Nope, not ready yet

Now that Greg studies with his computer till around 10pm every night, there is no chance of a blog post with pictures. Hopefully, a recap of my day will be enough for a little while... I decided it was time to invite some people over for dinner. No one has dared invite the family with twins over and it's probably for the best. Our turf is a little safer. Anyway, it wasn't anything special, a simple menu of shredded beef tacos, spanish rice, cantaloupe. Even still, I knew I would need to start preparations very early for even the slightest hope of a success. The twins were an absolute dream all day. So much fun, smiles, laughing, jibber-jabber. Ethan has learned that he has a sister and talks to her quite often. So cute. We took a walk to Hyde Park Produce for some last minute supplies and they were charming. Kate even kept her spit up to a shocking 17 times. I took naptimes to prepare as much as I could. I diced all the veggies for the rice, cut the cantaloupe, the beef was in the crock pot all day and shredded by 4, everything was measured, set aside a ready for action. I had everything all set out a ready to go by 5. All was wonderful. This should have been my first clue... Dinner was at 6. The twins eat at 5, our friends' baby goes down at 7, it was a nice compromise. Of course it couldn't have gone smoothly. Ethan sometimes does this thing where in the middle of his nap, he screams bloody murder, and it's the saddest most heartbreaking cry (it happens about once a week and I have no idea what it is about, but he usually calms right down when I pick him up), so I got him out of bed a he helped me finish things in the kitchen till 5 when it was time for him to eat. Nightmare. Took 2 ounces and then decided he was done (he normally takes 5-6). Screamed a little, gagged a little, kicked a little. Okay, fine. I moved on to Kate. She was doing okay and then Greg came home (I asked him to be home at 5:30) so I passed Kate on and went to start the rice. The second red flag should have gone up here when I realized that this recipe calls for minute rice and I only have regular (it's a moral decision, really). I think I can safely say I've made rice a thousand times; I figured I could improvise the difference. This went as follows: Brown the rice in butter- check add onions and green pepper- check sautee until tender- "Oh, No!!!" I hear from the other room. Kate has spit up all over Greg. Apparently, he is not quite as accustomed to the smell of Kate's stomach acid all over his clothes, so he passes her to me and jets to the bedroom to change. Now where was I? The rice. Kate and I get back to see half of the rice burnt black. I try to pretend that this is normal, add the final ingredients and set to simmer. Needless to say, this was not the right answer, because 20 minutes later, all I had was soft, burnt rice. Not a good combo, so I put the lid on that dish (literally, I was hoping to trap the smell). The final step in making dinner was to fry up some tortillas. The end product of this wasn't so bad, but I got the pan so hot that there was enough smoke in our apartment for a dance club. Our guests (we'll call them the Schmalvins for their protection) arrived with delicious apple soda, cupcakes and enough grace to ignore the smell, smoke, and lack of a side dish. Dinner went pretty well, all things considered. The tacos were pretty good and the cantaloupe was delicious. A perfect appetizer to the McDonald's that I'm sure the Schmalvins hit up after the festivities. Ethan and Kate fussed a little and wanted to join us at the table, but they can't be blamed. The Schmalvins are a pretty fun bunch. After they left, the twins slept a little, cried a little, took their bottles are were both down by 9. We survived. All in all, I wouldn't consider our first dinner a raging success, but it wasn't a failure, either. I think we'll do pizza next time...