Meet Our Team

The past several months I have seen a huge jump in traffic to our site (and if you are reading this now, I have YOU to thank for that!) so I thought it was a good time to make some introductions for any new readers of the women behind Tiny Oranges in an “Meet Our Team” post!

That’s me, Jennifer Scheumann, and I founded Tiny Oranges in the summer of 2008.

At the time, I was a new mom to a two-year-old daughter, contemplating going for another baby at the time and I was looking for a way to share ideas with other moms.

For the first three years I ran the blog myself, barely, especially with a 3-year-old and colicky infant with reflux. Sometimes I look back and wonder how the heck I did it.

My blog was also a business and I was doing all the writing along with all the sales. It had grown to a point where I really needed a sales person to take care of that part of the business so I could focus on blogging, which was and is my passion.

I knew I wanted it to be someone who already read (and hopefully liked) my blog, so I did a help wanted post looking for a sales person back in 2011.

Going in I had decided I didn’t want to hire someone I knew, because God forbid, it didn’t work out. I didn’t want to have to run into that person around town and have it be…awkward.

Susanne, a mom I knew (and really liked) from a former Mommy & Me class we took together, emailed me to “apply” and I wrote back and politely explained how I wanted to hire someone I didn’t know and the reason why.

But Susanne didn’t take “no” for an answer, so she politely wrote back to tell me she really thought she would be a great fit. She told me she was a “no drama mama” and would love the chance to meet and at least talk about it and if it didn’t work out,  no big deal.

I went on a run that morning, and out of all the emails I had received, I just had a gut feeling Susanne was the One. We met that week and my instinct was confirmed, she seemed like the perfect fit.

She was and has been for over three years now.

Susanne is Tiny Oranges’ Sales Director and works with all of our sponsors to put together marketing proposals, contracts and manages our ads. I can’t imagine doing Tiny Oranges without her.

Susanne also happens to have a culinary degree, so I often rope her into sharing her talent with easy recipes from time to time. I joke and call her SUS Chef! This recent garlic maple pork roast recipe was to-die-for and her “How to Properly Cut an Onion” video was also one of our most popular posts.

Friends of mine, even to this day talk about how she was the one who actually taught them the correct way (including me!) to cut an onion!

Susanne’s a mama of two girls, ages almost 8 and 5, and a third on the way (gender will be a surprise) in December. For those of you who read her “To Third or Not to Third?” post awhile back, well, there’s the answer. For the record, I have a gut feeling it’s girl #3, and their house will be full of little women. Can’t wait to find out!!!

You can read more about Susanne here.

It was always my goal to keep our site full of fresh content so I have consistently blogged five days a week since the beginning.

But that’s a LOT of blogging, and once again, as work got busier I realized I needed someone to come on as a contributing writer.

About a year and a half ago, I did another help wanted post and received a great response with many talented moms wrote in with a sample writing piece.

I met Christy when she submitted this post entitled “Babies, Crosses and Sprinklers” and I fell in love.

Christy has been writing for Tiny Oranges since that time and is the mastermind behind some of our most popular posts including Top Ten Trips for Visiting Disneyland with Toddlers, Disney California Adventure Tips for Little Ones, An Easy Way to Teach Your Kids Their Phone Number and Reward Charts for Kids.

Christy’s a mama of a girl and boy, ages 4 and almost 7 and a passionate advocate for The Moms in Training Program for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In fact, just this past weekend she ran a half marathon in San Francisco to raise money for the organization.

She is a huge inspiration to me, and just about the most energetic, on-the-ball person you will ever meet!  She often has things to me before I even realize I needed them.

You can read more about Christy here.

When I first started Tiny Oranges, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter did not exist or, if they did, were not mainstream.

In fact, the way I first spread the word to start my blog was to send a mass email to my contacts along with a POSTCARD in the mail to everyone I could think of.

Yes, my social marketing in 2008 included snail mail.

No one could have fathomed what would happen in the realm of social media at that time.

But in recent years, with the demands of so many emerging social media platforms, I found that trying to keep up with updating our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google + accounts was a job in itself.

Suzanne (yes, I work with TWO – one with an S and one with a Z!) is my younger sister who happened to leave her full time job to stay home with her kids a couple years ago.

When her youngest was out of the baby phase, one day she asked me if I needed any help and the answer was a resounding YES! I desperately needed someone to help with my social media accounts and she was the perfect person to do so.  It was once again, a match made in heaven.

Suzanne does our regular updates on our Facebook and Twitter pages, and is responsible for many of the amazing Facebook shares the last 6 months along with growing our following with her amazing social media content.

Recently she has also started pinning for me as well, which is fab for me, because she also has impeccable taste.

Suzanne is a mama to two boys, ages 2 and 5, and I am very lucky to have a sister that I absolutely love and also love to work with.  She has also contributed content as well including 5 Must Have Baby Items for a Second Time Mom and LEGO Organization Tips which were both extremely popular.

Being a major foodie, she recently wrote this Tamarind of London Review, which is hopefully the first of many OC restaurant reviews to come.

You can read more about Suzanne here.

So, those are the talented women that make up our team and make it happen here at Tiny Oranges. To say I am lucky is an understatement.  Running a blog is a ton of work. A ton. To have such a support system of women to help me has made all the difference. Blogging has always been fun, but they make it extra fun. I am one lucky mama in more ways than one!