audrey_legacy (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} audrey_legacy) wrote,@ 2007-03-11 13:47:00 |
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McNeil: It's the Hard Knock Life
Seasons is here! And man, it has been kicking my butt! Or, rather, the McNeil's butts. Honestly, I've felt so sorry for them lately. But let's get to it, shall we?
OK, maybe not right to it. Here's a picture of the penguin. Who honestly came around a /lot/. He's a cute little thing, but that kind of wore off after a while. I personally wish he.. did.. something. Aside from chatting up unfinished snowmen about burglars. Also, I swear the stupid bird is psychic...
Here's Jan Tellerman (now Jan McNeil, wife of the McNeil founder, Harris) in her winter gear. Petting the penguin.
OK, here we go! You may or may not remember that by the end of the last update, Harris and Jan had three boys: Charlie, Evan and Mitchell. Charlie and Even were now both children, while Mitchell was a toddler. So in this picture we have Charlie and Evan (the one standing up). I'd sent the boys out to play for a bit before the school bus would come. I tested out snowball fighting for a brief second, then had the two work on a snowman together. I'd thought I was keeping a good eye on their temperature meters until all of a sudden I noticed that Evan's icon had him with pale, blue-ish skin. I cancelled out his snowman building action and queued up him going to warm himself by the fireplace. A warning popped up that if Evan didn't get warmed up, the social worker would come. I figured I was in the clear because, hey, he was going inside to warm himself by the fireplace, right? Wrong! Evan had NOT moved towards the house, but had dropped the action in favor of freezing. Charlie was only few steps from his brother, so I sent him to warm Evan up. He was in the middle of doing so when the social worker showed up (and that's him unfreezing there in the picture). But the social worker is a mean lady and I lost all three kids in one go.
Needles to say, I was a bit shocked, as I've never had children taken by the social worker in a situation where I'm controlling them. I was also pretty bummed, as I'd had Evan pegged to be the heir and now I'd have to start all over with the having kids again. Harris and Jan were only somewhat bummed. But I did send Jan out to finish building the snowman her boys had started.
Having gone with the eXtreme start, Harris was a whole sim week older (and maybe a smidge more) than Jan. So he gets home from work (SWAT Team Leader) one day and instantly ages to an elder. He makes a rather dashing geezer, don't he?
Sicne they needed another kid to move on with the legacy, Jan and Harris started in on new kids almost right after the boys were taken. And their first child post-social worker? Little Shelly here. Who is adorable and cute (and, because I forgot to roll the pacifier, she's pretty much a clone of Mitchell) and all.. but I'm going with the Patriarch handicap for this legacy. Which means all the heirs need to be male. So, it's another try at a kid for the McNeil's.
Poor Jan. Being a Romance sim, I'm sure spending most of her adult life pregnant and potty-training toddlers was not what she had in mind.
Remember when I said the penguin was psychic? Yeah. The poor McNeil's. I was playing them and all of a sudden I heard funky music and the Buy/Build options grayed out. I looked, and there was good ol' Russ Bear sneaking along towards their house. It figures. The Legacy's, in all their 15 generations, have never owned a burglar alarm and have been burglar free all that time. The McNeil's hadn't yet bought a burglar alarm.. they get their three kids taken away from them.. and he shows up.
And goes right into Shelly's room. I half wondered if he was going to kidnap her. He did not. He took the TV and piano.
Luckily, although they lacked a burglar alarm, Harris was quick getting to the phoen to call the cops. And after a brief buttkicking, the officer whose name I cannot remember promtly arrested dear ol' Russ.
And Shelly promptly rolled up the want to see Russ' ghost. Pretty creepy thought for a toddler! Also, Harris and Jan cried more over their lost TV than they ever did for the three kids that got taken by the social worker.
Perdita, Harris' longtime dalmatian friend, passes away. Her mate, Butch (the gray dog) and daughter Ai (the white dog) mourn. Shelly and Jan are asleep and Harris is at work, so no sobbing from the lot of them. The maid just looks bored as she goes to clean the dog bed.
With spring came my first rainstorm in Seasons. Man, the thunder really startled me sometimes! Lightning also promptly struck one of the trees, which just looked awesome. The smaller tree to the front of the property is an apple tree, but it's always sickly. I think maybe because the spring and summer in this neighborhood are sandwiched between two winters? I dunno. I'm going to try building a greenhouse around it when the McNeil's get enough cash.
Anyway. The struck tree caught fire and burned for a bit before the rain put it out. The McNeil's didn't even notice.
Later the tree got struck for a second time during the same storm. Harris had been out checking the mail, so he freaked out. The rain put the fire out pretty fast. Later, same storm, the tree got struck and put on fire for a THIRD time. Man!
<
Inside, Jan gave birth to what is her 5th child. This one is another boy. Cheer! His name is Malcolm. And he is, again, a clone of Mitchell and his sister Shelly. Doh! Because I want to see if I could get better points from a non-clone, I have Harris and Jan try again for another baby. Er.. ignore the green fumes from the dirty dog bed. Stupid things.
Here's Shelly, all grown up as a child. In the snow! The second winter - sandwiched between a spring and summer - didn't get as much snow as the first winter. And Shelly is still furious with Russ Bear about the burglary. Girl knows how to hold a grudge.
Don't break your neck to look at the ghost dog, Shelly. Perdita haunts, and spends most of her time messing with the bathtubs.
But, since almost everyone in the house at the time had a want to get a kitten (or a puppy or kitten), the McNeil's went ahead and adopted a little black kitten named Dolphin. Here's Harris gettin' some love from the new family member.
Here's Malcolm as a toddler. With that hairstyle, he looks incredibly like his oldest brother, Charlie. Also.. it looks like they finally added in randomized hairstyles for toddlers? It started happening for me with the Pets patch, but they usually got the wrong color hair (a blond would get brown hair, for example). Since installing Seasons, the hairstyles are randomized AND the right color. Huzzah!
And here's Shelly playing with Dolphin, who is meant to be her cat. She'll take him with her when she moves out of the house.
Shelly plays a little catch with little Brittany Parker. I think during their entire game, neither of them actually caught the ball. It was cute!
Ah. Here's Ai, running back home. She and Butch (her father) do NOT get along. At all. I didn't even realize until all of a sudden Ai ran away! Harris called and reported her missing, and a couple sim days later she was returned. Checking her and Butch's relationship with each other, I discovered that they are enemies! Each has a -100 daily AND lifetime relationship. So the house often erupts in chases and fights between the two of them. Luckily, they both get on well enough with Dolphin.
This is the guy who brought Ai back. I forget his name. He looks kind of creepy, though.
Malcolm playing with big sister Shelly before she goes to school. Oh. Shelly missed her first day of school because she was playing with a toddler Malcolm with the logic toy and got stuck, so I had to delete her with move_objects. She appeared back beside the bus, but it wouldn't let me click on the bus to make her go to school! So she got a D and I got another warning about the social worker, and spent my time worrying that the McNeil's would lose two more kids! Luckily that didn't happen.
Jan thinks Shelly is a bit too young for /that/ discussion. Honestly!
Jan gives birth to her sixth child, another little girl named Penny. Doh! Wanted a boy. I, of course, forgot to take a picture of the actual baby, so here is a reaction shot of Harris, Shelly and the maid reacting to Jan's screeches of pain.
Waiting for his carpool to arrive, Harris is terrorized by a wolf. All the wolves I'd had visit so far to any of my families have been fairly nice, so this was different!
Shelly is still all sorts of ticked off at Russ Bear! And that's Ivy Copur holding Pikachu back there. She came home from work with Harris and spent the entire night trying to talk through Pikachu or the plush giraffe to other people. Drove me (and the McNeil's) nuts. And that's a toddler Penny sitting in the high chair who you can't see because of Ivy and Pikachu.
Poor Malcolm. First he had pink pjs.. and now he has a pink scarf.
There's a bit better shot of little Penny.
Ai does not like Komei Whats-His-Face, no she does not!
Remember how I said Butch and Ai were always fighting? Have I mentioned that it's, like, /all the time/? I have no clue how they got to hate each other so much. They're father and daughter!
That looks.. y'know, Jan, you're supposed to put Penny on the /toilet/.
In the McNeil's Pleasantview, it snows in summer! Seriously, it's summer. With snow. I think it's because summer is sandwiched between two winters, so it doesn't have enough time in the 5 days to gradually warm up?
Perdita haunts again, spooking a poor, pregnant (again) Jan. Oops.
The penguin visits. Also in summer.
Dolphin grows up! He's pretty cute. And he doesn't spend all his time fighting with the dogs.
Shelly comes home from school and brings with her Charlie! Her big brother who got taken by the social worker!
Jan gives her firstborn a hug. He really should be a teen by now. Poor guy! Cursed to be a child forever now!
Malcolm on the left, Charlie on the right. Told you they look alike!
Jan goes into labor again. This time in the bathroom, with Shelly and Charlie looking on.
It's a boy! They name him Luke. So now there are two choices for heirdom in the McNeil family, Malcolm and Luke. I'll wait t'see what Luke's personality points turn out like before deciding. Also, I've heard rumor that the babies don't stop crying in Seasons or something? Mine do fine.. but I've found out I now have to play with the babies otherwise they lay there in the crib and scream (before, I just had the sims change their diaper, feed them cuddle them and then put them back to bed.. so now I just add playing with the baby in there after changing the diaper). I HAVE noticed that toddlers seem to stay awake for a lot longer, which is sort of annoying for me. Oh well!
Shelly becomes a teenager, with the Knowledge aspiration. And.. I forget what her lifetime want is.
Penny becomes a child!
And, finally, Jan becomes an elder. No more babies for her! What a sad adult life she had for a Romance sim, popping out all them kids. But she never once had a Have a Baby fear or anything, so maybe she didn't mind too much. Poor Harris the Family sim ends up three kids short of fulfilling his Have 10 Kids want. I let Jan age figuring they would adopt 3 kids. It wasn't until later that I remembered that because they lost the first three kids to the social worker, they wouldn't be allowed to adopt. Oh, well!
No clue when my next update will be. Real Life has seen fit to throw anything and everything at me the last few months and usually I don't have time to play Sims, or when I do, I'm too exhausted. Hopefully my load eases up, though, with Seasons here so that I'll have more of a chance to play and update. Hope y'all are doing well! I'll try to get caught up on blogs here in the next week. I'm behind again!
Seasons is here! And man, it has been kicking my butt! Or, rather, the McNeil's butts. Honestly, I've felt so sorry for them lately. But let's get to it, shall we?
OK, maybe not right to it. Here's a picture of the penguin. Who honestly came around a /lot/. He's a cute little thing, but that kind of wore off after a while. I personally wish he.. did.. something. Aside from chatting up unfinished snowmen about burglars. Also, I swear the stupid bird is psychic...
Here's Jan Tellerman (now Jan McNeil, wife of the McNeil founder, Harris) in her winter gear. Petting the penguin.
OK, here we go! You may or may not remember that by the end of the last update, Harris and Jan had three boys: Charlie, Evan and Mitchell. Charlie and Even were now both children, while Mitchell was a toddler. So in this picture we have Charlie and Evan (the one standing up). I'd sent the boys out to play for a bit before the school bus would come. I tested out snowball fighting for a brief second, then had the two work on a snowman together. I'd thought I was keeping a good eye on their temperature meters until all of a sudden I noticed that Evan's icon had him with pale, blue-ish skin. I cancelled out his snowman building action and queued up him going to warm himself by the fireplace. A warning popped up that if Evan didn't get warmed up, the social worker would come. I figured I was in the clear because, hey, he was going inside to warm himself by the fireplace, right? Wrong! Evan had NOT moved towards the house, but had dropped the action in favor of freezing. Charlie was only few steps from his brother, so I sent him to warm Evan up. He was in the middle of doing so when the social worker showed up (and that's him unfreezing there in the picture). But the social worker is a mean lady and I lost all three kids in one go.
Needles to say, I was a bit shocked, as I've never had children taken by the social worker in a situation where I'm controlling them. I was also pretty bummed, as I'd had Evan pegged to be the heir and now I'd have to start all over with the having kids again. Harris and Jan were only somewhat bummed. But I did send Jan out to finish building the snowman her boys had started.
Having gone with the eXtreme start, Harris was a whole sim week older (and maybe a smidge more) than Jan. So he gets home from work (SWAT Team Leader) one day and instantly ages to an elder. He makes a rather dashing geezer, don't he?
Sicne they needed another kid to move on with the legacy, Jan and Harris started in on new kids almost right after the boys were taken. And their first child post-social worker? Little Shelly here. Who is adorable and cute (and, because I forgot to roll the pacifier, she's pretty much a clone of Mitchell) and all.. but I'm going with the Patriarch handicap for this legacy. Which means all the heirs need to be male. So, it's another try at a kid for the McNeil's.
Poor Jan. Being a Romance sim, I'm sure spending most of her adult life pregnant and potty-training toddlers was not what she had in mind.
Remember when I said the penguin was psychic? Yeah. The poor McNeil's. I was playing them and all of a sudden I heard funky music and the Buy/Build options grayed out. I looked, and there was good ol' Russ Bear sneaking along towards their house. It figures. The Legacy's, in all their 15 generations, have never owned a burglar alarm and have been burglar free all that time. The McNeil's hadn't yet bought a burglar alarm.. they get their three kids taken away from them.. and he shows up.
And goes right into Shelly's room. I half wondered if he was going to kidnap her. He did not. He took the TV and piano.
Luckily, although they lacked a burglar alarm, Harris was quick getting to the phoen to call the cops. And after a brief buttkicking, the officer whose name I cannot remember promtly arrested dear ol' Russ.
And Shelly promptly rolled up the want to see Russ' ghost. Pretty creepy thought for a toddler! Also, Harris and Jan cried more over their lost TV than they ever did for the three kids that got taken by the social worker.
Perdita, Harris' longtime dalmatian friend, passes away. Her mate, Butch (the gray dog) and daughter Ai (the white dog) mourn. Shelly and Jan are asleep and Harris is at work, so no sobbing from the lot of them. The maid just looks bored as she goes to clean the dog bed.
With spring came my first rainstorm in Seasons. Man, the thunder really startled me sometimes! Lightning also promptly struck one of the trees, which just looked awesome. The smaller tree to the front of the property is an apple tree, but it's always sickly. I think maybe because the spring and summer in this neighborhood are sandwiched between two winters? I dunno. I'm going to try building a greenhouse around it when the McNeil's get enough cash.
Anyway. The struck tree caught fire and burned for a bit before the rain put it out. The McNeil's didn't even notice.
Later the tree got struck for a second time during the same storm. Harris had been out checking the mail, so he freaked out. The rain put the fire out pretty fast. Later, same storm, the tree got struck and put on fire for a THIRD time. Man!
<
Inside, Jan gave birth to what is her 5th child. This one is another boy. Cheer! His name is Malcolm. And he is, again, a clone of Mitchell and his sister Shelly. Doh! Because I want to see if I could get better points from a non-clone, I have Harris and Jan try again for another baby. Er.. ignore the green fumes from the dirty dog bed. Stupid things.
Here's Shelly, all grown up as a child. In the snow! The second winter - sandwiched between a spring and summer - didn't get as much snow as the first winter. And Shelly is still furious with Russ Bear about the burglary. Girl knows how to hold a grudge.
Don't break your neck to look at the ghost dog, Shelly. Perdita haunts, and spends most of her time messing with the bathtubs.
But, since almost everyone in the house at the time had a want to get a kitten (or a puppy or kitten), the McNeil's went ahead and adopted a little black kitten named Dolphin. Here's Harris gettin' some love from the new family member.
Here's Malcolm as a toddler. With that hairstyle, he looks incredibly like his oldest brother, Charlie. Also.. it looks like they finally added in randomized hairstyles for toddlers? It started happening for me with the Pets patch, but they usually got the wrong color hair (a blond would get brown hair, for example). Since installing Seasons, the hairstyles are randomized AND the right color. Huzzah!
And here's Shelly playing with Dolphin, who is meant to be her cat. She'll take him with her when she moves out of the house.
Shelly plays a little catch with little Brittany Parker. I think during their entire game, neither of them actually caught the ball. It was cute!
Ah. Here's Ai, running back home. She and Butch (her father) do NOT get along. At all. I didn't even realize until all of a sudden Ai ran away! Harris called and reported her missing, and a couple sim days later she was returned. Checking her and Butch's relationship with each other, I discovered that they are enemies! Each has a -100 daily AND lifetime relationship. So the house often erupts in chases and fights between the two of them. Luckily, they both get on well enough with Dolphin.
This is the guy who brought Ai back. I forget his name. He looks kind of creepy, though.
Malcolm playing with big sister Shelly before she goes to school. Oh. Shelly missed her first day of school because she was playing with a toddler Malcolm with the logic toy and got stuck, so I had to delete her with move_objects. She appeared back beside the bus, but it wouldn't let me click on the bus to make her go to school! So she got a D and I got another warning about the social worker, and spent my time worrying that the McNeil's would lose two more kids! Luckily that didn't happen.
Jan thinks Shelly is a bit too young for /that/ discussion. Honestly!
Jan gives birth to her sixth child, another little girl named Penny. Doh! Wanted a boy. I, of course, forgot to take a picture of the actual baby, so here is a reaction shot of Harris, Shelly and the maid reacting to Jan's screeches of pain.
Waiting for his carpool to arrive, Harris is terrorized by a wolf. All the wolves I'd had visit so far to any of my families have been fairly nice, so this was different!
Shelly is still all sorts of ticked off at Russ Bear! And that's Ivy Copur holding Pikachu back there. She came home from work with Harris and spent the entire night trying to talk through Pikachu or the plush giraffe to other people. Drove me (and the McNeil's) nuts. And that's a toddler Penny sitting in the high chair who you can't see because of Ivy and Pikachu.
Poor Malcolm. First he had pink pjs.. and now he has a pink scarf.
There's a bit better shot of little Penny.
Ai does not like Komei Whats-His-Face, no she does not!
Remember how I said Butch and Ai were always fighting? Have I mentioned that it's, like, /all the time/? I have no clue how they got to hate each other so much. They're father and daughter!
That looks.. y'know, Jan, you're supposed to put Penny on the /toilet/.
In the McNeil's Pleasantview, it snows in summer! Seriously, it's summer. With snow. I think it's because summer is sandwiched between two winters, so it doesn't have enough time in the 5 days to gradually warm up?
Perdita haunts again, spooking a poor, pregnant (again) Jan. Oops.
The penguin visits. Also in summer.
Dolphin grows up! He's pretty cute. And he doesn't spend all his time fighting with the dogs.
Shelly comes home from school and brings with her Charlie! Her big brother who got taken by the social worker!
Jan gives her firstborn a hug. He really should be a teen by now. Poor guy! Cursed to be a child forever now!
Malcolm on the left, Charlie on the right. Told you they look alike!
Jan goes into labor again. This time in the bathroom, with Shelly and Charlie looking on.
It's a boy! They name him Luke. So now there are two choices for heirdom in the McNeil family, Malcolm and Luke. I'll wait t'see what Luke's personality points turn out like before deciding. Also, I've heard rumor that the babies don't stop crying in Seasons or something? Mine do fine.. but I've found out I now have to play with the babies otherwise they lay there in the crib and scream (before, I just had the sims change their diaper, feed them cuddle them and then put them back to bed.. so now I just add playing with the baby in there after changing the diaper). I HAVE noticed that toddlers seem to stay awake for a lot longer, which is sort of annoying for me. Oh well!
Shelly becomes a teenager, with the Knowledge aspiration. And.. I forget what her lifetime want is.
Penny becomes a child!
And, finally, Jan becomes an elder. No more babies for her! What a sad adult life she had for a Romance sim, popping out all them kids. But she never once had a Have a Baby fear or anything, so maybe she didn't mind too much. Poor Harris the Family sim ends up three kids short of fulfilling his Have 10 Kids want. I let Jan age figuring they would adopt 3 kids. It wasn't until later that I remembered that because they lost the first three kids to the social worker, they wouldn't be allowed to adopt. Oh, well!
No clue when my next update will be. Real Life has seen fit to throw anything and everything at me the last few months and usually I don't have time to play Sims, or when I do, I'm too exhausted. Hopefully my load eases up, though, with Seasons here so that I'll have more of a chance to play and update. Hope y'all are doing well! I'll try to get caught up on blogs here in the next week. I'm behind again!
