Since my last post, I've actually played the Newson's twice again...
This time, I'm only 3 days into my rotation, so nothing much has happened yet. But last time I played them:
Gavin continued to attend school while Ginger looked after the toddlers, then they grew up into children. Ginger started dating Waylon Menon while still a teenager. He moved in and they got engaged by Ginger's late teens and ACR decided they would have a baby. Gavin also moved in his ex-cashier girlfriend Asia for a bit, meaning the house was pretty crowded and there was no room for a baby, so I cleaned out a 2x2 room on the bottom floor and put in a crib. While Ginger went to "what is this?" it, she suddenly went into labour... having quads. Being that there was no space in the house, Ginger and Waylon moved out into a house together, I think Ginger then became an adult, or maybe by this point she was one... they had gotten married at some point but I can't remember when, I think before the kids were born. Anyway, they moved out. Which meant Gavin then had to raise the kids, but by this point they were all teenagers. Asia went off to University and Gallagher followed her a year later. Gabrielle moved in with her boyfriend and they had a kid together, they broke up and Gabrielle moved in with another boyfriend and Gavin 'adopted' her son.

Their aspirations are: Gabrielle is a romance Sim, Gallagher is knowledge, Garrett is Fortune and Georgia is pleasure. I really can't think of any other way to play them because I think those were the most fitting aspirations.

So in the end it was:
Gavin, Garrett and Georgia, and Gabrielle's son (can't remember his name) in the original house (quite a large house, 5 bedrooms - so the twins shared until they were teenagers when Garrett got Gingers room and Georgia got Gabrielle's room).
Gallagher was in a dorm with Asia Langrak and Ghallagher's childhood friend Isaiah Gavigan (Asia originally lived in a large dorm and woohoo'd every guy and some girls living there too, but is now keeping quiet about her affairs now her fiance's brother lives with her)
Gabrielle lived with her boyfriend Angelo
Ginger and Waylon lived with their quad daughters (shown at the bottom of this thread , and as children on the next page) in an also quite large house. (If sims have lots of children, sometimes I kaching them a few times so they can afford a larger home, as well as basic objects such as a fridge, bathroom and a double bed. They could only afford 1 crib between the 4 toddlers, and a dogbed. It was a nightmare!)

Here's a gritty take on the Newson backstory:
http://quinndominion.livejournal.co...5.html#comments
She's had them prisoner-tokened in a BACC for awhile, and it's not clear to me how much of this is staged and how much is actual gameplay switching them from stage lot to stage lot, or maybe just rebuilding the lots around them. With school hacked, aging off, and time passing, the twins have made strides with their toddler skills and the family looks pretty firmly bonded by the time she adds them to the neighborhood.

I love the cc you are using, I love dirty cc. Could you give me some tips on where to find some? :lovestruc

Oh, wow. I'll never look at the Newsons the same way

Oh, that's not mine! Quinn's using my Widespot for her own purposes (as intended) and doing a bang-up job with it. You can ask her about her CC in the comments. She's good about answering. But I believe GoS is the go-to place for the really grungy CC; and some of those sets also have a lot of vanilla game content, which is easy to make look grungy with only a custom touch or two. I always use Maxis linoleum in my downmarket housing, for instance.

I only played them in one hood so far

In Deer Valley, I placed the Newson's in Downtown which I play as a ghetto.
And I immediately place the binned families in the State Penitentiary where the families must "work" (sew, make flowers, build toys and robots(teen-elder), muffins for the children) in order to have their freedom.
They have a quota of 10 items a day, if not they are sent to the electric chair where the warden shoots them.

The Newson toddlers were placed in a fenced in garden during the winter so that they were taken from the social worker and put into the orphanage system.
The two teens failed to make their quotas so.......RIP
The children, however where spared since they were very efficient baking muffins.
There is a new warden Geike, who gladly adopted the children so they live in the warden's section of the prison with all the luxuries of a nice home.

I have not adopted the toddlers into other families but I will consider it soon.

I've played them so many times, so many ways. The latest is maybe the saddest. Everyone but the twin toddlers died. They were adopted by 2 gay couples (4 well-known playables - whose names I don't remember). The boy & girl child grew up and fell in love...had a baby; the mommy (Georgia?) died ALL BY HERSELF, and the boy (Garrett?) is raising the baby.

The only time I've played them for more than a season or so was in my BACC. I aged up Ginger 6 days and Gallagher 3 days so everyone wouldn't be the same age and started looking after them. It wasn't terribly difficult, they bought a special made three bedroom house and while it was sparsely furnished to start they soon got enough furniture to get by. Ginger stayed home to care for the toddlers and paint, Gavin got to go to school and held down a low paying job. They managed to teach Garrett and Georgia a few skills each, not all of them but enough for them to grow up gold. Ginger grew into an adult and started dating Caedra London, one of the daughters of my original three families. Gavin rolled the want to go to college and the family all pulled together to get the money together for him to go. Ginger's married now with a decent job and well on track to sending the rest of the kids to college. Caedra will be inheriting her parent's house so once the kids have all left for college they'll move in there and a adopt a kid or two. I'm not very far into playing them but I can't wait to see where they take me next round.

I've just sent Gavin and Ginger to college, where they will share a dorm with David Ottomans, Ivy Copur, Orlando Centowski and Meadow Futa. Gareth and Georgia have grown into teens; and, like Gallagher and Gabrielle, have teen jobs to see them through financially. They are doing okay, except that there isn't a lot of time left between school and work. But they will all be at uni soon

Inspired by this thread (and the livejournal story that Peni linked to), I have started to play the Newsons even though I don't have Apartment Life. marka93 kindly extracted them for me. Gavin and Ginger wear slightly different clothes to the ones they start with in AL, but they are still very recognisably the Newsons: I have tweaked their ages so that Ginger is one day older than Gavin, and Gabriella is 2 days older than Gallagher. This is just to stop them being twins. For their personalities, I went by the Wiki and just accepted the default personalities for their birth signs. The one exception is Gallagher: the Wiki said he was the shyest, so I took one Outgoing point away and gave him an extra Nice point instead -- because I like nice Sims! Their personalities finished up (Neat, Outgoing, Active, Playful, Nice): [pre]Ginger 55384 Taurus Gavin 23974 Sagittarius Gabriella 63646 Cancer Gallagher 62647 Cancer Garrett 53737 Pisces Georgia 47833 Gemini[/pre]They have moved into a rather run-down house in the shadow of the aqueduct on the outskirts of Veronaville, and I've played them for the first 2 days there. They were welcomed to Veronaville by the Moores (frequently mentioned in my recent/current thread about OFB ), their nearest neighbours. Scott and Una Moore made their excuses and left, but their teenage son Ross stayed till midnight, chatting with Gavin. Perhaps this indicates that Gavin and Ginger are more comfortable with other teens and children, than with adults: they have reason to distrust those in authority. Actually I'd say Ginger and Gavin are doing a good job looking after everyone except themselves. Gabriella and Gallagher are nearly inseparable. They go to school, and after one day have both got their grades up to C+. They are starting to make friends with other children. Garrett and Georgia are both kept clean and well fed. Ginger and Gavin have made a start on teaching them the toddler skills, especially reaching them to use the potty. All the children have got toys to play with including a wooden garage. But Gavin and Ginger already look tired and care-worn. Neither of them goes to school. Gavin has taken a part-time job in the medical career, but Ginger has to stay at home to look after the toddlers. Careful spending (and me building them a house which is just big enough) mean that they still have §2,000 left of their §20,000, but nothing can hide the fact that they're spending money faster than they're earning it. They are doing their best to make the house bright for the children, and have turned one small room, probably meant to be the master bedroom, into a bright little nursery for Garrett and Georgia, but most of the house has bare floorboards and unpainted walls. The furniture is sparse and cheap. Gallagher and Gabriella don't have a good relationship with Ginger; she'd like to spend quality time with them, but the toddlers and household chores take up all her time and she's always tired. Gavin was so tired after his first day at work, that he collapsed on the pavement as soon as he got out of the car. Tomorrow (Wednesday) he has a day off work, and they have arranged for Ginger to go to school, but only for one day. Perhaps they'll manage to take turns to go to school more regularly when they've worked out a routine, but they both agree that the children have to come first. I have nothing but admiration for their total dedication to keeping the family together. I'm sure I'm influenced by what I've read about how other people play the Newsons. I'm seldom attracted to playing to playing pre-mades, but occasionally I read about a family or families who really arouse my interest, usually in the hope that I can help them through their tribulations to a happy outcome. Gavin and Ginger must be bright and resourceful or they wouldn't have got this far. I'm sure, with my help that they can think of something and pull through. And I do want them to have some fun in their teenage years. I hope my Veronaville teens accept them and welcome them!

Oh gosh, that does make them tough! Their AL versions, as a premade household, comes with quite a bit of money to start off with - about $40,000, as I recall. My Newsons have a nice 4-bedroom house, fully decorated and furnished and with a piano, a computer and a TV as well as various toys and skilling objects. Starting with $20,000 must make them really tough!

I put them in a Sideshow Challenge, and they're all miserable because I fail at playing. I'm writing up the story here for those who are curious. (Rules are there too.)

The family moved into a shack they could barely afford. The mayor was looking for a live-in nanny, so Ginger left the family to move in there ( also in hopes of meeting some rich male friends of the mayor). She was sending them money to help out at first. Gavin couldn't take the pressure of looking after the toddlers and dealing with the kids who were running wild and getting into trouble. He sent Gallagher and Gabriella to a boot-camp for bad kids. After that, he raised the toddlers to children and then sent them to the boot-camp as well. He was just tired of the whole thing and he couldn't afford to feed all those kids. Gallagher and Gabriella joined the military and moved to an army base when they finished the camp. Gallagher has horrible taste in women. He hooked up with a girl in the camp and they had a child. Soon after, she ran off and left him with the kid. Gabriella is still singe and focused on her career. She has a bit of a crush on her female roommate. Garret and Georgia are still in the camp but doing well. What a life - ha ha.

Well, Gavin and Ginger are at college now, sharing a dorm with, amongst others, Ivy Copur. Ivy, who is a knowledge Sim, is getting first kisses left and right and Gavin is now one of the students who is in love with her Ginger has eyes for Orlando Centowski but he has his eyes on Ivy Copur too. The other 4 are still at home, working and going to school and will be going to Uni according to their ages later

Forty thousand Simoleons? A computer? A TV? A piano? Gavin Newson dreams about such things. But he knows that in the real world he has to justify every Simoleon spent. They probably will buy some skill building toys for the toddlers, because they're cheap. The older ones will have to build their logic skills with the crossword -- slowly! He and Ginger never have time for the crossword anyway. Yes, life is hard! The only compensation is to see that the children are happy. Here are a couple of pictures of Ginger:

I'll try post some more pictures in the Pictures forum, probably in the thread for Maxis-made Sims.

I forgot to mention - Ginger is hooking with Gunnar Roque

Yes I do believe they have $40,000 Andrew. Last time I played the Newson's I placed them in the largest trailer in the Maxis Trailer park. They outfitted it nicely and I used bunk beds all down the far end with the other end used for toddler toys and a computer. The rent on that isn't that cheap but they had plenty of cash left over. Only trouble was it was my integrated hood and it did not yet have a nanny service so my plan was to alternate the teens going to school, but for some reason the game would not allow Ginger to 'leave the little ones' even though her brother is a teen. I don't know what was up with that. The twins constantly rolled skillign wants so they were always platinum. After the twins had aged up I invited the headmaster over and got them into private school with the AL greats, a couple of paintings which got sold back, a plate of spaghetti and coffee. All except for poor Ginger whose grade was terrible from not going to school. Her being at home was handy to get Garrit's homework done while he went to work though.

They definitely start off with 40 000 Simeleons, so you can, without feeling guilty, do a little motherlode, @Andrew

I'm going to be starting a new megahood soon and I was thinking of moving them in with the Goodies (the old couple). The Goodies are boring on their own but I think they could help raise those kids well, like foster parents or something.