So, I have three main families now:

1. Melani Banks, my first "family" orientated sim. Has recently asked Hal to move in with her in an attempt to move past his cheating ways. Hal came coupled with his other love child Muhammad...
   
   
2. The Waters Family. Multiple deaths by electrocution took out both Evil family members, Emily had a mental break down, Susie age-warped past her entire childhood and Thomas is turning into a devious little boy.
   
   
3. Or Max and his recent love triangle between the Melani in his town and his new love Bella Bachelor.

Like sands through the hour glass... these are the days of Max's life. Scratch that - the hourglass is nothing more than a countdown until this love rat gets busted!! Have you been following the story line so far? How Melani was pregnant, then Bella was pregnant, then Max went over to Melani's house, made out with Melani while Bella made friends with the toilet bowl, etc etc?

Well... it gets worse.

Max had the wish pop up to throw a house party. Nothing unusual there, he's a party animal after all. I figured I'd just use it as a "welcome to our twin girls" kind of party. Bella had a wish pop up to get a massage, and really, who could blame the poor girl - twins on your first shot? Ouch. I decided to send Bella off for a massage and let Max get ready for the party while looking after the babies.

Bella also had an opportunity to teach an art class at the local school pop up a couple of days ago, so I decided to make her stop past to do that before then sending her on for a good rub down. Making sure she was getting from one place to the next safely, I switched back to Max to learn that the party was already getting started. That wasn't the shocker though... I right clicked Max's profile to zoom across town, landed straight on him, and this is what I saw!!

The life of Max has been related a day time soap opera by some of the blog readers lol. And I'm going to have to agree with them! I teased you all earlier in the day with the image of two empty cribs - twin cribs. For those savy enough to notice the background, and remember the shots I shared of when I started building Max's new mansion... that's his pond area in the background. Which means... yup, Bella had twins! Twin Girls!

The other day I made a post: Max! Leave her alone!! Apart from the obvious "what are you two doing together" factor to it, I also mentioned how I wasn't 100% sure if the baby inside Melani was in fact Max's. I could only assume it was his because who goes around feeling and listening to other people's tummies just for fun? Also, as yumiki53 pointed out, it most likely is Max's baby because in the second screenshot I shared, Max had the wish to read a pregnancy book. Who would want to read a pregnancy book if they have no child on the way.

Not 5 minutes into gaming last night, I got the confirmation message. While Max slept peacefully in bed with his new love Bella, Melani went through the agony of childbirth and gave birth to Max's child, a baby girl. I can only hope that Eric was by her side...

Thankfully only one and not twins this time lol. Unfortunately, although I did screenshot the message as the name was really unusual, I stuffed up and saved another screenshot over it. Because the in game screen capture feature doesn't include the interface, I have to use the Print Screen button and then paste into a Paint or Photoshop. Of course, all those are then given the name of Untitled 1 or 2 or so on.

So I took the shot of the baby's name, saved as untitled 1 quickly and went back to the game. Later on I got another shot, went to save it and realised the name was also untitled 1, went to cancel and instead hit enter without thinking (hands moved faster than brain) and boom... first image gone.

But trust me, the kid is Max's lol.

You want to know what the second image was that saved over that first, oh so important image? This!

LOL, how's this for a bit of a glitch?

When I popped in to check on Max the other day, I thought it would very a very quick look in and then I would jump over to either Melani Banks, or The Waters Family. I should learn that what ever I think never turns out to my the case with my sims. I mean, I thought the Waters would be one family that I didn't end up playing and look how that turned out. I thought Melani Banks would be boring and play the suburban role of happy families, and look at her.

So why, when I look at Max, his maxed out career and easy going single life, did I think it would be boring? Did I honestly thing the game would let me lose interest in him? Because honestly, I was thinking along the lines of not bothering with him anymore and instead just concentrate on the two "family" sims. Nope, not going to happen.

While Max is off with Melani doing things he really shouldn't, it seems Bella has been busy making new "friends" of her own. During the middle of one of Max's concerts the other night, Bella decided to pop into town to pick up a few groceries... but that's not all she checked out.

BricaSims found the first picture of Paris in The Sims 3! You can see the Eiffle Tower in the background. I can’t wait to see what it looks like up close – hope it doesn’t disappoint!

Max and Melani. I swear they are going to drive me batty. These two sims just can NOT stay away from each other!! I wrote just a few days ago how I was going to keep Max away since he's hitting it off so well with Bella right? Well, what am I meant to do with a wish like this?

So yes, the Bella/Max relationship has been going along swimmingly. They get along so well together, and apparently living with a female isn't as bad as Max first thought it might be. It seems he's finding it really fun as he had the following wish pop up today.:



I'm surprised to see this coming from the care-free rock star who had no plans to settle down and instead wanted to bed every woman he could! I guess he's just head over heals for Bella...

Here's something I didn't actually know... you can chat to sims, and invite them over from your friends panel! I've always used the phone, then called sim, invite over and then selected them from the list. Not sure if this way is much quicker, but it was still a cool find!

Max and Bella have been practically inseparable since they met - the only other sims I've seen Max get along with so well are Melani and Blair. Although I am normally hands off as much as possible, I've decided to help this little relationship along a bit by making sure I fulfill Max's wishes to invite Bella over. If he doesn't have that wish, I've been sending him out into town to help him run into her lol. So far everything's been going really well - so much so, that Max had the wish pop up to ask Bella to move in!!

Not sure if I was quite ready for that drastic a change to Max's life just yet lol, I decided to follow the wish anyway and call it an "extended sleep over" - basically she's going to just crash there for a while. If I decide it's not working, I'll evict her and call it "sleep over over" lol. I mean, when I met my now partner, we practically breathed for each other for the first two weeks before realising I'd not been back to my place since we met and maybe we should take a step back for a couple of days. I'll just look at this in the same way.

Unfortunately, what I didn't realise was, Bella lived alone? I always thought the Bachelor family had like 5 members or something crazy, and that moving Bella into Max's for a bit wouldn't disrupt the town too much. But then, when I got the following option pop up, I realised that Bella moving out meant the Bachelor house would then be on the market!

As mentioned last night, Max and Bella Bachelor seemed to hit it off really well. After their connection, Max went home and immediately had the wish come up to invite Bella over. I figured it was a bit late that night, so sent him to bed to get a good nights sleep and invited her over the following night. Conveniently, that happened to be a Saturday night which meant there would be no need for her rush home... if you get my drift.

Apparently Max was already waaaaay ahead of me lol. As soon as she arrived, he was touching her, holding her, kissing and generally all over her. Think he had something on his mind? He could't have been more obvious if he opened the door naked lol.

I was trying not to pay too much attention to them as it just feels a little creepy to watch my sims grope each other, but I couldn't help but notice something a tad odd when I did glance over. Have a look at this image:

See the guy in the background? He rocked up right as Bella did. So either Bella is being followed (can that happen?) or Max's celebrity status means that the paparazzi wants to catch a photo of him with a new female in tow. I zoomed right over to see what he was doing, and give it's night time, he's not helping the suspicion factor by reading a newspaper... in the dark.

Something was really funky with that. I've not really felt unnerved by a sim before lol, it was a weird feeling. I didn't know what to do about it - send Max out to tell him to bugger off? Perhaps I should have. Instead Max just hit inside... well, some people call it hiding lol.

Yup, Bella and Max woo hooing it up. They hit it off REALLY well!

I have a funny feeling that Aion is going to distract me quite a bit for a little while - the freshness that comes with a new game, the joy of being back in a MMORPG and all that. But I'm not going to be neglecting or forgetting my sims just yet. Even when I was playing Aion last night, I couldn't help but sit here wondering how Melani was going to cope with all those children. Or how Emily was going trying to find a man.

Of course, one sim who I haven't check in on in a while is Max. After he reached the max level of his music career and became a big pop star, there wasn't really much more for me to do with him. Sure I could raise his fitness levels and such, but where's the fun in just getting up and going to the gym each day, every day, all day. Of course, my husband is probably reading that right now going "Um... nothing?! What are you kidding me woman?!" lol. But I hate exercise enough as it is, I'm not going to sit here and watch my sims do it lol.

Of course, what makes a sim's live interesting? Families!! Girlfriends, wives, kids! All the things that cause mass amounts of chaos, and all the things I have purposely avoided with Max. I started wondering if I should just cave and let poor kid laden down Melani version 2 move in. Ironically, she has I think 5 kids now? 3 to Max and I think another two to her husband Eric lol. Clearly no matter where she's located, Melani is just a walking child machine.

When I consider hooking them up however, in comes that whole "I don't want to play two Melanis" factor. I mean, it gets confusing for me, I can't imagine what it does to you poor readers lol. No, I'm going to make Max stay away from the Melani in his town from now on I think. Just stick to playing one Melani for now. Which means... I need to find Max a new woman! All the ones he's been attracted to so far have out-aged him by two stages, so they are no longer eligible in my books. Young Adult and Elder? Yuck lol.

So I sent Max into town, to the Bistro which seemed to the gathering place of the evening and let him run loose talking to anyone and everyone. Remembering my theory - how some sims are just meant to be - I noticed he was getting along particularly well with one sim. I think Max has found his mate!!

That right there is Bella Bachelor lol! And they are hitting it off BIG TIME. I've never followed any of the PC controlled families before, but even I know that name and know that Max is stealing her away from some other guy in town haha. Awesome!

I don't think who ever it is will have much of a chance now that Max has worked his moves on her though - I think she's in luuuuuurve.

I'll be very interested to see where this goes now lol. I'm all excited that he's stealing someone elses woman - and in a good way, not like he did with Melani and Eric lol. I did make Max ask if Bella was single, and she still is currently. Which makes her fair game! I love the name Bella, I think the sim version is really pretty and of course, she's not an elder yet so she ticks all my approval boxes!!

Hrm, I might just have to stick around Max for a bit and see what happens next...

No no, don't panic. My lack of updates has nothing to do with my poor little Sims heh. They're all alive and kicking... well crap, last time I checked on them they were! And even if they were all dead, that would mean an influx of posting, not lack of. =p

Nope, my uncharacteristically quiet patch is nothing more than time getting away from me. Saturday we had the in-laws here and even my little munchkin didn't get to bed till almost 10pm, oi! Then Sunday it was just too many things, not enough sleep and a decision to have an early night. So that's an entire weekend of no sims. Oh my gosh!

There will also be no simming for me tonight because Aion is out! It's here! The servers are live waahoo!! For those also following my @Velcro_Monkey twitter account, a new MMORPG called Aion is currently distracting me and will be sharing my gaming spotlight for a little while.

Unfortunately, my main PC is a little out dated now a days, so much so that the sims really couldn't run on it. That's why I play it on my laptop. And now, with Aion and it's oh so beautiful graphics, I've had to use my laptop for that as well. Sorry my helpless little sims, I can't play two games at once. I could if I upgraded my PC, I could have one running on that, the other on my laptop. But until money starts falling in my lap, then I will have to play swapsies - one night on Aion, one night on The Sims.

But that's ok, one night on the Waters family gives me about a weeks worth of blogging lol! And with Melani's recent arrival of twins, and the fact their household now has eight people, I'm sure they'll give me the same treatment. So there shouldn't really be any noticeable difference in the postings on here. And if you are into Aion, I also have a blog for that too! Check it out here: http://aionexperience.blogspot.com/

So yes, that's all. Everything's ok. Please just give me a night to experience Aion for the first time and I promise, there will be sim blogs galore up tomorrow!

When you take over a previously game controlled sim, you get to learn a whole lot more about them. This is a good thing. Unfortunately they way in which you have to learn all these new things is not so good. And for Hal, it's down right almost painful!

I really thought he was going to pull his socks up and prove to Melani that she hadn't made the wrong decision in asking him to move in and really give their relationship a go. He had a wish come up to take a cooking class and I smiled thinking that he was going to pull his weight around the house - and besides cleaning, cooking is the best thing he can do to help. Especially since Melani already has a cleaner thanks to her generous doctors wage.

So, following those images, you can see that Hal informs Marilyn of his new living arrangements, and clearly, she's none too pleased. I think it would be safe to assume, given his lifetime wish and womanizing ways, that perhaps Marilyn is one of his many female flings? And we can only guess that she's really not happy that he's trying to settle down and play happy families...

I do have to laugh though, in that second last image you can see Hal running away. Literally. Check out when it says when you mouse over haha:

I didn't know sims did that LOL! Of course, I think it's pretty bad form for a man to get into a fist fight with a woman... tsk tsk. That said, if it's going to happen, I might as well get a video of it haha!

The next day, Melani sent Hal down to the Library with Muhammad who has been struggling in school so far. She also hoped it would build father-son relations having some quality time together away from the house. Unfortunately, Hal ran into another female sim, another fling I assume and, well...

I have a funny feeling that there's going to be some really pissed off women around town for a while. I'm almost scared to let Hal go out at this stage! Almost...

I wonder how this will affect Melani as well? Will the women know she's the one who is playing happy families with Hal? And if they do, will they take out their clear frustrations on her as well?

Braving the dark town alleys, Melani popped down to pick up the recipe for cookies as she was having cravings. It seems that even if Hal does turn out to be a rat, she'll be ok. Look at her chatting it up with some new fella... Go Melani!