this afternoon, ellie and i had the opportunity to visit some of our church friends. i picked her up early at school (we snuck out before kaleb discovered my presence), and after swinging by home to pick up her doll, hally, we headed to emry's house.
emry is the sweet ellie-aged daughter of our pastor, and is one of five siblings. but for the afternoon she was one of two - and her baby brother was asleep so it was as if she were an only child for just a bit! the girls ran off upstairs to play dolls together, and were up there for a long while. older kids came home with other church kids in tow, and soon the house went from 3 kids to 9 - and that's when the real fun began!
jada had made banana pudding for snack, and all kids converged around the kitchen island to dive into it. then off to play outside. that's right...after a seemingly endless gloom, today was bright and sunny and 67 degrees; it was perfect weather!
ellie had her first opportunity to jump on a trampoline and seemed to love it :)
and when it was time to go, emry very kindly (ok, much at the prompting of her mother) walked ellie to the door. ellie took off through the house to find her shoes, and emry hollered after her, "ellie! i am going to walk you to the door!" i interpreted it as, "my mama says a good hostess walks her guests to the door, so stop walking away from me so i can do this right!" jada and i had our laugh about this in the kitchen, and then couldn't find the girls. i opened the front door to find the girls sitting on the curb taking turns looking down the drainage run-off! we got in the car, and ellie asked, "why did we get to stay so long at emry's house?" i answered something to the effect of, "because we had some extra time this afternoon. was it fun?" "oh, yes. next, she needs to come to my house for a really long time. and then i can go to hers. and then she can come back to my house. and zambia (another church friend) will have to come over too."
the afternoon was filled with kids and some momentary craziness in getting everyone snacks and then calm for mommies to talk again and then a bit of craziness in trying to find a missing sock of ellies and then calm again. we made pudding. we washed dishes. i got to snuggle up with krae on a couple of occasions to give jada 2 hands to work with. no agendas, no pressures, nothing to accomplish other than spending time together. i picked her brain about homeschooling. she picked mine about crafting. we made future plans for the spare bedroom and one-day craft room...only half-serious :)
i imagine this is what life might have looked like in acts...when it talks of the people sharing meals together and giving to meet needs. jada is organizing finding some furniture for a family in church who has very little. it was neat to hear of the resources pulled from our group - "i have such-and-such in my garage" and "i was looking for a home for so-and-so" and "here's a bit of a donation to go towards a great craigslist find" - and to be able and motivated to jump in and participate.
i kept fighting a feeling of guilt as i thought of the time we were wasting - she with 5 kids has to have more to do than hang out with me, and i've got a dishwasher and dryer that both need emptying, not to mention a grocery list to make and some crafting that i want to do. yet it seemed so right this afternoon to spend the time together. to do none of the things that usually seem to demand my time, but just to sit back in the fellowship of another mother to find some time of relaxation.
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