Life Overload

  Since the Holland kids are growing older, they're going to need to flesh out their skills to ensure success in their adult lives -- we going to need a lot of hobby objects around the house. 

That's just a really fancy way of saying I bought them a basketball hoop.

     It's a shame that playing dominoes doesn't burn any calories.

     While Emma kicked Danny's butt in a hoops contest and challenged gender roles, Brad proved to the world he is the textbook definition of swag:

Sticking his pinkie out like a boss. All he needs is nerd glasses.

     I also scored us a nice family photo of the Hollands scarfing down some nice quality stu surprise -- and the surprise wasn't that the stu wasn't leftover:

Emma got the surprise first.

    The surprise was that Angie finally finished her book!!

     And that someone broke the dishwasher. And the toilet. And the shower.

She'll be upgrading a lot.

      She has an idea who the culprits are in that case, too:

"Real tired of your shit, guys."

   And as a reward for putting up with her little hellions, I bought her some Lifetime Rewards, and that Bakery Oven:

    Trust me, the kids haunted her over making some kind of dessert. We'll make one first thing in the morning, and the kids weren't the only ones who wanted it . . .

That, or Cedrick likes stalking his kids.

    In the interest of keeping her children healthy, she made a nice autumn salad, too.  

That no one proceeded to eat.

    Meanwhile, Angeline started drafting out her magnum opus:

Come at me, bros.

    Its . . . genius quality was too much for her laptop to handle, so she ended up fixing yet another thing.

     Oh, yeah, and since Brad dislikes children, he'll be no help to us around the house, so we got him a job:

     We have to end on a bittersweet note, though; a lack of sibling bonding and a rejected date:

Growing Pains

      All that toddler skill building from the last chapter doesn't encapsulate even half the amount of time Angeline spent training the triplets, at the expense of hanging out with her older boys. (To be fair, they don't need to have their diapers changed.)

         But Chris did clog the toilet. After telling him to eat more fiber, Angie went to unclog the toilet, and did get something useful in return:

      With that crappy diversion out of the way, it's time to deal with more of it:

      Thankfully, Angie doesn't need to tend to anyone else's behind anymore! Still, more toddler training awaits . . . by taking the easy way out:

      Whilst Emma dealt with walking on her own (and the waiting game like Danny), Danny boy himself was learning how to deal with all those pesky nouns, verbs, and adjectives of the Simlish language:

"What does Mommy want to do to Miss Plumbobs?"

        Immediately afterwards, so did Fiona. Apologies for the creepy full moon lighting that Supernatural loves to haunt my pictures with:

    Finally, all the triplets are ready to age up! Not now, though, it's midnight and they have a strict sleeping cycle to stick to -- their mother is not an early bird.

All for $24. They couldn't pay her an extra dollar?

     Sadly, she didn't catch the worm, but she did rake in way more money after harvesting her dream crop berries:

      In celebration of her recent money flow, Angeline finally managed to make some blueberry pancakes.

The stove was nice enough to clean itself.

     She naturally dampened the celebration of discussing the wonders of children with her crotch-fruit-hating son:

"Would it have killed ya to change one diaper? You need the expertise!"

      His response?

Passive agressive behavior personified.

  Also, we lost all that hard-earned cash . . . 

. . . and we need the money for the triplets' gifts!

        I settled on redecorating the kids' rooms.

Guess which one was my favorite?

   Aaron's fish will hopefully get us some buck back:

Hopefully.

        I also bought the family a king domino set, and moved the tea set to the screened porch room beside the kitchen . . .

      .  .  .  and in the dining room, Danny and Emma had to do homework that was magically teleported into their inventories. 

"We have to push pencils, Fi has to push babies. We win, Danny."

A Threepeat

      Angeline needs to teach her triplets their future life skills, ASAP, for the sake of her sanity (and mine). But first off, an annoying bill.

I totally forgot to put the after amount, sorry!

After a quick glance at Angie's wishes, the first thing she wants the triplets to learn is how to walk. How is she going to do this with three kids in tow? By putting Emma by the activity table and putting Danny in the walker . . . 

That escalated quickly.

       While Fiona gets a nice bonding session with Mom, Danny was stuck pressing plastic buttons in a haze of boredom.

       I don't think he should be too jealous; as his sister decided to celebrate her milestone by dropping a deuce in her diaper.

       Angeline decided to celebrate this occasion by spending lifetime happiness points on her booming writing career . . . and Brad finally became a teenager.

                                               .  .  .

       He's at least very photogenic:

   Meanwhile, to celebrate his new trait, he decided to chase away Chris' school friend, Francisca:

      Emma decides to rebel against her brother and sister, though:

"What are Mommy's favorite things?"

    What's a better way to end the day with a cup of tea and a creepy gnome dropping by?

You break in my house, I sell break you.

        Throughout the night, Angeline writes more of First, Second and Third Base before the Love Day notification popped up:

    Since Angie has been growing stir crazy, I think this would be a nice break for her. It's been a while since she looked at her dating profiles, and . . .

Better than nothing.

   We took up Karl's offer first, and thankfully he accepted with no muss, no fuss. But first:

   Okaaaay, now we can go out on our date! We met up at the Bistro, all dolled up in a nice casual formal dress, and we ordered some dim sim. He ordered a hot dog in his workout gear. Then immediately ditched us.

Keep in mind the man is unemployed.

       Dejected, our heroine went home with a full roster of very unromantic wishes:

        Thankfully, she used her anger to motivate her daughters to be independent women and to ditch the diapers.

         I don't think Fi is too happy about it.