Connections2: Round 1- Early spring with the Keye family!

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This is the first post of my new Sims series and challenge- Connections. Connections is a rotational style of gameplay with a twist. With the exception of the first house, each household that you play is determined by the relationships with the preexisting households. I will get into the details of that when we switch families.

This challenge is mostly about premade Sims that come with the game. I wanted to keep with that theme when I chose my first family. I decided on the Keye family from the Parenthood DLC trailer. I downloaded both this Maxis made family, and the Maxis made house from the trailer from the Gallery.

A few notes about how I play before I begin. First, I don’t use any custom content or mods. Second, I typically don’t use cheats. I used the money cheat with this family so I could set them up with their new home, but I do not anticipate using cheats in the future unless I need to recover from a glitch. Lastly, I typically let my Sims control the story, doing what they wish to do, fulfilling their aspirations, and responding to their actions and decisions. For some added drama, I may choose to add a randomly generated table of life events to subsequent rounds. It was not, however, used in this round.

The Keye family has just moved into the region. They are the first house in a new area being developed known as Newcrest. There isn’t much in the way of places to visit or neighbors to get to know, but they did get a lovely new home. They are keeping their fingers crossed that more people start to move to the area soon.

Their home is a very spacious two floor with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and plenty of living space. Plenty of space is important for this growing family! A large inheritance allowed them to make this move and they are so grateful for their new life.

Karlie is a dedicated mother and home provider. She loves cooking, food, parenting, her husband, her kids, being involved and television shows. She has a reputation for being kind and loving. She does have a bit of a perfectionist streak, however.

Jaylen, Karlie’s husband, is a bit of a couch potato, honestly. He’s not the tidiest person either. He’s also quite clumsy. Fortunately for him, Karlie finds all of it quite lovable. Jaylen loves collecting things and plants. He’s currently making his way as a gardener.

Lori is their creative and well-mannered daughter. While polite and fairly responsible, Lori struggles with controlling her emotions. She tends to be a rather gloomy individual, and she is known to be the jealous type. She has a natural artistic talent and a wonderful imagination. She’s also very kind and attentive to her younger sisters. She’s currently going through a bit of a loud phase and music can frequently be heard pulsing from her room.

Abbey Keye is innocent, perpetually cheerful and always does her homework. She’s energetic and loves to play outside. She is always trying to help her mother take care of her younger sister.

Lastly, we have Aria Troublemaker Extraordinaire. Aria can be found playing in the toilet, making messes all over the house, or running naked outside. She’s always angry about something and doesn’t like to sleep during the same hours when everyone else is sleeping. She’s strong, fast and always needs to be moving. She prefers running around the house seeing what everyone else is doing and what is going on over actually sitting and playing with her toys.

During the first half of spring, in the Keye household, most of the time was spent taking care of Aria. All of Karlie’s attention was on keeping up with the little bubble of energy. Despite Karlie’s best intentions, she couldn’t find enough time and energy in the day to really help Lori and Abbey adjust to their new school the way she had hoped she would.

Aria was pretty eager to learn to run and climb, and to go potty on her own. Karlie enthusiastically helped her to do those things. Communicating was of less interest to Aria, but Karlie made sure they worked on those a bit here and there.

Some days, Karlie could barely keep up. The family had to fend for themselves with whatever was in the fridge as Karlie had no time to make dinner. Piles of dirty dishes littered the living room coffee table. Aria’s high chair was covered in…Aria mess. And Karlie barely had time to throw together a sandwich to keep herself going. Ahh, the joys of motherhood!

This giant amazing house has given Lori the luxury of her own bathroom, a teenage girl’s dream. Unfortunately, an awesome house does not make up for the struggles and anxieties of moving to a new school. Lori still has no friends at her new school and is struggling to get ahead in her classes. Those stressors plus a predisposition to be gloomy, toss in a general bad day and you have a recipe for crying in the bathtub all evening. So heartbreaking!

Of course, the sisters have been there for each other this whole time. Even little Aria who loves to dance her heart out in Lori’s room to Lori’s favorite bands. Aria, Abbey and Lori have become closer while adjusting to this new place, finding friendship in each other while friendships outside the family are lacking.

Karlie and Jaylen decided to have yet another kiddo,. Sure, their family was a little chaotic, but they loved it that way. Aria was going to be transitioning to a child soon, so Karlie was optimistic she could handle another toddler. While Jaylen and Karlie found keeping up with Aria to be exhausting, they also found it very joyful. They are always happy!

Some days things went well. Some days Aria and Karlie were able to eat breakfast at the same time, at the table and the table was clean! These were good days.

As Aria grows older and is able to communicate, it has become clear that Abbey aspires to be as good of a big sister as Lori is to her.

Finally, the day arrives. Karlie gives birth in the hospital with Jaylen by her side to yet another girl. They name this one Krista. The new parents are ever so excited to have expanded their family yet again.

Jaylen offers to take over all the parenting for a day so that Karlie can get out of the house and make some new friends in the area. She joins the Upper Crusts so she can hang out with fellow foodies (such as Clara and Hugo, pictured above). She also gets invited by a random elderly lady named Antoinette to a lounge for drinks and karaoke. Antoinette invited her to a party after the lounge, but it was already midnight and Karlie was partied out.

Shortly after the birth of Krista, it was Aria’s turn to transition into a child. The birthday festivities were small given the lack of friends the family had made, and because they had a new born.

As it turns out, Aria’s wild antics might not be over yet. As a child, Aria is hot-headed with poor conflict resolution skills. Not entirely unexpected given her personality as a toddler, but will her fiery temper cause some drama in this perfectly peaceful household?

Connections: Venessa Jeong (Early Fall 02)

Last Time: I introduced Venessa and she landed her first gig as an actress. Time to go on set!

It was Venessa’s very first day of paid acting. She was nervous, but mostly excited. Her life long dream was becoming a reality. The first thing she did when she arrived was have her makeup and hair done.

She was totally amazed at the transformation. She looked like a totally different person! The next step was to get into costume.

And before long she had transformed into a pirate. ready to take to the high seas.

Her first shoot went great! It was a whirlwind (and we forgot to take more photos), but it was amazing! Venessa mets loads of really interesting people and had a lot of fun. She was going to another audition as soon as she could.

Venessa has her sights on another audition. For her next audition, and she suspects many future auditions, it’s going to be important to keep up her strength and fitness. What if a role requires dancing, for instance? She decided she needed to do more than just jogging and went to the gym.

At the gym, she made quite the fool of herself in front of a very nice (and cute) gym trainer named Don. Despite her failures, Don was helpful and encouraging. Don and Venessa were actually getting along quite well.

Venessa is continuing to build her social media presence which sometimes includes fierce bathroom selfies.

As I mentioned last time, Venessa loves people but doesn’t have any friends in the area. Venessa has been chatting with everyone she meets to remedy her loneliness. She is also starting a club called the “Actor’s Guild” for local actors.

She even invited her gym trainer over to her house to hang out. She wasn’t sure if he’d be interested, but to her surprise he enthusiastically accepted her invitation…

Next Time: Hanging out with Don and the next audition.