December 2018:
Seth and Emma Lloyd are 29, Zachary and Zoey are 3, Garrett and Gavin are 1
(Eric Lloyd is 61, Sunny is 60, Charlie Tang is 60)
Just before Christmas, Seth and Emma finalized all the paperwork for the new house they bought and quickly moved out of the apartment.
With four toddlers, the apartment was no longer big enough. Zachary and Zoey each have their own rooms, while Gavin and Garrett share a room. Though sometimes Emma wishes they had an extra bedroom, because once one of the boys starts screaming from his crib, the other one is soon to follow.
Zachary and Zoey are a little easier to handle. They’ve moved out of the terrible twos stage (that truthfully, lasted will into their threes as well) and are happy to entertain themselves most of the time now while their parents tend to the younger twins.
Potty training times two again isn’t any more fun than it was the first time around. If it wasn’t for Seth being such an attentive father and helping out, Emma would have gone crazy long ago.
It’s hard keeping an eye on the kids and trying to manage her mom’s toy store. Sunny is talking about retiring soon and leaving the store to Emma, and although Emma loves the idea, she isn’t sure how she’ll manage everything.
They do have help during the day when they’re both working. The grandparents take turns coming over to help watch the kids.
And they have a nanny that comes over as well.
Though they’re not always confident in her caretaking.
Truthfully, the kids prefer their grandparents over the nanny anyway.
Emma and Seth prefer the grandparents over the nanny too. They feel much more confident in leaving their kids with one of their parents than with anyone else.
Seth knows he should have gotten rid of that old car he and his dad fixed up when he was a teenager long before now. But he just couldn’t bear to part with it and had been trying to hang on. This was the car he and Emma used to makeout in when they were in high school. This car is part of his history!
But there’s no way a family of six can fit into it. So he finally admits that the time has come to sell it. Charlie Tang comes by to look at it. He’s interested in buying the car for George, who will be out of college soon and will need a car to drive around in. He makes a good offer for the car and Seth agrees, watching Charlie drive away with a bit of sadness.
But selling the car has given him an idea.
“I think I’d like to open a car lot,” Seth says one night.
“A car lot?” Emma asks.
“I liked showing off the car and telling Mr. Tang about all the features,” Seth explains. “I think I could open a small car lot and sell used cars. Maybe even some more that I’ve fixed up myself.”
“Running your own business is a lot of work,” Emma says. “Trust me, I know.”
Seth nods. “Yeah. It’s expensive too.”
She smiles at him. “If it’s what you really want to do, we’ll find a way to manage.”
Seth puts the car lot idea to the back of his mind for now. It’s Christmas and he wants to focus on making sure the kids have the best holiday ever.
And they do, though there are some fights and temper tantrums.
But then, that’s normal life around the Lloyd house every day of the year.
Once all the presents are open and the family has all left, Seth and Emma collapse, exhausted in front of the tree.
“Well, I think we survived Christmas in one piece this year,” Emma says.
Seth turns toward her. “You know what I just realized?” he asks.
“What?”
“It’s early. The kids are all asleep already.”
“Hmm,” Emma says, smiling mischievously. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m thinking I’d like to take you upstairs,” he murmurs, trailing a finger over her arm.
They hurry upstairs and quickly change into their pajamas.
“Ah,” Seth says as he slips into bed. “Early bedtime. When was the last time we were able to catch up on some sleep?”
“I think almost four years ago,” Emma says. She gives him a quick kiss before turning out the light. “Merry Christmas.”
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I know, it’s been over a month since my last update! Life kept me busy and I haven’t had time to play with my Sims. This was actually played back in October, but I just now got around to writing it.
I did start working on a Sims 3 Pine Hollow/Arcadia a few days ago. I haven’t gotten very far into it. I know eventually I’d like to move my hood over to Sims 3, but I just don’t know at what point I want to do it. And recreating my Sims will be a big project.
So anyway, I’m not gone, just delayed a bit. I have been reading all your blogs while I was gone, but haven’t had time to comment lately either.
I couldn’t help laughing at the early bedtime, yep that happens sometimes.
You’re going to move Pine Hollow to TS3, do you know about when you’ll do the big move?
Ha, I figured with four toddlers, Seth and Emma would be much more likely to take advantage of extra sleep than woohoo. 😉
No, I have no idea when it’ll happen, but it’s probably still a long ways off. I still have to set up the hood and create all the Sims, so it’s going to take me a long time to get it done since I’m slow about building things. 😉
NO! Not another defactor! Curse you (wannabe) sims 3.
OMG! I know what they mean about the missing sleep. If the hubby and I get to be before 12 am it’s a huge surrpise to us! But then again, I’m up until 3 am anyway, can’t sleep.
Not sure if Riverdale will go to the darkside. LOL I haven’t gotten into the game that much to want to switch.
lol! Well, it’ll still be some time before I switch over, since I have to make sure I can play the way I want to play. But there are a lot of features of Sims 3 that I like and wish we had in Sims 2. So eventually I will go over to the darkside completely. 😉
LOL, and they got in their pajamas! That was too funny! But I get it! Man, that’s a lot of little kids!
Oooh, I’m very excited to see what you do with TS3! (Though, lol, we’re all breaking poor Riverdale’s heart here!) Are you recreating everything? That sounds like such a big project, lol! I won’t be recreating LH when I give myself into the darkside (lol!), but I am keeping a lot of my characters. I’m kind of itching to start a fresh new place.
(Though I wonder if I might be able to creat LH as a vacation destination? Can you make custom vacation destinations with WA? I don’t have the game yet though, so I don’t know if it’s possible or not.)
It’s good to see that you posted again! I missed my Pine Hollow Sims! 🙂
Right now, getting into bed early is probably the best Christmas present they could get, lol. 😉 Their house is insane to play!
I keep wavering on exactly how much I want to recreate. At some times, I think of only recreating Arcadia. But then other times I tell myself that I need EVERYTHING and can’t play without it all. I thought of only moving over my favorite Sims, but then I’d feel bad about the ones that got left behind, lol. I think I’m just too sentimental. 😉
You know, I’m not sure if you can create vacation destinations. I don’t think you can, but I haven’t ever tried it or looked up info about it. I would love it if Sims 3 gave us the option to add a subhood again, then I could create Arcadia and have most of my Sims live there, with Pine Hollow as a subhood. Right now though, I’m thinking I may just have a small section off to the side of the hood that is Pine Hollow, with the bigger area nearer to the shore as Arcadia. It won’t be exactly the same as it is in Sims 2. I’m not going for complete accuracy and have toyed with the idea of jumping a few years ahead in time when I do make the switch, so that in the time in between there would have been remodels, moves, and changes made throughout the town.
I have the itch to start something new too, but every time I tried to play Sims 3 I kept missing my Pine Hollow Sims. So I finally decided that I have to bring them over with me to Sims 3 and let their lives continue. 🙂
That was so cute and hilarious that they got all the kids in bed and then went to bed themselves! Seth and Emma must be too exhausted for anything else – four toddlers! Argh! Lucky they have helpful grandparents around.
LOL, Riverdale and I are looking like the only ones not planning on switching to TS3! There are just way too many hacks I use in TS2 that I couldn’t bear to blog without. Regardless though, I will follow Pine Hollow in whatever incarnation you offer. 🙂
Great to see an update from you again! I missed reading about all your Sims!
You guys aren’t alone. I just upgraded to a better graphics card and TS3 still doesn’t work well for me. I’d wish I tested the card first before buying Ambitions and Late Night. Grr! I’ll stick with TS2.
I’m have no plans to switch to TS3 either. I don’t even have the base game and have no desire to play. Some of the features look cool, but I love my sims in TS2.
Now on to Seth and Emma. When I saw their new house I wondered how the planned to fit a family of six in a small car like that. But Seth was way ahead of me.
I love the picture of the two toddlers fighting over the bottle. I haven’t seen that in my game, yet.
Lol at the early bedtime! But with 4 toddlers in the house, I can imagine that they must really enjoy that. It must be a hectic household to play too.
I like the idea of Seth opening a car lot and I hope they find a way to do this.
So you’re planning to switch to TS3. I’m excited to see how you (and everybody else that is planning to do this) are going to this.
I’m not planning on switching, I LOVE TS2! I have TS3 installed, and play it occasionally, but I always go back to TS2, because I like it much more!
I will keep following Pine Hollow though, because I love your simmies so much!
So Carla, Riverdale, I’m sticking with TS2 too!
Yay! I’m so happy to see a Pine Hollow update!
Emma and Seth sure have their hands full with four toddlers, but they seem to be handling the stress very well. It’s nice that the grandparents can help out a lot.
And regarding the Sims 2 vs. Sims 3 debate, my laptop can’t handle the Sims 3, so I’m holding off on buying it until I get a new computer. But I’m always interested to hear about people’s opinions on it. It seems like it has some great features, but I think I would miss some of the features of the Sims 2 like subhoods and university.
Cute update, and I lol’d at the ending! Nice to hear about Seth’s plans for the future, too.
I’m glad I’m not the only one sticking to TS2! Even if I did have a computer that would run TS3, I really like TS2, and as I came to the game relatively late, there’s still a lot I feel I haven’t done – both in-game, and with things like poseboxes that I’m still discovering.
I’m not switching to TS3 ether. But I will read Pine Hollow as TS3 format, of course!
Question, how are you recreating the characters? Is there a program that you can use, or are you just manually making them again in CAS?
And now for the update! Oh my goodness do I feel for this family! That is so much work, I lol’d at them going to bed. Probably much safer than risking another surprise pregnancy.
I can’t believe how much Zachary and Zoey look like their parents, Zoey is such a Seth clone, and Zachary such an Emma clone. The other two don’t seem to be such clones, more of a mix, at least as far as I could tell. This household will be so fun when they are all teens.
I miss your updates! Hope life is going well for you and that you’ll have some time/inspiration to sim again very soon 🙂
Shana,
I really miss Pine Hollow characters. Hope to see the TS3 version of it soon.