barrie cove: autumn 1

Welcome back to my prosperity/challenge ‘hood!

Last time you met the families and saw their first day in the Cove, now let’s see what they get up to in Autumn.

First up is the Pendragon household, where Marcus is digging again.

I’m really not sure what you expected to see – these guys need money for a business!

All in all, it was a pretty successful morning dig, if you ask me.

And while Marcus was doing that, I was tearing my hair out over the bathroom situation.

With two playful kids, a playful toddler, and a stinky digging father, one bathroom is not going to be enough. But I can’t figure out where to put a second one in the floorplan.

Eh, I’ll figure it out.

That evening, Sophie started showing her pregnancy.

Here’s hoping it’s a girl!

No one appeared to be excited by the prospect of a new sibling. Everyone except Jacob was outside.

“Lucas, bro, not cool. You aimed that ball for my head!”

“Sorry, Christian. It was an accident, I swear!”

Like hell it was. Lucas did it every time, and Christian complained every time, but still continued to play with him.

Christian did eventually get bored of being used for target practise, and turned his attention to Jacob.

Christian seems to be good with kids, I like it!

The next day, Marcus opened up Shenanigans, a venue-in-progress.

Technically, the business is in Sophie’s name, as she’s the matriarch, but since she’s pregnant and at home with Jacob, Marcus is running it.

Unfortunately, not much happened on that first day of business. Maybe it had something to do with the fact there is NOTHING inside except a stereo.

Still, it earned enough for a cake.

The whole family, and Tina Traveller from the sim bin, gathered to watch Jacob wiggle into childhood.

I think he only managed to learn one toddler skill, but that’s fine.

And here he is, pink pyjamas and all!

I’m not sure which parts of him are from which parent, other than the nose.

The next day, and the very chilled out looking headmaster shows up. I’ve decided every Pendragon child needs to attend private school.

Also, why is the headmaster always male, out of curiosity?

“A bathroom! Excellent stuff!”

He seems easily impressed to me.

The twins had been sent outside so they wouldn’t get in the way, and they were more than happy to follow that command.

Not entirely sure what’s going on with Lucas’s arm there, though.

“Mr Pendragon, you are aware that you need to have children in order to admit them to a school, right?”

“Yes. I have three boys.”

“I haven’t seen a single child since arriving.”

Well, he might be about to witness the birth of one.

Seriously, why do headmasters always seem to come over when my sims go into labour?

Christian took it upon himself to distract the headmaster while Sophie delivered the baby.

“Those are some groovy glasses, mister!”

Eventually, Sophie brought another little boy into the family. This is Francis Pendragon.

And to celebrate, the headmaster admitted the boys to private school.

Christian decided to celebrate with some tub-pirating, of course.

I really need to sort out the bathroom issue.

And I will still be saying that in the Winter rotation – you’ve been warned.

At some point, Sophie popped into another pregnancy.

With four boys already, let’s hope this one is a girl!

The next day was a Saturday, but Marcus needed to open the business. So to give Sophie a break, the boys came too.

They make it look a lot more fun to be there than it is – it’s a sales tactic.

And it seems to be working! With the ranks going up, and the money perks, Marcus was able to give the customers of Shenanigans some things to do.

To celebrate, he beat Lucas at rock, paper, scissors a few times.

Christian, meanwhile, was working as bingo myshuno caller.

“Guys, look! I look like that Belladonna statue!”

With the money from a successful day of business, I added a playground so that the kids might play on that, rather than in the bathtub.

The twins are already proving that the playground was a waste of money.

Not even Jacob was interested, and the twins are always leaving him out of their games.

It’s alright though, because Jacob got to bond with Marcus instead.

And right at the end of the rotation, we get to see what Francis looks like!

He’s freaking adorable, and looks slightly more like Jacob than the twins.

Francis has a personality of 7/3/10/10/4 – another playful sim!

That’s it for the Pendragons, let’s check in on the O’Neill family.

The first day of Autumn brought a wedding for the O’Neill family.

I decided to make the effort for these two Family sims. Plus they both rolled wants to throw a wedding party.

Only one guest didn’t make it to view the wedding.

“Is that a cake I spy?!”

It was a cake Sophie could spy!

Only her smelly husband was burping near it. What a beautiful wedding, right?

I wasn’t really surprised by Steven being a delicate cake feeder rather than a cake shover, but I was still slightly disappointed.

I like watching the cake shovers.

Everyone who is anyone in Barrie Cove was at the wedding ,including Damien and Ichelle.

Lots of the women heart-farted Damien, but he ignored them, which was kind of sweet.

After the party ended, Steven headed off to work.

He’s the only one in the house with an (achievable) career LTW, and funnily enough, Law Enforcement was the first job in the paper.

It was meant to be!

The next morning, and the heir is on their way!

Are you as excited to meet this baby as I am?I’m more excited to see if I fixed Steven’s busted face properly.

In my legacy families, everyone is loaded and there’s no need to repair anything – I can just replace it. This makes quite a change!

I was holding my breath the entire time, though I don’t really know why. Claire’s already pregnant with the heir, so I guess Steven could be kind of redundant now.

Speaking of being pregnant, it wasn’t long before Claire popped again.

“Grandbaby! I approve! We can be best friends now!”

Oh…apparently nothing interesting happened for 24 hours or so. It was just Steven skilling and keeping two elders and a pregnant sim alive.

Anyway. Baby time!

It’s a boy! That’s the second boy this rotation!

His name is George.

“Oh, look at him, Rebecca! He’s so precious!”

“Can’t look. Eating.”

Autumn ends for these guys with Steven working out. I’d forgotten sims could work out using the TV, and it still amuses me as much as it did when I first got the game!

Anyway, let’s check in on the Rowells, the last family in the rotation.

Well, they’re busy.

Can’t get married without a baby bump!

Ichelle then torched the kitchen, and she supposedly has cooking points!

And because there’s no fire alarm, it took a little bit of persuading for Ichelle to turn her back on the flames and call the fire brigade.

“Oh nuts, I’m going to singe my ‘stache, aren’t I?”

The fireman did his job well and save the kitchen (and Ichelle) before anything got too badly burnt.

Ichelle is grounded from cooking for a little bit now.

Stick to safe foods, like lunchmeat sandwiches!

At some point, I got bored and had Damien throw a party.

I don’t know how much fun you can have with an old woman, a pregnant lady and a random townie, but Damien seemed to have a good time.

Pretty sure Sophie’s just using Damien for his bathtub, though.

Dawn arrives, and so does a baby bump!

Marriage is now acceptable, but I think we can wait a bit longer.

I’m pretty sure it said in the rules that the trailer had to have two doors, but Damien and Ichelle were being stupid and walking the long way round every time.

So I moved the door, and now the trailer only has one entrance. Just to save my sanity.

I don’t think a pregnant lady should be doing that.

But this is a trailer park challenge and anything goes, I guess.

In the short time they’ve had that keg, Damien and Ichelle have made a good effort at littering the place with cups.

It’s kind of impressive, really.

Ichelle popped again, and Damien decided it was time to ask her an important question.

Plus he wasn’t rolling the fear, that was a big plus, too.

“You want me to be your wife?”

“Of course! You’re perfect for me in every way!”

“Of course I’ll marry you!”

Nothing screams romance quite like a poorly decorated trailer littered with red cups, does it?

The wedding was held pretty quickly, because I’m not so great at timing these things.

Also, who came dressed as Santa?!

You know your marriage is right when even Santa agrees with it!

Of course, then came the compulsory part of the party where guests stand outside bathrooms and complain.

There is more than one bathroom. Apparently none of them knew that.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for coming. I’m busy, go away!”

Damien was in such a good mood post-wedding that he started digging up stuff for the yard sale in the summer. Screw entertaining the guests!

The next morning, Ichelle went into labour in one of the most stereotypical places possible – the bathroom.

Coincidentally, it’s the bathroom her wedding guests couldn’t find the day before.

It wasn’t long before a little boy was born! That’s three in a row now, game!

Anyway, this is Cooper.

Damien did not take Cooper’s arrival very well.

Marriage is one thing, but babies? A step too far.

He got over it pretty quickly, though, other than the aspiration drop.

Damien actually makes a really good father!

That night, Damien was asleep and I thought “Why not try for an illegitimate kid as the next pregnancy?”

So Ichelle called up one of her friends, squeezed his butt, and what do you know, they fell in love instantly.

Who knew having a truck would be so useful!

And with that, kid two is on the way.

The best part is, Damien doesn’t suspect a thing and won’t get an aspiration drop when it arrives.

All of the Rowell kids should be illegitimate, it just works out better for Damien!

It isn’t long before Cooper’s birthday arrives.

I’m really curious about how Damien and Ichelle’s genes will mesh.

Well. There’s no denying who his father is, is there?

And Cooper appeared to forget where he lives, and grew up in a suit.

Now Damien is found with his mini-me a lot of the time, and it’s adorable. All of that aspiration failure for no reason!

Also, Cooper’s got a personality of 5/10/4/3/3 if you were curious.

Autumn finished for the Rowells with Ichelle popping into her second pregnancy.

These guys were by far my favourite to play this rotation.

That’s all for this time!

See you soon for Winter mishaps!