Monday Musings: Fostering Hope

Our family has been on a foster care journey for over two years, and it is incredibly rewarding and challenging at the same time. The end of last week and this weekend we had a couple of extra boys who were "all boy". We played with trucks, trains, cars, kicked the soccer ball, played chase, read truck books, and so much more.

How fun to be able to keep these boys together and give them a fun weekend with our family. We were able to share life together, I told them many bedtime stories, and hopefully we were able to foster a new kind of hope in these kids. My kids had a great time, and I love that they're learning to live beyond themselves and grow in new ways.

Today we get to learn more about the Love and Logic approach at my kids school. I'm looking forward to gaining new tools that we can use as we parent a variety of different children that come through our home.

How about you? What is your best piece of parenting advice?

Friday Finds: BabaMoon

Meet Naomi Morgan from BabaMoon in Birmingham, England. She is a mom of two beautiful children as well as the owner of two stores on Etsy and a handmade blog.

Introduction
Babamoon.etsy.com is a big focus for me at the moment which is totally inspired by my kids whom have brought out the girly girl in me! I think it shows in all of my cute designs as I tend to focus on flowers, pet animals, amigurumi and all things bright and colorful as my muse for design ideas. I am generally a crafter and artist by nature but do take my creative side into the realm of digital photography of which you can see more in my store moonangelnay.etsy.com.

Name one thing that not many people know about you.
It's funny you should ask, as I had been thinking about this regarding my blog only the other day. The fact that I go on and on about my job, my kids, my photography, and on and on and on, yet I have never mentioned much about my love for music! Particularly local music to me, classical music, world music, folk and any music that has me in fits of laughter. I actually play some instruments too. My best instrument that I learnt in my childhood is (ahem) the recorder... lol. But I am self taught on the guitar and bass guitar, and can give the didgeridoo a good old toot too. I was even in a band once!

How did you get your start on Etsy?
You know I can't even remember how I found Etsy, I only remember starting with a shop that pretty much contained all of my crafty talents, paintings, leather accessories, baby items, jewelry, macrame stuff... sheesh. If I knew then what I know now LOL. It didn't work, I believe, as it had no consistency. So it then became my photograpy store. And after a long while, my daughter was born and my second shop Babamoon came along soon after.

How did you choose your shop name?
For some crazy reason I thought I would be able to link my photography store and Babamoon together, mostly because I want to eventually go into portraiture, but I have since had to adjust those plans somewhat.

I am known as Moonangelnay in my other shop, so I literally thought... "Babies... Moonangelnay... Babamoon!" It certainly wasn't a stroke of genius lol! Not with the post-birth mom brain I had at the time anyway!

What does a typical day look like for you?
Well, it's very different every day! But that is mostly because I am a full time mum to my kids too. So I pretty much work during the night when they are both asleep as it's the longest run of exclusive time I can dedicate to the store. I do work in the day too though, particularly during busy weeks. Also when my fiance is home off work I get full days of exclusive hat time to enjoy! But there is no typical day I'm afraid.

What's your favorite season of the year and why?
I love the autumn. It's mostly because of the colors, and zipping down the road with giant piles of leaves blowing everywhere. It must be my inner child or something, I just think it's so much fun!

What was the hardest decision you ever had to make?
It may sound odd, but it's a very recent occurence and it was to see my doctor about possibly having Endometriosis.

My mom and I had a very hard time in my childhood trying to get doctors to acknowledge the problem back when it really needed to be looked in to as I suffered a lot and it started very young from when I was 9, but I used to get turned away regularly with ignorant comments like "oh she's just trying to get a few days off school"... It taught me that doctors couldn't be trusted, and it took a LOT for me to even drag myself to who I had considered the nicest doctor I've ever had. But it's something that is finally getting looked at after all these years, which I'm sure my fiance is grateful for... I do feel sorry for him at those times of the month, poor fella LOL! ;-)

What do you consider your best personality trait?
I don't know really, I like to laugh a lot and try to be quite light hearted since I do look at my life and feel quite amused a lot of the time LOL. Possibly that!

What's your birthstone? Do you wish you had a different one?
Ohhh mine is Opal and I LOVE it. The fact that you get such a beautiful spectrum of colors in the stone totally suits my fetish for bright colors! :)

You can also find Naomi on her blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Stumbleupon.

Monday Musings: A Foster Care Success Story

A few weeks ago, our family had the privilege of having a sweet little foster girl in our home. She came from one parent, and had only one diaper and no extra clothes, and we quickly realized she had no boundaries in the home where she had been living in. She was wild and full of energy, and kept us on our toes, but each day we had her as she became used to our rules and boundaries, she became much easier to work with. We realized ever so strongly this calling that God has given us to help rescue these orphans in our society.

We soon found out that she would be going to live with her other parent. She was in the foster care system for just over 72 hours, and we had the opportunity to meet this amazing family where she was going. It was such an incredible experience, and we felt so honored to be a small part of her life.

Now it's your turn! What are the incredible experiences in your life? How have you been able to give back when you have been blessed.

Monday Musings: Kids in Need

We had another foster child for a short-term respite stay this weekend, and I am reminded of how precious children are to Jesus. He calls us to care for the fatherless, and these foster kids are in need of loving families to come alongside them with helpful boundaries.

I am in awe that we get to be part of serving kids in this way. What are you doing to help others that goes beyond yourself or your family?