scenes

I recently wrote an article for Carl’s Sims 3 Guides.  I did the walkthrough for the Surrounded by Family lifetime wish, which really was a blast for me.  If you haven’t read it yet, click here and have a look.  The official pictures are great, but the ones I didn’t publish are even better!  See for yourself!

Lessa’s face while in labor says it all.

Toddlers like to hide in their toy boxes, chew on doll heads, have tantrums, and eat.  Behold the Benden toddlers.

Someone looks just like her daddy.

And someone is also grumpy and tired and refuses to go potty.

There were puddles.  Lots and lots of puddles.

There was even a fire.  Lessa got it under control, but not before Billy blasted one of the kids with the fire extinguisher.

The best reason NOT to add mods for cool hair… your teenage boy could age up to look like this:

Lessa’s beautiful twin daughters whose birthday aging up to teenagers granted their mother her lifetime wish to be Surrounded by Family.

Thanks for visiting!

My Real House

When I first started playing Sims 3, I wasn’t very good at building houses.  I’m not very creative with designing them, for one thing.  And I had trouble just figuring out and using the various building tools.  I started off by just expanding and upgrading existing houses.  Like moving walls and adding a second story.  Then when I started the Legacy Challenge, I had to build my own.  It worked out perfectly because I only had to make it one room with four walls, gradually adding to it as money allowed.  Now I finally feel like I can build a decent house from scratch.  I recently built a replica of my real house.  It was challenging, but lots of fun with Hubby helping me get the design right.  It’s very close to being perfect except for a couple of small things that couldn’t be helped because the building tools in Sims 3 just won’t allow certain things.

Here’s the outside of the house.  It’s almost identical to the real thing.

The view from the back showing a patio with chairs and a grill.  Plus our one little tree named James T. Kirk.  The real yard is actually a lot bigger than the replica.

I’m not going to bother with a bunch of shots of the interior.  Just this one of the living/kitchen/dining which is eerily almost identical to the real thing. 

And this one of the master bedroom and bathroom, where you can also see the hall bath and the two smaller bedrooms across the hall.  Ok, That’s the last one.  Really.

Marriage and Kids

Heather was the first to marry.  Her husband is Leonard.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell how old people are until they come into my household and I control them.  Leonard was fine when Heather proposed.

But by the time they got married, he had aged up to an elder.  Gah!!  I hate when that happens!

They have a son named Derek.  He has just aged up to be a child, which happened about five minutes after his father died.  The redhead gene is strong in this family.  It started with Victoria and she passed it to all three daughters, and it’s also now been passed to Derek.  He’s also going to be a hefty boy, which also runs in the family.

Shanna had a harder time of it with Mike.  They were crazy about each other when they were together, but they had a devil of a time hooking up.  They must have had conflicting schedules because he was always busy.  After all, Shanna is a criminal and works at night. 

I tried planning a wedding party and Mike actually stood her up!  I wondered if she should just break up with him, but they really were happy together when it worked out for them.  Mike was at the house actually visiting Leonard, and Shanna grabbed him for a quick wedding ceremony on the front porch while Heather played guitar in the background.  Once they were married, I found out why they were so crazy about each other.  They are both kleptomaniacs!

I had planned to expand their house to two stories to make room for the large and growing family.  I want them to live under the same roof so they can pool all their money and resources.  It works out good for the babies, too, because they don’t need babysitters.  Plenty of aunts and uncles to help out.

However, it turned out that Mike had a house that was double the value of the Greenly house and they decided to make the move.  It’s a nice three story home with nice upgraded furniture and extras, including a complete playground in the back yard for kids.  And Shanna.

 Shanna got pregnant and had a baby girl.  After Leonard’s death, Heather started making some big changes and had Shanna start training her at the gym.

Coming up…  what life is like when other choices are made.

Up To The Present

It’s difficult to write about a story when I’m already so far ahead in the playing of it.  So, let me fastforward to the present.

I had some technical difficulties in which Jeff’s restored ghost was stuck in the science lab and Heather was stuck in the shower.  They were both starving and dying because they couldn’t move to get food or anything.  I moved the family out of the beach house in the hopes that it would unstick them.  It worked for Heather, but not for Jeff.  I eventually got a cheat code from the Sims 3 forum that got him loose.

So now the family lives in a single story house in town.  I immediately did a lot of modifications to make it suitable for a family of five.  They did well.  The girls grew up, Victoria died, and Jeff’s ghost lost his hold on the real world.  Victoria died at work, so she won’t be haunting the house, which I think is good because I’m not enjoying the ghost thing very much.  I think they must have a certain amount of time being restored before they have to go back like Jeff did, unless they eat Ambrosia.  But the recipe for that alone is $12,000 and they are nowhere near able to spend that kind of money.  So, no ghosts for awhile.

Catrina, Heather, and Shanna are all grown now and living in the house together.  Catrina is in the science career, Heather is in music, and Shanna is a crook.  Heh.  Heather and Shanna both have a love interest, but not Catrina.  She’s just too mean, I think.  She’s always in a bad mood and cranky.  Here are screenshots of each of them.

Catrina (the eldest) doing some fishing.

Heather (middle child) cleaning up after a party.

Shanna (the youngest) is stunningly beautiful and a real fireball.

They aren’t great pictures, but I was in a hurry so I could post them.  More will follow, for sure.

Jeff Moves On. And On.

Right before Ginger died, Jeff had met a lady named Victoria.  They struck up a friendly conversation outside the gym.  She didn’t really seem like anything special, just one person among many that he met.  But on the day Ginger died, Jeff ran to Victoria’s house to be comforted.  Victoria lived in a simple but lovely two story house on the beach.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Victoria did console Jeff and it went a bit farther.  She’s a good kisser and Jeff was hopelessly enamoured of her.  Victoria also had an infant, who was laying on the floor because she had no crib.  That baby really tugged at Jeff’s heart.  He fell hard for both of them.  Jeff proposed and Victoria accepted.

Having such a young fiance prompted Jeff to get some Grecian Formula and turn his hair back to brown.  It just wouldn’t do for vibrant Victoria to have people wonder if Jeff is her father. 

Jeff and Victoria were soon married in a small ceremony at his family home.  Check out Victoria’s groovy formal attire.

After initially moving everyone into the family home, Jeff decided to buy back Victoria’s house by the sea.  There were too many memories and ghosts (literally), so the small family returned to the beach.  Victoria and Jeff loved to do things together.  They often worked out together in the living room.  By this time, Victoria was pregnant with their first child.

Heather was quickly followed by Shanna and then there were three daughters in the house!  Both parents took good care of them.  Jeff was especially touching while he was teaching the babies to walk and talk.

Jeff had already lived a long life and was becoming old for a father.  Stepdaughter Catrina Ursine, Victoria’s oldest daughter, had just become a teenager when Jeff passed away.

Coming up…  the family continues without Jeff.

Ginger Keeps Her Date

Things had just settled down for Ginger and Jeff. No ghost was living with them in the house and Carson’s ghost was harmless and was just ignored.  It wasn’t but a day or two that the Grim Reaper showed up for his date with Ginger.  Alas, poor Ginger died three times before I would let go of her and just let her die.  The first time, she was killed in an explosion while working at the science lab doing an independent experiment.  I hadn’t saved the death, so I reloaded the game and started that day again.  This time, Ginger took it easy at work, but one of her co-workers had Ginger taste test something they were working on and Ginger died again.  I once more reloaded the game and this time I didn’t let her go to work at all.  She spent the day relaxing around the house and tending her beloved garden.  That’s where she was when the Grim Reaper once more came to claim her for their date.  It couldn’t be stopped.  If someone is destined to die on that day, nothing will change it.  And so, Ginger died in the middle of her beloved garden where she had spend so many hours growing the best plants anyone had ever seen.

Ginger Greenly dressed for work, but heading for her garden.

Ginger keeps her date with the Grim Reaper.

Husband Jeff, still dressed in scrubbs from working at the hospital, stands beside Ginger's grave and howls his pain.

Coming next…  Jeff seeks solace from a new friend and finds a new life instead.

Ginger’s Life With Jeff

As soon as Ginger and Jeff were married, I got the option to have them stay at Ginger’s little house or to move into the larger house where Jeff had lived with his family.  It was a pretty nice house, so they moved there.  Jeff’s sister, Vicky, and her baby moved to Ginger’s old house.  Jeff’s parents stayed with the newlyweds in the big house.  And you know that can never be a good thing.

Very soon after the families got settled, Jeff’s mother (Alyssa) died.  Right in the middle of the bathroom and in front of her husband (Carson).  That was my first death and it seemed really bizarre.  The Grim Reaper came and took her.  Creepy.  When a Sim dies indoors, they have an urn containing their remains.  So, there it was on the floor of the bathroom.  Alyssa’s remains.  A few days later, Alyssa’s ghost began haunting the house.  She would come sleep in her old bed and rattle things around.  Once she started, she came to the house every night.  When Carson got an offer to have Alyssa’s ghost restored, he took her remains to the science lab.  It didn’t work as well as they hoped, but Alyssa was restored in ghost form.  She became an interactive member of the household, able to eat, sleep, have a job, etc.  The only thing was that she was a transparent ghost instead of being complete and in color.

Ginger and Jeff got along fine and didn’t argue.  But they didn’t do much together, either.  Ginger spent a lot of time on her career as a scientist, specializing in plants.  She worked every day and then tended her garden every night.  They had a couple of parties at the house, but they weren’t huge successes.  Jeff is a loner, so he doesn’t like being around a lot of people anyway.

Alyssa started to become a lot of trouble.  Even though she was able to do pretty much everything a full living Sim can do, she caused a scene whenever she went out in public.  People were afraid of her and made unpleasant gestures.  One in particular angered her and she got into a big fight with him.  It escalated to a swordfight and was quite a disgrace for the family.  At that point, it was decided that Alyssa had to leave and she was kicked out of the house.  Rumors went around that she was completely broke and I haven’t followed her to find out what she’s doing.

Jeff’s father, Carson, died soon after Alyssa left.  Having learned a lesson, nobody took his remains to the lab to be restored.  He began haunting the house, but it wasn’t anything that Jeff and Ginger couldn’t handle, so they just left him alone.

Coming up next…  Ginger cannot escape her date with the Grim Reaper.

In the Beginning There Was Ginger Greenly

My very first Sims 3 character was Ginger Greenly.  She was my very own creation with red hair and green eyes (like me), which is where her name comes from.  Yeah, I’m not very creative.  Heh.

Ginger started as a young adult and bought a small one bedroom house.  She got a job at the science lab and became fairly successful.  I guess because she was so dedicated to her job and to her garden, she found it hard to meet someone special.  It seemed like every nice man she met was already married or had a girlfriend.  And isn’t that just so true!  Eventually she met Jeff Gibbs and they had a pretty nice attraction going.  Unfortunately for Ginger, Jeff got a girlfriend right after they met and it almost doomed them.  Jeff first said that he would choose Monika if pressed, but his feelings for Ginger were too strong and he broke it off. 

Things started to heat up between them after they started going steady.  Little did I realize that Ginger was aging quickly and she missed her one chance to have a baby because they weren’t married yet.  Their engagement was short and the wedding was planned to occur on Ginger’s birthday.  Dang, what a mess that was!  I got Ginger all dressed up in a beautiful white gown and their ceremony was just moments before her birthday arrived.  Poor Ginger became elderly on her wedding day!  Her beautiful red hair and her lovely white gown disappeared and she was suddenly wearing frumpy clothes and had gray hair.  A bittersweet day indeed.

Hello World

I’m very late to the game, but I’ve discovered the magical world of The Sims.  I recently started reading a blog called Alice and Kev, which is the story of an experiment in The Sims 3 with a homeless family.  It sparked an interest in me and I did some research on the game.  I bought it a few days ago and I’m totally hooked!  I love it so much that I must write about the adventures of my simulated family.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to get screenshots of my players early in the game, so the first part of the story won’t have pictures.  I’m on the ball now, though! 

Stay tuned.