Meet the Mom Team
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Judy Daniell Age: 31 Family: Husband, Brian, and children Isaiah, 8, Caleb, 6, and Nathan, 2. Job: Claims representative for the Social Security Administration. Interests: Reading, writing and exercising. Judy loves people. She can laugh at life, hers especially, and she enjoys helping others find the humor in the mundane. Judy blogs every Wednesday for momaha.com. Read more at her personal blog |
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Cat Koehler Age: 32 Family: Husband, Daniel, and children Adley, 8, and Donovan, 22 months. Job: Social media maven for local company. Interests: Cooking, baking and photography. Cat says she struggles to achieve the “perfect” life. She is good at planning for perfection, but her execution is poor. She gets through it all with a snarky sense of humor and the occasional Swiss Cake Roll. Cat blogs every Monday for momaha.com. |
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Z. Carlson Age: 47 Family: Husband, Dale; two children, ages 17 and 13 Job: part-time Offutt Air Force Base movie theater supervisor Interests: writing, reading, music, softball, movies and trivia Z. is a stay-at-home mom (sort of) whose husband retired to Bellevue after 24 years in the Air Force. Z. was an Army brat, so that meant a vagabond childhood featuring 10 schools in 12 years and in two different countries. Two kids and two dogs makes for a neverending call of "MOM!" Add in bowling, softball, baseball and any other school function, and you know why she only "sort of" stays at home. Z. blogs Saturdays for momaha.com. |
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Melissa Cruickshank Age: 31 Family: Husband, Ryan, and daughter, Cambria, 3. Job: Working with technology solutions at a health insurance company. Interests: Reading, eating, sleeping (not necessarily in that order). Melissa is an introvert with a dry sense of humor. She values family and friends before anything else. The world stops when Cambria says, "Love you, Mama." Melissa blogs Thursdays for momaha.com. |
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Amy Grace Age: 38 Family: Husband, Kelly, and sons Jackson, 4, and Grant, 2. Job: Stay-at-home mom and freelance copywriter. Interests: Party planning, reading, writing, exercising and shopping. Amy is an Omaha native but grew up mainly in Orange County, Calif. She also lived in the Bay Area for five years as an adult. She moved back to Omaha while pregnant with her first son. Amy blogs every Friday for momaha.com. Read more at her personal blog. |
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Erin Grace Age: 36 Family: Married with three children. Job: World-Herald news reporter. Interests: Sleep. She used to get this regularly. Back in those days, she had interests like reading, cooking, running and music. She has downsized those interests to board books, five-minute meals, being a sherpa and the Wiggles. Following her Marquette University graduation, the Omaha native spent three years in south Louisiana with Teach for America. She has been at the paper since, covering education, government and issues affecting women and children. She covered the Hurricane Katrina response in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the aftermath of the Von Maur shooting and was on the reporting team that wrote about Omaha’s racial wealth gap and black poverty. Awards include the 2007 Thomas C. Sorensen for her work on the poverty series, and she was recognized by the Greater Federation of Women’s Clubs for a 2009 story on Omaha’s lack of women in leadership. |
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Mara Rasure Age: 53 Family: Husband, Roger Wallace, and children, Riley, 19, and Avery, 16. Job: Retired attorney. Interests: Playing piano, composing music, reading, writing, cycling, cross-country skiing, gardening. Mara is a native Kansan who retired from practicing law about five years ago to spend more time with her daughters, much to their delight. Riley is a college freshman and Avery is a junior in high school. Mara spends time volunteering for various school activities to maintain the illusion that she knows what is going on with teenagers these days. She is savoring the few years she has left before becoming an empty-nester. She has found that humor, patience, empathy and a support system are important when raising teens. Mara blogs Saturdays for momaha.com. |
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Heidi Woodard Age: 35 Family: Husband, Ryan, and children Owen, 9, Austin, 9, and Jaycee, 3. Job: Communications specialist for a health insurance company. Interests: Team competition, watching bad reality TV, cuddling with her kids and making people laugh. Heidi is a kid at heart, who refuses to grow old despite her body's clear objection to staying young. She looks into the eyes of her greatest achievements every night when she reads to them before bed. Heidi blogs Thursdays for momaha.com. |
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Veronica |
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Al Watts Age: 38 Family: Wife, Shirley and four children, ages 9, 7, 5 and 3. Job: Stay-at-home dad for the past eight years. Interests: Sports, U.S. history, reading, attending plays, drinking well-crafted beer, listening to jazz and watching the "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. Al is the president of Daddyshome, Inc., The National At-Home Dad Network. He also is a member of the local at-home dad group, LinOma Dads, involved with the Parent Teacher Organization at his children's school and a veteran member of the Missouri Irish Brigade of Civil War Re-enactors. Before he started staying home with the kids, he was a classified advertising sales representative for the World-Herald. |
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Stacie Hamel As editor of livewellnebraska.com, Stacie coordinates the site's content, guides you through the latest health news and writes an occasional blog. The native Nebraskan is a longtime editor at The World-Herald. She confesses that she's addicted to chocolate ice cream. To make up for that habit, Stacie takes spinning classes, weight trains and runs. She and her husband have two daughters. |
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Veronica Daehn Age: 31 Family: Children Rye, 6, and Paige, 2. Job: momaha.com editor Interests: Running, writing, reading, drinking coffee, listening to music. Veronica moved to Omaha from western Colorado in late summer 2005 when her first baby was 3 months old. She spent three years at the World-Herald as the editor of Community Connection, and before that covered education. Her daughter was born in May 2009, in the midst of a chain of events that would never be believable in a movie. She is thrilled to be able to say “Yes, my job is running a Web site for moms!” Veronica blogs for Mom Daily at momaha.com each weekday. She also runs the omahamoms Twitter account and the momaha.com Facebook page |
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Kathy Koch Joyce Age: 55 Family: Kathy is married with three 20-something children who wish to remain nameless. Job: Freelance writer and very part-time student Interests: Reading, addictive computer games like Sudoku and Mah Jong, golf, travel, losing weight (isn't everyone interested in that?) A native Omahan, Kathy worked as an advertising copywriter/producer for eight years. Soon after the birth of her first child she realized she was incapable of getting to work on time if she had to take a child to daycare. Since 1986, she has been a freelance writer, community volunteer and stay-at-home mom. She is currently trying to figure out what she is going to be when she grows up. |
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Dan and Michelle |
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Pat Safford Age: 37 Family: Wife, Amy; children Bennett and Sophia Job: Radio morning show co-host on Q98.5 FM Interests: Pretty much everything except ice fishing Pat truly feels blessed beyond words. He loves his job and has an amazing family. He moved away for a couple years and like most people who leave Omaha, came back home. Oh yeah, Go Big Red! |
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Melissa and Heidi |
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scrawford |
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Sarah Tucker Age: 30 Family: Husband, Zack; children Skyler, 10, Abbie, 9, Trendon, 8, Olivia, 7, and Mia, 3 Job: Director of sales and marketing at a local technology company. Interests: Reading, laughing and spending time with people I love. Sarah is a Kentucky native transplanted to Omaha for a boy she fell in love with over the Internet. She is the matriarch of a blended family, which brings her both joy and headaches. She's currently attempting to master the working mom/life balance. |
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Guest |
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Amanda Jochum Amanda Jochum Age: 28 Family: Married with a 1 ½ year old son Job: Hy-Vee Registered Dietitian Interests: Family time, traveling, playing outside (some adults call it exercise) and cooking Even though she is a dietitian, she loves to bake and eat sweets (in moderation of course!). One of her proudest daily accomplishments is preparing a quick, healthy meal for her family in 30 minutes after work with a hungry toddler clinging to her leg. A passion of hers is teaching kids to cook and for them to realize that healthy food can taste great! |
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Kalani Simpson Name: Kalani Simpson Age: 40 Family: Beautiful wife, two cute kids and a demanding cat Interests/hobbies: I used to always say my wife has all these hobbies -- stamping, scrapbooking -- and I have no hobbies. Then she said, "You have hobbies. You mow the lawn!" So there is that. Oh, and getting jumped on by kids. Does that count? Job: Doing as much freelance writing work as I can get (should have been a farmer). Also, Michael Keaton-style Mr. Mom About me: Typical harried sitcom dad, part Cliff Huxtable, part Cliff Claven, part Heathcliff the Cat. |
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Melissa Matczak |
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Julie Anderson |
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Omaha.com |
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mmertes |
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Josie Loza Age: 30 Family: Boyfriend, Bobby Sr., and children Bobby Jr., 8, Alejandra, 3, and Gabriella, 11 months. Job: Momaha editor Interests: Baking, crocheting and taking her kids on "Adventure Days." Josie says she aims to raise tax-paying citizens -- the kind that move out at age 18. Wish her luck. She journals about the silly, quirky stuff her kids do to annoy her. Read Josie's Mom Daily blog on momaha.com |
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Laurie Brekke |
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