wasted?

Nothing is wasted? I feel like God uses all situations, circumstances, happy or sad, to teach us something. The Kingdom is the end goal right? But what happens when you start to doubt the very thing you always believed? 

The past few years have been hard on my family. My husband left active duty to pursue his degree and with that came a move to our old hometown. Most people would be thrilled at this aspect, I however was terrified. We literally moved our family with three small children without my husband having a job! We knew he would be using the GI bill to finish his degree and hopefully would be able to go back active as an officer. 

Things just don't always turn out how you think they should. He was able to snag a job that paid decently and started attending school full time. The job unfortunately didn't have good benefits. And guess what, I found out I was pregnant with baby number 5! Scary! (I miscarried sweet baby 4) and we desperately needed insurance. 

Fast forward to baby Benjamin being born and my husband decided to get into the reserves to hopefully have some networking to commission and also for the insurance! Whew, that was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. But here was the kicker, the only reserve unit with MP's was 6 hours away in Denver, CO. So what was going to be a weekend a month, turned into four days. Mind you I had a newborn and three rowdy kiddos who really needed to be entertained! Y'all, also- "one weekend a month, two weeks a year"-is a LIE. I'm not exaggerating that my hubby answers army calls ALL the time and is constantly on the computer having to work on schedules, etc. He probably works a good thirty hours a week for the army, no exaggeration. 

So with the cutbacks, my husband was afraid he wouldn't be able to commission as prior service. The rules are so strict now since forces are being reduced. 

He decided to put in an AGR packet. His packet was submitted and accepted in May 2014 and by December he had been offered a recruiting job, he has been waiting on a school date ever since!  Fast forward to April and we find out he will be deploying and will be put into a mandatory re-class! 

So with, all of this we have literally put our lives on hold. 

So where is God in all of this? 

To be honest, I have no idea. Three years of uncertainty. This June my hubby will graduate from college! I do feel like that's something that has been awesome. I also had a super sweet baby. So please don't get me wrong, I do feel like we are so incredibly lucky. But I want to know the story, what does the future hold. 

Nothing is wasted. 

I believe it, it's just hard to feel it sometimes. 

Lately

We are in to day 4 of summer break and I'm not going to lie.... I'm exhausted. 

We have been hit with some sort of super virus and it has lead to 3/4 kiddos with ear infections. A ruptured eardrum. And an excessive amount of green boogers.

We kicked of summer with a bang right?

Luckily my husband had been off of work and we have been able to sneak in a few moments of time alone.

So basically, we are ready to get well and actually start summer!

A few things I'm going to be having the kids do are summer journals (I'm so excited for this since they all are just a little bit bigger!) and also we planted a LARGE garden with squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and some other yummy stuff that I'm excited for the kids to see grow and also cook some of our goods.

So now, I will leave you with some pictures of lately, ignore my laundry piles :)

Officially a 4th grader!

Benjamin and his "bebe"

Blurry, but so accurate of lately. Laundry for days y'all.

Krispy Kreme. enough said :)

End of the Year

The end of school is just a couple days away. WOOHOO to making it through another school year. It's a very bittersweet time for me because I am so happy to be spending summer with my babies, but it also means another grade completed and that honestly makes my mama heart sad. My kiddos growing older are one of the things I wish time would slow down in.
This was a good year. Aubree and Alijah's teachers were both so wonderful. I feel like they both loved and treated my children like one of their own, and for that I am so grateful. They mended hearts and gave comfort when I wasn't around and also filled their little minds full of knowledge.
I really wanted to give each teacher some sort of special gift. I am a huge Pinterest lover, but I also knew that all mama's would be turning there to get gift ideas. Teacher gifts are hard. You know them very little as far as their personal interests and such. So I decided to go with something a little more heartfelt.
COOKIES.
ha ha, Who doesn't love cookies? Especially these, I seriously couldn't have found anything better and felt like they were so appropriate for this year!

Aren't they so cute? My incredibly talented friend Becky @littlesparrowcc I could not love these more.
I'm so thankful for our teachers this year, and we are already praying for good teachers for next school year!

Graduation Weekend

It has been so busy around the O house this past week. My daughter graduated from Kindergarten and then the next day we were road tripping to my parents house for my sister to graduate from college. Two things-  

road trips with an 18 month old are not fun,

and people straight up are rude when it comes to graduations.

We could not hear one single thing at my daughter's graduation. Rude and inconsiderate. Do people have no manners anymore?

Also, at the college grad people all around are chatting. My mama bear wanted to come out. My children were better behaved than most of the adults there! So frustrating. 

Now for a few pictures.

he is so precious and ornery.

Tevin's cheeeese.

Kindergarten grad with grandma and grandpa!

photobomb by Alijah ;)

not bad, considering only 2 are not looking at the camera

sisters are crazy.

Why am I SO short?!

lifetime family friends we grew up with!

sisters + a cousin

all FIVE sisters!

                                                                                                                               

Theme Song

Music is such a gift to us. Songs can trigger all sorts of memories. Happy ones, sad ones, all of your seasons of life probably have a song you could connect to it. 

My high school reunion is coming up and my FB has been flooded with songs that bring back all sorts of feelings. Remember Nelly? Oh please don't even get me started :)

But with deployment looming, I have really been trying to get myself prepared to mother 4 kids alone for a year. It seriously sounds so scary. SO overwhelming. I know lot's of women do it. I just don't know if I want to. Also I don't think my brain has processed the news fully yet. Denial anyone? lol

So I picked my theme song for this season. 

You make me brave

You make me brave

No fear can hinder now 

The promises You've made

Love. It's exactly what I need right. 

So tell me what are some of your theme songs?

                                                                                                                    

The thing about friends..

The thing about friends is that it takes effort to be a friend. As an adult, and as a mother I feel like I focus less and less time on my important friendships because I am focusing on my family and my husband. The house being clean. The tons of laundry screaming to be washed. What I forget is that friendship is a need. You have to work to be a good friend. And sometimes its hard, hard work. Sometimes that friend is waiting on you to reach out, waiting on you to return that phone call, to send a text to let them know you are thinking of them, to drop by to help with their kids. It's hard to make genuine friendships as an adult, But as I chatted on the phone the other day with a very sweet friend to me, it felt awesome. It felt just like it did pre-kids,pre-hubby, pre-military moves. whew, what a relief to know there are friends out there who can forget about the time that's gone by.

 

Mother's Day 2015

Happy Mother's day. I hope all the mama's out there are feeling so loved and cherished. I know I'm feeling pretty spoiled myself. Right at this moment daddy-o has all the kids picking up dinner for our picnic :) I am sitting, resting from a wild morning teaching Sunday school. I have a house that needs to be tidied and also some laundry that needs put away. But that will all wait until tomorrow.

I'm also praying. Praying so hard.

Today is a super hard day for a lot of women. Women who long to be mama's.  Women who have babies in Heaven. Women who are hurting from never being able to carry her baby in her arms. Women with deployed spouses, who are incredibly lonely.

 Today you are not forgotten. I celebrate you, and I pray for. I pray that God would fill up that emptiness with a peace only He can give.

Happy Mother's Day

BlogHop 2015!

Hey there! Welcome to the Blog Hop for military spouses! Kathryn, Julie and I are so happy you are here! It's not too late to join in on the fun! Post your intro on your blog! Help spread the word and link back to this post!. Please add your link below! The link will run until tomorrow may 9th at noon. So make sure you link up even if you can't visit others pages today. You can come back and look around when you get a chance!

My Intro page will be in the link! Please make sure to check out my other co-hosts as well! Julie at Soldier'sWifeCrazyLife and Kathryn at Singing Through The rain!

Milspouse Bloghop Intro!

Hey y'all. I'm Alia. I'm a mama to 4 and wife to one handsome soldier in the Army, Tim. He served active duty for 6 years and then got out so he could work on his degree to come back active as an officer. That route has changed a little bit and he now serves as a reservist and will be deploying pretty soon. We are trusting God for the future and we know He is working it all out.

Military spouses are so near to my heart. I think we are some of the strongest people around! 

I love dance parties in my kitchen- especially to Fall Out Boy.

Summer nights outside with a fire.

And most importantly, Jesus. I'm so thankful for His GRACE.

I am so excited to meet everyone of you. Please comment and let me know where you are coming from! 

Also, the link will go live tomorrow at noon! I hope to see y'all there!

xoxo

                                                                                                                            

Military Spouse Blog Hop!

I am so excited for this. When I first started blogging, I remember how much fun these hops were! So in honor of Military Spouse Appreciation Day, I have teamed up with  

Julie from SoldiersWifeCrazyLife &

Kathryn from Singing Through The Rain, 

to host this awesome blog hop! 

I hope y'all can join us on Friday May 8th and go around meeting other awesome military spouses. I can't think of a better way to celebrate us!

So here are the rules:
Starting at 11:00 am on Friday, I will put up the Linky. Kathryn and Julie will also have one, you can link up anywhere, or all three! Just make sure you link to at least one :)

Post your introduction page! Put fun facts about who you are, what you do, anything you want to include.

Then come over here and sign up on the link. make sure to put your URL.

Then go around meeting other awesome women! Make sure you comment that you are from the hop!

Also, you can link back to us to let others know about the Hop!

That's it. Super easy and super fun. I can't wait to meet all of y'all!

                                                                                                                                 

Top 3

I am lovin' social media right now. Mostly Instagram. Seriously its a love affair of sorts. The community on there is literally so amazing. Kinda like the blog community only shorter posts :) So with that said, my list of my top 3 Mother's Day gifts was born. I love following these shops on IG and so i thought it was my duty to pass them on! Also, this is just a list of things I personally love. You don't have to be a mama! Just a woman with awesome taste.

1. NICKEL AND SUEDE  Earrings. Seriously these earrings will change. your. life. I LOVE them. They are so light and beautiful and are so versatile. You can dress them up or down. LOVE.

2. LOVED BY HANNAH AND ELI - These shirts. swoon. I have dropped so many hints to my husband, I'm sure he is annoyed with me. Or he might possibly be relieved because I made this SO easy for him to know what I wanted.  They have a ton of different shirts for adults and kiddos. Check them out.

3.EVY"S TREE These unique hoodies look so awesome. I really have been wanting one, but I find that it is really hard for me to splurge when it's almost summer time. Come fall I will be ALL over these. Those ruffles? I can't even handle the cuteness overload.

I'm crossing my fingers for a couple of things off of this list!