Mama's Bilingual Play-School

I feel awful at keeping up with my blog. I haven't blogged once about our August play theme Tastes of Summer. We just finished week three of our favorite tastes of summer and there is so much to share. I will try to post once a day this weekend in order to catch up on… Continue reading So behind! →

This week has been one for the memory making, at times not so good of memories and other ones that will not be forgotten in decades. Monday afternoon 4:30 pm I remember feeling disappointed because the girls took late naps and we hadn't been able to play school all day. I was planning on leaving… Continue reading 3 Gun Shots and Still Alive… →

These past two weeks I have had a big responsibility in preparing our little ones for our drastic world change to missionary life in a country they have never been, yet are duel citizens of. Our little family will be experiencing a huge cultural change in exactly one month from today (hoping Colombia doesn't extend… Continue reading Small Window into Colombia →

We are entering week #3 of Mama's Bilingual Play-School, I have been "playing school" with my girls since I can remember. As always, my definition of play-school is simply, intentional play. This month is about patriotism of both USA and Colombia since we are a bicultural family. Here are some snapshots of our intentional play… Continue reading Patriotism: Cultures of America →

So, I have been sooooo focused on building a play-school curriculum and designing materials that I some how allowed my blog to slip through the cracks. I absolutely love creating materials and have enjoyed this journey of creating a bilingual play-school curriculum that I pray will go far beyond my own home. During this pandemic… Continue reading Play-School: July Play →

To be honest I started this post and rewrote it about three times before I finally have a complete thought about the direction I want to go with this topic of sibling life. I have two girls who are 17 months apart, exactly the same distance as my older sister and I. I love my… Continue reading Siblinghood: Love or War →

How was your Mother's Day? I hope you were loved on or you loved on your own Mama at some point, even if it was a zoom call. Juan gave me a journal for my parenting prayers this year along with a scrapbook he made. So sweet, right??!!!! I love this parenting prayer journal concept!… Continue reading Parenting Prayers →

Sometimes there are so many topics and areas of childrearing I want to talk about, particularly now during this pandemic when we are together 24/7. Juan and I have been taking a James Dobson course called Essentials of Discipline with a few couples from our mission agency. It has been so encouraging and motivating. Although,… Continue reading So Many Thoughts… →

How is Sunday Church at home going with your children? Are you able to make it all the way through an entire church hour with your little ones without a bazillion interruptions? For those with toddler aged kiddos, I don't think I appreciated nursery and nursery workers more then I have these last few months.… Continue reading Home Church →

Have you ever had one of those eye opening moments that you look at your children with their developing personalities and temperaments and see a COMPLETE reflection of YOU. Definitely sometimes a scary realization. I had one of those moments tonight. I was sitting at the dinner table feeding Megan and I just had a… Continue reading Inner Reflections →

Is your child or children strong willed or compliant children? Before we had children I read Dr. Dobson's book, Raising a Very Strong Willed Child and I had PRAYED and begged the Lord for compliant children. Then along came Emma and Megan, I would have to say pretty easy babies. They both were very easy… Continue reading Strong Willed or Compliant? →

Pete the Cat Color Sort When I was a freshman in High School I was obsessed with Eggburt, you know the CD Rom video game that you would play on the old Dell computers? I beat the game rather quickly, but what I enjoyed most was designing my own Eggburt games and levels. It was… Continue reading Remember Eggburt? →

Like any Elementary teacher, especially lower elementary ed, themes are what we are passionately in love with. Everything has to connect in some cutesy fun way. So, why not do the same in potty training? My little ones get so excited and motivated when it comes to animals, especially jungle animals, but yet never had… Continue reading Theme Queen →

In this quarantine I feel like our home has turned into a jungle. A jungle where two little monkeys have become Kings, or should I say, Queens of the jungle! I am grateful for the little patio space that we have in the city church parsonage that we have lived in the past year and… Continue reading A Jungle Mess →

It has now been eight days since our original Colombian mission field departure date. It had been months of non-stop paperwork, support raising, traveling, presenting our ministry, preparing ourselves for this huge life change, and most of all purging, packing, and more purging and packing. I don't know if anyone can identify with me with… Continue reading 30 Days of Waiting →

It has been some time since I have expressed myself and talked about what life has been like for us. We have been on the constant go in our support raising journey. We actually just got back from our three week trip to Oklahoma and Texas and now must be packed and ready again for… Continue reading New Priorities… →

How do you enjoy pacing your days or weeks? Are you one to enjoy the unpredictability of life and you live for that?? Or are you one that likes to have your days and lives planned to the T? I wouldn't say that I am either one of those. Although, I do LOVE CHANGE! I… Continue reading Predictability or Unpredictability? →

So this week was NOT our week! I was in a funky mood all week with little patience and little grace toward everyone and anyone that came across my path. We have been so busy with appointments during the week representing the ministry to people and our weekends full of church presentations that our schedule,… Continue reading Definitely NOT! →

I don't know how, but God gave me a little extra time this week, so 95% of all we did was all Mama made resources. So lots of resources for you to download today! There is something about lamination and velcro that Emma and I are obsessed with. I can create her a laminated and… Continue reading Rainbow Fish Favorites →

What does your alarm clock sound like? Is it your phone, your children, your husband, or are you old school and actually have an alarm clock on a digital clock? This morning I woke up remembering the days of being a working Mama. When I struggled to drop off my little Emma or leave her… Continue reading A Note to Working Mamas →

In play school it is so important to never loose the element of fun and sometimes unpredictability. This week was a surprise week, the surprise week consisted of Mo Willem's books and extension activities. I have a few Elephant and Piggy books and Pigeon books, but the library helped us out and gave us a… Continue reading Author Play with Mo →

One of my closest friends Alyssa Court and I would always try to celebrate random holidays and create traditions together when we were growing up. One of those random traditions was giving each other an orange on Earth Day and eventually wearing Earth Day shirts every year. Talking about random... Well, I always loved that… Continue reading Where did Bless’Oween come from? →

The Lord has been convicting my heart so much over the last few days regarding the unhealthy balance I have in directing Emma's play. Juan has been gone this week and I have had to play Mama and Papa 24/7. It has been exhausting and let me tell you, convicting! I am seeing so much… Continue reading First Shepherding the Heart, then Filling the Mind! →

This week has been off to a great start, dinosaur week has been extremely fun. Let me tell you, I am not a dinosaur person. Actually, to be honest I think it has been doing Dino Week that I can now finally spell it correctly... Haha! Don't ask me to tell you a Dinosaur name… Continue reading D-Week →

This whole idea of blogging is actually really amazing, but a lot harder to actually get to. I really admire the blogging world and the incredible teachers who blog, teach, and still have time for their family. I do work part time from home, supporting my husband who together we are raising support for our… Continue reading Calabazas and Pumpkins →

The Santafe Family I am so excited to begin this fun journey of sharing our life with the world, well maybe the few who tune in... We are missionaries to Colombia and are currently raising support and traveling to present our ministry throughout the US. I am an educator and have loved my nine years… Continue reading First of Many →