Hello. Are you there?

It's been forever! Oh my goodness.

To recap the last week: Tuesday I painted at church. It's great to make a noticable difference and to have a break from the little girls. I love them to death, but they act completely different when they're not around me. Then I got to watch a friends children while she got her hair done. I suggested the girl who did it. If you ever want a number for a hairdresser let me give you hers. She did a fantastic job on my friend's hair. She is also very reasonably priced.

Wednesday I painted some more and that's usually AWANA night. I love AWANA. Truth be told, I don't absolutely love kids, especially other peoples'. I try my best, but I just don't have enough patience. But with AWANA, I get to work with two age groups for 30 minutes each. I'm game director, so that's extra fun. This week was also banana split night (they get a certain amount for each section they do) and it's just too comical to watch them dig into a trough of ice cream. We also get pizza at church before AWANA and the girls love that.

Thursday was ClaireBeth's last day of school before Spring Break. I took the day off from church because I was supposed to help hide Easter eggs at 0945. So I took her running and dropped her off in pyjama shorts and a t-shirt because I was going to clean and then take a shower before going back. The teacher says "Just a moment ladies, I think we'll do the egg hunt now." Did I mention that I had no glasses or contacts? And I'm pretty much blind as a bat. So I'm thinking "Awesome!" Major sarcasm in case you can't tell. But oh well, I did it to myself, so we go throw Easter eggs. We did it in a grassy area and the kids had to find the eggs with their individual number on it. The kids are really sweet and helped each other out. Very fun to watch-what I could see of it. Then ClaireBeth's friend says "I'm going home with you Mrs. Green." I'd forgotten she was spending the night! The house is a huge mess and Eric's home! Eric does even worse with other people's kids than I do. Most of the time he won't talk or even look at them. And I had to take her shopping since it was shopping day.

Friday it was back to church, this time with 4 kids instead of two. So we paint, paint, paint, then I watch the kids in the nursery. Basically, in case you haven't noticed, I spend a lot of time watching kids. Fridays I usually watch a little boy so his mom will watch the little girls while I volunteer in ClaireBeth's class. I didn't this week, but you can see that I'm basically a nanny. But Friday afternoon I think we finally got to relax. But I might be forgetting something.

Which brings us to yesterday, Saturday. Oh yes, we keep going. As we're getting dressed to go to the library and visit Daddy's car (we do that a lot when we go on base since we don't always get to actually see Daddy) my friend Michelle calls and asks if I'd like to help her purge, organize and rearrange her bedrooms. Since I wanted to avoid cleaning my house I said sure. We were there for 6 hours. Michelle's husband Cecil is fantastic. He watched my three girls and his three girls the whole time. He's great with them. Even at church he's willing to help out with the kids. I asked Ziggy if Mr. Cecil was cool and her reply was "Yep he is!" We got two rooms almost completely clutter free and rearranged. Then we had pizza and the girls and I went home. But it's fantastic to see what a little time can do to a room without having to spend hundreds of dollars to buy new stuff.

So here we are at Sunday. I got up, cleaned a bit (besides watching kids, I clean a ton) and prepped for teaching Kindergarten Sunday school. The lesson today was that Jesus was perfect and never sinned, and why He died on the cross. It was a great lesson, and we have good curriculum that provides all of the material for visual lessons that really help the kids. After we get home my mom and her fiancee come over. It's great having Mom and Roger visit. I dragged them to my small group, where a smaller group gets to interact and learn about God together. They might keep coming to that small group. We'll see how that goes. But I love my small group. I still feel a little out of place there, but I'm at an odd spot in life. While all of us have three kids, I' a bit younger than the rest. Most people my age are still in college or just married or maybe have a baby. Not married for almost six years with three kids, one of which is in school. I also don't feel as confident about myself as the other women seem to. I also feel less mature in my faith. Like I'm still scared to actually let go of my life and submit to God's will. So there still feels like something's off. A woman I know explained it as you see God as how you see your father. Her father died when she was fairly young, and her mother always told her about him, but she had no personal contact. It took her a while to realize that wouldn't work with God. And she's right. I see God as there, but even if I bother, I'm not expecting Him to respond, why would He bother to respond to me? Rather like my dad is. So I ignore what I learn, and eventually stop trying to talk to Him because I've refused to acknowledge that He's with me. I'm trying to spend time with Him everyday and throughout the day, but it's hard when you're not used to actually listening or paying attention. He still loves me and is waiting for me with His arms open, I just have to stop being a brat.