About Simple Kids

Christen Babb

Though a true southern girl at heart, Christen majored in French and Fine Art, spending some time living in Paris while in college. It was there that she discovered her love for fresh, colorful, natural foods at the local street markets. Cooking became her artistic medium of choice, creating lovely little dishes to share with those she loved the most.

After college, Christen worked in the corporate publishing world, representing titles such as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Fortune Magazine. After having her little girl, she worked by day and stayed up late nights developing homemade baby food recipes for her daughter. Combining her passion for food with her media experience, she launched NurtureBaby to inform, inspire, and encourage other busy parents to make wholesome and delicious baby food for their little ones.

Now at home full time, Christen relishes the simple moments with her daughter like building tents, having tea parties, crafting, and teaching, all while writing, reading, cooking, and conquering her “to-do” list during those sacred nap times. She is blessed to experience life alongside her best friend and husband of eight years and is looking forward to becoming a mommy of two. Faith and family will always come first to Christen as she tries to balance her way through this crazy, yet wildly fulfilling life.

Jennifer Brown

Jennifer started her adult life on what you might consider a traditional path, earning a BA in Communications and fully intending to put that to use in the non-profit sector. After a brief stint at that plan, the man she married began taking her around the world—literally! The past ten years of their nomadic life has given her the opportunity to pursue a variety of careers and activities which include being a regular worker bee and a volunteer as well as both a student and a teacher. Most recently she has taken on the job of full-time motherhood, to a vibrant, talkative and energetic three-year-old son, and is expecting a second baby later this spring.

She feels very blessed to have had so many opportunities to travel; and loves the influence the people and places around the globe have had in shaping who she and her family are today. As a result of their travels, Jennifer and her family have been exposed to and developed a love for a variety of music. She is delighted to be able to share her enthusiasm and to encourage Simple Kids readers to listen to new tunes in her monthly column.

Jennifer is passionate about making her days meaningful and fun through creative family pursuits as well as her own. In those rare non-mommy moments you can find her reading, sewing, attempting to organize those oh so many travel photographs, trying new recipes, and attempting to darken her family’s shade of green living! This is her first blogging experience and the writer inside of her is hooked.

Mariah Bruehl

Mariah Bruehl is the mother of two creative girls ages five and seven, wife to an incredibly supportive husband and an educator at heart. Last year, after years of working in the field of education, Mariah decided to take some time off to be with her two young daughters. Among the many benefits of their time together was the birth of Playful Learning, a website that was created to help parents support their children’s learning and development.

As a teacher and administrator, she was often asked, “What can I do at home to support my child’s learning?” When given the opportunity to be at home with her children, she set out to answer that question through first hand experience. Mariah strongly believes that with a little bit of information and forethought, parents can play a pivotal role in the cognitive and creative development of their children. Her goal is to demystify some of the most pertinent information and educational approaches so that parents can be empowered and inspired to actively participate in the education of their children.

Mariah is now utilizing her knowledge and experience to adapt what she knows about educational research and practice into simple, playful learning experiences that promote positive family interactions.

Emily Carter

Emily is a wife to Patrick, the adventurous pilot, and a mother to Miles, her sweet son. She has a degree in Early Childhood Education and has taught at the elementary level, and is now a Preschool Migrant Educator.

Emily hails from Arkansas originally, but has moved to California, Oklahoma, and now Kansas for her husband’s jobs. She would love to live on the West Coast again someday, but for now finds joy living in a hangar in her own “little house on the prairie”.

Emily enjoys reading, writing, traveling, mission work, teaching, learning Spanish and relaxing with her family. At The Pilot’s Wife, Emily blogs about flying, building their hangar-home, mommy-hacks, faith, and wrangling a 130 lb dog.

Rae Grant

Rae Grant is the author and book designer of the popular vintage-modern children’s activities books Crafting Fun 101 Things to Make and Do with Kids (2008 St. Martin’s Griffin) and Cooking Fun 121 Simple Recipes to Make with Kids (2008 St. Martin’s Griffin). Her third and newest book, Homemade Fun 101 Crafts and Activities to Do with Kids (June 2010, St. Martin’s Griffin), continues down the road to simple and imaginative fun with kids and families.

Rae lives in Manhattan with her husband, daughter, and their family cat Blue.

Robin Zipporah

Robin Zipporah has four- and two-year-old daughters, an infant son, a lovely husband who works many more than full-time hours and a full-time career of her own in government in the suburbs of Washington, DC. She takes her little loves with her to work where they spend their days in a childcare program tucked gently into the building where she spends her quietest eight hours. Robin loves this arrangement because she loves both her career and that she is always available to her children as needed for breastfeeding or boo-boo kissing or story time or extra-special lunch dates in the cafeteria. At the end of each day she packs up her work and packs up her children and they commute together back home and back to Daddy, telling stories all the while.

She believes in wishing on first stars and dandelion puffs; that the glass really is half full; and that imagination can never be too nurtured. She has a station wagon filled with test subjects to prove it. Let’s just not discuss that in her world the half-full glass is often really a juice box, and that occasionally it gets squirted all over the rear-view mirror (and the back of her head).

You can always read more about Robin’s parenting philosophies and her family’s antics and adventures at her personal blog: The Not-Ever-Still Life.