That punch to the gut came for me when my 7-months pregnant self realized it. I couldn’t go back to work.

But that was always the plan! Have my first baby in the summer, take a short and unpaid maternity leave, then hustle back to my classroom.

But 2 things became very clear:

1. My entire teacher salary would be used to pay someone else to watch my son. Daycare is dang expensive!

2. There was no way I would be able to leave my baby to go to work. The more he kicked and moved inside my big belly, the more I felt like being away from him was just not an option.

Okay so I stay home and enjoy being a new mom, right?

Well, here’s where the gut-punch comes in.

WE HAD JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE.

The bank had approved our mortgage because I had a steady job. How could I possibly quit?

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about being that low—that stuck.

It only goes up from there. God tends to meet you in those gut-wrenching, icky places.

My husband and I decided I needed to follow my mommy intuition and quit. That launched us into the most incredible journey of our lives. While becoming new homeowners and parents, we also became digital entrepreneurs.

And so ARTventurous Animals was born.

working while momming

I started in the online space doing what I love most—teaching kids how to love art.

My very first class was me teaching how to draw a tiger named Morty. He came about because I used to draw animal characters for my little sister when we were kids. We would make up stories about them and it pushed my to become a better artist. I was SO excited for my first online class!

I had literally one student show up.

It was slow-going at first. I would have 1 or 2 students for my drawing classes, or sometimes even none. But as I kept showing up, so did the students!

As I kept teaching how to draw Morty, my student kept requesting new animals. So I made him friends!

I started intertwining animal facts/science into my art classes and realized…kids love learning like that! I could drop some straight physics into these 7 year olds’ brains if we were creating a cute animal in the process.

I categorized these animals by continent. Then I realized I have been traveling the world with my family (and moved to Thailand). Adding adventurous animal stories into my art classes sparked creativity in my students and made them LOVE learning.