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.

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!

After leaving Melani a few days ago to work out what to do about Hal after discovering more about him seconds after his furniture was placed, I decided it would be a good idea to stick my head back in and see how she was coping. I'm very happy to report that it all appears to be smooth sailing at the moment. Yay.

A house of 6 is quite a handful I must say. By the time I get through queueing up all the tasks for one sim and work my way down the list, it's time to go back up to the top and start again. The good thing is that both Seth and Ricky are at school, and Hal has a job (that's at least one plus), so during the middle of the days it's just Audrey (grandma) and new addition Muhammad at home. So really, not unlike when grandma was at home with baby Ricky. Nice and easy.

For a child that could have been made to feel neglected and unwanted, the entire family have shown their just how wonderful they can be and embraced him as one of their own. The boys happily include him in any suitable games they play, and although Melani has been preoccupied, she hasn't forgotten his arrival and makes time to get to know him. Audrey, as warm and loving as any grandma could be, happy takes care of him during the day, and even spends some time sitting down and watching his favourite cartoons on TV... naaaw.

The poor bugger though, a single day after he moved in, I had the message pop up that it was his birthday and he had already aged up. Normally you get a warning message a day or two before hand so you can organise a party, but because he wasn't part of my family until the day of his birthday, Melani got no such warning. Instead, I was just presented with the following:

My heart did break a little when I saw that due to his difficult upbringing his traits could not be chosen. While Melani refuses to take any blame as it was up to Hal to do the right thing, she can't help but look at the happy childhood her own children have had so far and feel it's unfair that Muhammad didn't experience the same. In that moment, she decided that she would throw a belated birthday party for Muhammad!!

I have a funny feeling he's going to have a very good life regardless of what's happened so far. Apart from the fact he's in a loving family now, he's a really good looking kid! He's going to drive the ladies wild!!

I did notice that there was no interaction between Hal and Muhammad when he aged. I thought that was a little odd for a father and child. I checked his relationship status and noticed that Muhammad in fact dislikes Hal. How sad!! I'll have to work at fixing that I think - Melani will nag Hal until he rectifies his relationship with him lol.

I also had to laugh when I noticed that Hal doesn't like Jebidiah haha!!

He has to be feeling pretty happy that he got the girl in the end though. And he appears to be openly showing his affections towards Melani as well as both Seth and Ricky, which makes me really pleased. Especially as he's never really spent any time with his two older boys before.

The entire family decided to take a trip into town as there was a cook-off happening and it sounded like a fun family outing. I'm not too sure how they all fit into Melani's Prias, but doesn't it make for a cute family shot?

The cook-off lasted well into the night, which was no problem as it was a weekend. Melani and Hal took some time to get close and comfy while the children ran around and played. I like the image of flowers above Hal's head!

And I had to laugh when I saw the thought bubble during one of their many kisses - it appears everything tastes like chicken... lol!

Muhammad also appears to be very accepting of Melani's impending pregnancy. Yes, the toilet bowl party was pregnancy related as I expected. Upon announcing it to Hal, he was very pleased, and of course both Seth and Ricky are excited at the possibility of having a little sister... with three boys already, I think everyone is hoping for a girl this time.

Then again, take a look at Muhammad's eyes in this shot. I didn't even realise he was standing in it when I captured it...

Maybe he's not so accepting of it all? Or maybe he's just turning evil with all that's happened so far in his life. What ever it is, it's creepy as hell!

Outside of that minor issue however, I'm VERY pleased to report that it's all happy families over at the Banks residence! Melani and Hal are getting along marvelously, while Grandma is still going strong and painting up a storm. Seth, Ricky and now Muhammad all appear to be coping at school, with Seth and Ricky excelling. And at the end of the day, while Melani cooks dinner and Hal makes his way home from work, the three kids sit down together and do what all good kids should do - their homework!

Melani and Hal have always had a 'thing' for each other. I've blogged many a times about the fact these two just can't seem to stay apart. Or, more correctly, Melani can't seem to stay away from Hal. It doesn't seem to matter which city she's in, she gets really attached to her men! (The version in Max's city she's really attached to Max even though she's married there...)

I've been really good at keeping these two apart however. She's not called Hal, and not invited him to any of the parties except the children's birthday (after all, they are his kids). Instead, Melani's spent most of her time trying to find another suitable man to call her own, and waisting most of that effort on Jebidiah. Last night though, after Ricky's birthday party, she had a wish pop up...

This caused a momentary internal debate for me. I've always let my Sims tell me the story, yet, this is Hal... and Hal's a cheat that has kids all over town. Ok, one other child apart from Melani's... but still! "That Child" was conceived WHILE Melani was pregnant!! And that's a hard thing for a woman to move past. Ever.

But, it is her life, her story. Who am I to stand in her way? I would do my best to fulfill her wish.

A factor I wasn't aware of until after the wish had come up, is this little surprise.

Now remember, sims don't get the flu, they don't get stomach bugs, and even if the food they eat is so unevenly cooked that it gives them a negative moodelet, they never get food poisoning. So what is the ONLY reason a sim throws up? Yup... pregnancy.

My mind quickly scanned the previous few sim days trying to work out how this happened. Then it hit me. Remember the wild birthday party that Melani threw for Ricky? How it was so wild and so messy that the cleaner had a really big job the next day putting the house back together? That was it! See the party went until 3am in the morning and Hal... spent the night! It was too late to go home, he'd had a bit to much cake and he needed to crash there. And there was no couch sleeping involved.

I swear, all Melani has to do is touch Hal and she gets pregnant! Because of this tid bit of information, I figured there was more to her wish than I first realised. With two children already to this man, and another on the way, I can understand her fear of going at it alone and wanting to try to make it work with Hal. I would make this wish come true!

Frustratingly, the actual act of getting him to move in was a little trickier than I expected. I assumed, since they had children and a long standing on again off again relationship, that it would be a simple case of asking. Nope, no option. So I started doing romantic interaction after romantic interaction. I figured it had been a while since they got together, so perhaps she needed to show Hal she was still keen? After 15 minutes of this and still no 'move in' option, I was getting annoyed. I had the 'get married' option, but hold your horses! I want to see how it goes living with this guy before we take that big of a step.

After a bit of googling, I found out that the move in option is actually under the Friendly tab, not the romantic one. So I switched to a couple of friendly interactions and the option popped up pretty quickly. I'm not sure if their already high relationship status affected how quickly that became available or not, but it only took about 3 interactions.

Hal didn't even hesitate and before I even realised she's finished asking, I am presented with the following screen:

Now, this image actually threw a bit of a spanner in the works. See, I was asking Hal to move in, but as that screen indicates, there is also his "other child" Muhammad needing a home. This prompts me to realise that Muhammad's mother is no longer in the scene - either she moved away, abandoned the child to Hal or, perhaps, died. I didn't think to go and check the graveyard to check if the third option was true, I might have to do that, but for now I'll assume she discovered that Hal had fathered other children to Melani and left. A little less morbid possibility.

Which means... what do I do with Muhammad?

I can't very well leave him on his own, he's just a toddler by the looks of it. I can only assume that he'd be put into the orphanage if I didn't allow him to come with me. And, if I'm correct in my assumption that his mother left them, how could I then take his father as well? No, I knew deep down already that I would have to bring Muhammad over as well and allow him to live side by side with his half brothers. This wasn't ideal of course, but you make do with the situations life throws at you right?

So, over he comes with Hal and the house grows by two.

Muhammad is going to have to sleep in with Ricky for the time being as Melani doesn't have enough money to add on yet another room at this stage. I figured Ricky's room was a better option out of the two boys as he is younger so likely to get along better, and he's also a book worm so will be happy to just stick to himself. Seth is trying to write his own books and he's older, so he needs to be in his own room.

Once I clicked ok and everything shifted around a bit, I was pleasantly surprise to see that Hal brought some money over to the household which was nice. I would use that to provide a room for Muhammad. The happiness that money brings however, quickly ended. It was with a drop in my stomach that I moused over and saw Hal's lifetime wish...

All of a sudden everything made sense. And in that same instance, I started to wonder what the hell I had just done...

How cool is this?! You can get poached in the Sims!

That's so cool in my opinion. And actually caused me to get pretty stuck on the choice. On one hand, the Medical Career is kinda cool, yet on the other, Melani's wish was to join the Police Force. When I think about having 5 kids, and the expenses that brings, being a Dr could really come in handy, yet, is it believable that a single mum, who's never even looked at Medicine (or so I thought) could be a Resident?

I even had to bounce this choice onto hubby as I couldn't decide. I wanted to take the Medical career, but was really stuck on the whole "is it really believable". Then I mentally slapped myself, remembered it's just a game and given how many other things aren't quite like real life, accepted the job change. Money also played a big part in the choice heh.

I did have a mini panic attack because when you do this, you quit your current job, walk outside, have a little cry and then... nothing. For a few scary minutes nothing but unemployed showed in my career tab. Eek! Thankfully, it was just taking those few scary minutes to update and showed the new career path starting Monday. At least I quit on a Friday I guess... =p

Melani was very excited by this change she could barely contain herself - she sat on a bark bench and started reading a book. Oi! I mean, c'mon, that's a HUGE life change, and you're going to READ?! I don't think so.

Unfortunately, Melani also shares my memory loss condition and after I kicked her butt off the park bench and stomped on her book, she called... Hal.
























You can see what's happening right? The congratulatory hug, the longing "I've missed you" look and Melani falling for Hal's tricks all over again. When will this girl learn?