Week 5 - Round 9 - 10 Oak Square (Belleosi)

Sorry this took a while guys. My internet connection is going haywire. To be fair, much as I hate Sympatico, it's not their fault. As far as I can tell it's a hardware problem on my end. The only problem is that I'm not sure if the wiring needs replacing, or the router, or the modem. Gah!

Previously at 10 Oak Square

Welcome back to the home of Eddie and April. Let's see if April can prove that she's not as bad a mother as she led us to believe last round.

Even with Ericka helping with the gardening there's still tons of work for Eddie. Poor guy. I wonder why he's raking in his sleazy boxers?

April? Where are the girls' cribs?
"I put them in the dining room so that they're right near the fridge."
Well, it's unorthodox, but why not.

It must be after midnight because April is once again looking for a teaching position. This time she lucks out!

For some strange reason, Eddie is less than thrilled with the wonderful bookcase that came with April's new job. Maybe he thinks that you should have to work hard for those skills.

Eddie's a wonderful father. He even copes well with having twins who do everything at the same time. And yes, I do mean everything.

Eddie's been dying to use his new juicer. Seems like a waste of oranges to me when nobody's sick, but it makes him happy.

April's trying to earn that last cleaning point she needs to reach the top of the education career track. The race is on. It's 6 am, and the carpool arrives at 9 am. Can she do it?

Eddie leave for work until 5pm tonight, and April hired a nanny for while she's at work, so Eddie's trying to run the business by himself. Unfortunately for Eddie he really doesn't know what he's doing.

What's Karen (the nanny) doing? Juggling. Oh well, at least she hasn't started a fire yet.

As you can see, Karen is less than the ideal nanny. Why oh why won't she use the changing table?

But wait! She can actually get even more useless!

April's home just in time to save the babies from the evil clutches of Karen. And she reached her second TOC too!

Tuesday night is birthday night for the girls. April quickly changes into something formal and invites all the family members she can. The guest list includes her sisters Amber, Kirsty, and Cora, her mother Serena, and Eddie's sister Samantha. Neil is also present, but only because he followed April home from work. First up to the cake is Dana.

Happy Birthday Dana!

Dana Belleosi
Neat-2, Outgoing-8, Active-9, Playful-6, Nice-4
Gemini

Yet again we have an example of what a poor mother April is. She's left Dana free to crawl near the pool while she went to fetch Alannah for her birthday cake.

Luckily Dana has more sense than her mother, she decides she just wants to play in the leaves and get dirty!

April's back with Alannah and once again the guests gather round the cake to cheer the birthday girl on.

Happy Birthday Alannah!

Alannah Belleosi
Neat-3, Outgoing-4, Active-10, Playful-10, Nice-7
Sagittarius

"Wow! You look awesome Cora! I'm so glad you could come."

Serena seems to be adapting to being a grandmother better than expected. She's actually wearing something not too trampy and spending time with her granddaughter. I even caught her talking to Kirsty's belly earlier.

While her guests keep Alannah company April tries to teach Dana to talk. As you can tell from the expression on her face, she is less than pleased with this concept. I swear, this girl is NOT a family sim. She never wants to do anything with her children.

Now we know why Eddie and April were running around in their knickers at the beginning of the round. For the love of all you hold holy, you can't seem to raise the two children you have, why on earth did you get pregnant again?

"Mommy has Balloons!"

Eddie's home and he's doing the teaching now. Poor Alannah still hasn't learned any toddler skills.

There, Dana's all skilled up now!

April and Alannah are all recharged, so it's time to start teaching Alannah the little things in life that make everything so much easier!

Those are some rather sad looking lemons Eddie.
"What do you expect? You've had me running a business and taking care of kids, and I'm harvesting them in winter. Get a clue woman, I'm not Superman, that was my wife's job."

April does help out as much as she can, at least, she does if I force her to.

Finally! It seems like restocking is one of the hardest badges to earn.

April seems to be coming to her senses. I've actually caught her spending time with her daughters a few times now. Maybe she finally realized that family is supposed to be her life.

Great! You just had to go into labour in the teeny tiny hallway where it's hard to take pictures.
"ARRRRRRGHHH, if you don't have anything nice to say, shut-up and let me give birth"

Welcome to the world little Dustin Belleosi.

Well, Dustin was born at about 5:30am on Friday, so that's it for the Belleosis, see you next round guys.


End of Round Review

Eddie
Friends: 11
Work: Cult Leader
IW: 7 / 7 Skills Maxed
Badges: Floral - Gold, Register - Silver, Restocking - Bronze, Robotery - Gold, Sales - Gold, Toy Making - Gold

April
Friends: 15
Work: Education Minister
IW: 3 / 10 Children
Skills: Cooking-8, Mech-10, Charisma-8, Body-10, Logic-10, Creativity-10, Cleaning-9
Badges: Sales - Bronze, Toy Making - Gold

Alannah
Skills: Charisma-6

Dana
Skills: Charisma-8

Belleosi Toys
Rank 2: Budding Brokerage
Business Value: $10,000
Customer Loyalty Stars: 7

Household Value: $113,995

Week 4 - Round 8 - 10 Oak Square (Belleosi)

Previously at 10 Oak Square

April has arrived!

April Wetstein

Aspiration: Family
LTW: Become Captain Hero
Neat-2, Outgoing-8, Active-2, Playful-6, Nice-7
Libra
Turn-Ons: Fitness & Red Hair, Turn-Off: Formal Wear

Eddie wasted no time in asking April to marry him, he'd waited long enough, and he wasn't waiting a second longer, not ever for a real wedding.

April managed to find a job in Law Enforcement, although she took a job in Law first by accident.

And then neither of them wasted any time in getting started on their family. Eddie better watch it though or he'll cut her hand with that claw.

You know, it's really hard trying to catch fireflies in your underwear, and with the coffee jitters, hee hee!

Eddie wacked away on that block of steel until he finally earned his gold badge. 3 down 4 to go, but now there are two new badges, do you think we'll need to earn all 9 now for the badge bonus?

Eddie has decided to try his hand at fishing. Unfortunately he's not very good at it.

Congratulations Eddie, it's a boot!

"I did it! I did it! I caught my first fish!"

Alright Eddie, now put it in your inventory so I can see what kind it is. It's a blue catfish, btw.

Congratulations April! What do you want to do now?
"Raise 20 Puppies or Kittens"
Umm, no, I don't think so, I want you to become a Teacher.

Looks like someone's pregnant!

Eddie's dressed up as the Last Avatar!
(comment courtesy of Marcus)

April and Eddie aren't quite ready to open their toy store yet, but they decided to spend Eddie's reward on the construction of it before something bad happened and they lost all the money. (See below for information about reward)

Poor April certainly has her work cut out for her. There are a lot of trees on this lot. This also answers the question of wether or not pregnant women have outerwear. There were a couple of days where Eddie threw on his coat and April wandered around in her pjs or maternity wear. Clicking on the coat rack and the dresser (Maxis made, not cloned) provided no outerwear option.

Top of the Paranormal! Awesome! It's a great job for him too, because he only has to work 2 days a week, which leaves 5 for family, the home business, and maybe some fishing and gardening later on!

Heh heh! I couldn't help myself. None of the country stuff would work in Kirsty's house, but April's house is perfect for this look! She really shouldn't wear that shade of green though, it just doesn't seem to suit her.

Darnit Eddie! You're supposed to be composting those, not playing in them. I figured out that it's the whole stupid diagonal corner thing again. I really wish Maxis or a modder would figure out a way to fix that. I haven't seen a mod for it yet, but if you know of one, please tell me!

Uh, Rowan? The baby can't play peek-a-boo yet.

It's the middle of fall and Rowan and Tara decide to go fishing in their swimsuits. Sims are crazy.

Poor April, there seems to be no end to the raking required on this lot.

April finally decided to work smart, not hard. In other words, she got Rowan to do it for her. You'll notice that Tara is still fishing. She's caught an endless supply of old boots and caught herself several times.

Time to open Belleosi Toys! Sandy is our very first customer.

She's also our first CLS!

Oh cripes! Great timing there April! Eddie just opened the business for the day, and there are tons of clients in there, and you go into labour.

Welcome to the world little Alanna Belleosi. She looks just like her daddy so far.

Welcome to the world little Dana Belleosi. She seems to mostly look like her mother except for the hair color.

Eddie rushed right back to the store. He quickly closed the shop for the day, then he tried desperately to ring up all the customers.

OMG!! Why are the babies on the ground outside by themselves? Oh! It appears that as soon as she gave birth to the twins, April rushed off to play hero to the masses, leaving her poor defenseless, clotheless (is that a real word?) babies to fend for themselves. Hurry up Eddie! There are babies to save!

Oh man is Ben pissed or what? Look at the glare he's giving poor Eddie.

Daddy to the rescue. Eddie rescued the twins and rushed them upstairs to the converted nursery. The originally planned nursery was not built for twins, and there's no way of making it twin capable. The girls were quickly cuddled, played with, fed, changed and put to bed. Then Eddie and I had a little conversation.

We decided that with the twins and the home business there was just no way he and April could keep up with the gardening too. Poor Ericka has been giving the job of tidying up the gardens in the rain.

Cool! She not only rakes, she also composts! Ericka, I think I love you!

April we need to talk. The reason your children aren't running out to greet you is that they're babies. You DO NOT leave babies laying on the ground outside in autumn and fly off to work. Do you understand me?

"Teaching, teaching....no teaching today."
Fine, now go spend some time with your BABIES.

Here we go. What a cute family picture. I was wrong about Alanna. Her skin tone is 3 I think? I'm not so good about telling 2 and 3 apart in game.

End of Round Review

Eddie
Friends: 11
Work: Cult Leader
IW: 7 / 7 Skills Maxed
Badges: Floral - Gold, Robotery - Gold, Sales - Bronze, Toy Making - Gold

April
Friends: 15
Work: Captain Hero
IW: 2 / 10 Children
Skills: Cooking-8, Mech-10, Charisma-8, Body-10, Logic-10, Creativity-10, Cleaning-8
Badges: Sales - Bronze, Toy Making - Gold

Belleosi Toys
Rank 2: Budding Brokerage
Business Value: $10,000
Customer Loyalty Stars: 7

Household Value: $110,796