@Shewolf13 As with many things, the kitchen idea comes from some other house I saw who-knows-when. It helps fill out the room. I think the kitchen will stay there, but over time it'll get decorated with overhead cupboards and different counters.
@FrancescaFiori Absolutely. The vast house will magically spring up behind the vast painted terrain. I wanted to better organise Persephone's garden. The only place I could find for it was alongside the path. And I wanted to see how many plants it would hold and start planning what plants I'll use there. The "tree of emotions" seems to grow and produce fruit fairly quickly. I'm thinking of some of those lining the path, obviously grafted with something alien. But I'll have to check how fast it grows. Those were the thoughts behind the need to plan the front.
@oshizu Her bikini shot doesn't bother me in the slightest! It's not an outfit I chose. I did give her some adventuresome clothes, but didn't even think to look at her swimwear in CAS because I hardly expected to be swimming in a temple. I didn't know it was a thing. I like how she's studiously taking notes. I ordered co-workers to analyse metals, and that got me the common metal I needed to make the cloning machine. So from here it'll be plainer sailing. But she's had to go to the expense of buying the $3k invention constructor, which would be better spent on anything else, but the sooner they can clone moodlet solvers the better.
@BallerinaHippo I agree on all counts! My own created and beautifully nurtured sims are usually beacons of hope and kindness. It's really awful that they get happiness boosts around their own toddlers when said toddler is unhappy - and this happens tolerably often given how they're constantly tired, or hungry, or upset with their toy after a while. So the parents are loving it. They're always happy.
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Chapter III.
So I had thought that starting off with a girl and a boy would be grand. Balance. Symmetry. Perhaps, he could be Horace Wildringham. Something pompous. However, we had no carrots to make sure of it and the second pregnancy was left up to chance.
Twins! Girls!
Alexis and Rosalind. I can't tell which is which, and luckily nor can you, so that's fine.
The house is not in a fit state to receive many children. This room, temporarily the bedroom of Persephone and Cornelius is earmarked for the eventual dining room. Which makes sense, it's adjacent to the kitchen, but it doesn't get a whole lot of light, and mayhap some reader will say "it might do well to put the dining room where the kitchen is, and make it grandiose like it fell out of Versailles". Quite. That's a thought I've had. Because the Dine Out cooking station might fit along the separating wall... yeah. There's a lot of building questions floating about. But this isn't going to be a bedroom. That's for sure.
I guess that bug has been fixed since, but one straightforward way to solve it was to travel to another lot. As it happened, Cornelius needed to view paintings.
Persephone trudging back from the garden is not remarkable, but behold, she spent some points on a Insta-Lean potion because I couldn't wait any longer. Unlocking and producing Slimify was taking too long. An additional note is that I'm tempted to allow a strange looking sim a visit to a plastic surgeon once they max a career. Because really, they'd want that.
Persephone and Scarlett play dolls.
We needed a room to... do stuff. Somewhere to do archaeology, somewhere to play dolls, somewhere to put a sofa, etc. And for now, at least while the girls were babies and toddlers, this would be that room. Twins does complicate matters because the room where Scarlett was making a mess can accommodate two little beds without looking silly, but not three. So when Alexis and Rosalind needed little beds, mama and papa wold have to adjust the house. Not even I would simply wedge 'em into the kitchen somewhere.
Second visit to the jungle went smoother than the first:
Persephone - fully clothed - takes pictures of the dirt at the site of the plane crash.
And Katrina looks enviously at Persephone gluttonously consuming the local cuisine, regretting how her psychological and social conditioning makes it hard for her to enjoy food in such an Enthusiastic manner, disregarding the opinions of others.
Back home, and we Rally the Troops and get back to raising Scarlett.
She probably wouldn't have hit Top Notch toddler anyway if Persephone didn't go on the holiday, but the jungle adventuring is a priority and we can't start breaking that routine so soon. I was amazed by how close she got though. Dear odd Scarlett.
So this is the current house.
The bedroom for the moment has Cornelius' painting stuff. The big room with the red carpet is destined to be the master bedroom. And en suite bathroom will be carved out of that space... and it'll still be huge. Things changed fairly rapidly. It was frustrating to not have a real dining room, and more places for children to sit and do homework. And only 1 bathroom will become an issue with 5 sims. For now it's okay, but when Alexis and Rosalind are children it'll be a problem. When it's a complete house, it'll hopefully be fine. It's all the transition phases that are a bit of a mess. The children's room at the bottom of the picture is a future drafty stairwell, and possibly laundry.
They have fun and social meters too... just saying. I'm hoping for some nice scenic shots when it's all built. Persephone has put her foot through the spinach.
The green twins age up!
And this prompted a visit to CAS, and memorable toddler photos. My confession is that I don't remember which twin is which (but they're identical in their genetics) and after I post, I'll load this up and find out and edit accordingly. The blue one is Scarlett.
EDIT: Okay, so Rosalind is the blonde one. Hope this helps!
And after their makeovers, they cluster around Persephone like... toddlers. While in CAS, Persephone also got a makeover and changed her hair colour. It's interesting that the none of the kids inherited the hair or eye colour of their parents.
The toddlerhood of the twins was less closely supervised than with Scarlett. Mother still went to the lab, and father still painted. The goal for them was simply Happy Toddler. The lab got a quick jungle restyle. Why not?
And finally, here's the kitchen design working as intended. Scarlett was close to aging up, so I had to take the photos I could!
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Next time: the house goes through a phase, Scarlett sparkles, and Cornelius cooks with onions.