Teaching children how to enjoy and also take care of the ocean is so important.  The ocean is the source of life and we are polluting it, abusing it and destroying it.  I am so proud that my little book, At The Beach, was just awarded an international award because it is about taking care of the beach and the ocean while enjoying it, an issue that is critical to all of us, The health of the ocean and the appreciation of it and healthy enjoyment of it are basic to our wonderful world.  In this book, Lae Lae and Timmy go the beach and play at the water's edge under Lae Lae's mom's watchful eye.  The children learn beach safety in addition to beach appreciation.  Beaches can be treacherous with strong tides and children have to be carefully watched over around them.  Timmy and Lae Lae learn what is at the beach and what should be left there and what should be picked up and either thrown away or recycled. There is so much that is carelessly being swept into the ocean today and so much that our fish and ocean creatures  are ingesting that is very harmful for them...and for us.

As with all of the other books in the collection, there are fun games and activities to enjoy that help teach children about how to care for and enjoy the big beautiful world that they live in.

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Just a reminder, in days when children are forced to stay inside, there are free coloring pages and stickers that can be downloaded from this website over and over to enjoy freely.  Look on the pages where the books are listed and you will see the PDF files to download. Printed books can be ordered and E-books are also available.  Enjoy teaching your kids  about our earth, and its creatures.  They can play along with Lae Lae and her gang of friends (including her invisible friend, Poco and her puppy Patches) as they learn through the story and the games and activities..

You sometimes meet the sweetest passengers while flying.  This was the case with Ryder and his mom.  Ryder was probably five years old and just adorable.  We played for most of the several hour plane ride and he created this self portrait for me.  He is eating candy and wearing "cool" dark glasses.  I am not sure what the other symbols are on his chest but I know they are important as he is wearing a crown and is "very important".  

He was so shy that he asked him mom if he could give his creation to me and she said yes.  I told him that I wrote childrens' blogs.  I said that, if he signed his creation for me, I would put it on my blog.  That is his signature on the left hand side and he wrote it all himself.   Athough I am late in posting this creation, it is for King Ryder. Here is to the creativity of a five year old.  May he not lose it as he grows and develops.  

Thank you Ryder for making a boring plane ride fun.

I mentioned in my last blog that I shared my new book with little Mariah over the holidays but I did not really talk about the book itself.  Let's Play is the ninth book in my Lae Lae book collection and, as with all of the books in the collection, it is about the love of children everywhere and the nurturing of animals and the environment.  This new book is about the importance of play in the human development process and how children all over the world love to (and need to) play.  Play is a fundamental part of the human spirit and an emotional, physical and mental necessity in the growth process.  As with my other books, this book includes games and activities suitable in different ways for children between the ages of two and six.  The collection has been awarded three book awards, two of them international and books have sold as far away as the outback of Australia.

In this book, children will learn how to play the Vision Board game to realize their dreams for themselves and for their world. Vision Boards have been used down through the ages as useful tools to manifest dreams and goals into reality.  In addition to the Vision Board there is a section of the book dedicated to  games from around the world that parents or caregivers can share and play with their children.

Nurturing children is one of the most fundamental duties that we adults have and playing games with children or guiding them in play can be instrumental in that nurturing.  Children copy the world around them and we must be careful about what we expose them to.  They will be the stewards of tomorrow's world and will have the great responsibility to make it a good world.  We need to help them handle that responsibility with love and care.  Games encouraging cooperation, communication, partnerships and team work in a fun atmosphere can help in that effort.

The holidays are always fun with a just turned six year old child.  This year we spent them with Mariah and her family.  The expectations of wonderful surprises had prompted little Mariah to be as good as a little girl can be. She is absolutely adorable all the time and is so full of impish personality but she was especially helpful and polite  during this holiday season.  It was endless music and dancing as she played her way toward "the Big Day".  

​Since she was such a good little girl and surrounded by a wonderful, loving family, she had many treats to unwrap.  Among the things that she received was the first copy of my New Book, "Let's Play".  I will admit that her action toys came first in her priorities as she played because she is a bit of a tomboy.  But then she settled in and we had a wonderful time reading the book and playing the games and doing the activities in the book.  She told her grandmother that she was surprised to see that the book had my photo in the back...and her grandmother told her that that was because I had created the book. It was wonderful experience enjoying "Let's Play" with her and seeing her 6 year old reaction to it.

​Happy New Year everyone! Best Wishes for 2020!

My granddaughter Zoe came back from the HOBY Foundation Leadership conference in Chicago this summer inspired to do something meaningful and she has.  She started a local outreach of the United Nations initiative, Girl Up in her community. Girl Up is a campaign of the United Nations Foundation, created to support the work of the United Nations itself.  Since Girl Up’s launch in 2010, the initiative has partnered with the United Nations to support comprehensive programs that give adolescent girls in developing countries an equal chance for education, health, social and economic opportunities, and a life free from violence.
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The UN partners that Girl Up works with include:

• International Labor Organization (ILO)
• Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)
• United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
• United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
• World Health Organization (WHO)

Zoe developed an ambitious goal: to host a Christmas holiday fundraiser with her hew group to benefit Mujeres Unidas which provides services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in the Rio Grand Valley of Texas. It was a wonderful success; I am so proud of her!  The Lae Lae Collection gave her a seed contribution to help her get started and she and her friends added to it.  What a lovely showing of the true holiday spirit of giving to help those who need it.  Way to go Zoe!  (By the way, she just scored 1580 on her SATs as well).  She is bound for great things in her future!

I haven't been able to spend the holiday season with one of my daughters in quite a while (she lives with her family in deep south Texas) but it was amazing how we caught up this year in no time at all.  We have always done special things during the holidays like play games, watch seasonal "feel good" movies and bake special things (both my daughter and granddaughter are great cooks - me not so much...but I help with things that don't demand tremendous ability).  

One of our favorite things that we have done in years past has been to make holiday decorations to put on a big family tree. And we did it again this year.  This is a tradition that has gone on for probably fifteen years and it was nice to continue it.  

​Positive family traditions are so wonderful and family memories are so precious.  It doesn't take much - just togetherness..

​Togetherness and family come in many forms - it's all about sharing and expressing love.  In this season, I wish everyone wonderful family gatherings and much love...with whatever your family structure is and however you express that love....love is powerful and is the glue that holds us together as a humanity.

Above: Some of the decorations that we created this year: an adorable holiday troll, a bluebird of happiness on her nest, a happy mug of holiday cocoa, a heart of holiday love; a wonderful holiday dinner feast, and a cute holiday owl with his Santa hat.

Below: Some of the ornaments from holidays past: a holiday wreath, a holiday elf and a holiday boot to get you through the "mush of life with harmony in your heart."

I haven't posted in a while because I have been traveling to various places and to see various people.  My little dog Inspector Gumby gets to go sometimes.  He has learned the signs of impending travel....when the suitcase comes out and I start rushing around.  And sometimes he gets a bath to look his best.  This past week I was getting ready to go on a trip and had my suitcase out in preparation.  It was also bath day for Gumby (not related to travel except in his mind).  As I was moving around Gumby vanished.  We could not find him anywhere and he wouldn't come when we called (but that's not too unusual as he only minds when he wants to anyway).  

But after looking for a while I went back to getting my clothes to pack and brought them to the open suitcase on the sofa where I always pack and there he was, in the suitcase, ready to go!

I think that it is so interesting how intuitive dogs are.  They sense energies and they know expressions and a few words - like "car ride", "walkie-walkie" and "breakfast".  And they know people - those who have positive energy and those who don't.  They can even sense illnesses like cancer and they know when things aren't right.  They are special messengers sent here to be our life companions and we need to treat them with the love they deserve.  

​I love Gumby (and his companion Nunzi) very much but, in this case, I could not take him and he was left at home.  He will be sad, but only temporarily because he will have lots of love while I am gone. And he will be there when I get home, jumping up and down, running in circles and shaking his toy around to let me know that he's happy that I found my way back once again! 

The western bluebird, the "Bluebird of Happiness"...local to southern California and especially beautiful because of its vivid color, is a wonderful representative of our natural world...  Whenever I see one it makes me happy - they are so bright and so colorful...and it makes me think of how special all of our feathered friends are. They are the super creatures of the world and they have survived and adapted to climates from the ice of Antarctica to the heat of the tropics ..... and they know no political boundaries. Watch the amazing documentary "Winged Migration" for a beautiful and powerful depiction of this. 

But there are 1,300 bird species facing extinction according to National Geographic and the status of others is deteriorating.  While birds are survivors and adapters, we need to do more to protect them and eliminate the contaminating pesticides that we use in our daily life which are highly toxic to the pollinators, aquatic fish and birds. The biggest contaminator of all is the high-carbon world that we have created through the burning of fossil fuels for energy.  Find out more at National Geographic online or at one of my favorite charity sites, the Center for Biological Diversity.

But now that we know the perils that we must eliminate for our birds to survive, I want to concentrate on what the birds give us and what we would be without if they weren't here.  Birds give us wings to our dreams and a connection to the bigger world of all nature that we exist within.  If we take care of our birds we will save our planet.

Every spring I love to hear the cheery chirping of the little baby birds.  It is the promise of new life and spring already here and summer coming. I have many bright flowers in my yard, particularly red ones, and in the evening I love to watch the hummingbirds gather around my flowers. They are little energy sprites as they dive into one red flower after another.  I think how sad my world would be if I couldn't have the experience of discovering with my granddaughters a little nest with a momma wren and watched as her babies learned to fly  or discovering a momma loon nesting in the rushes along the boundary waters between the U. S. and Canada with my son.  Birds are magical, defying our earthly limitations and cultural boundaries.  They are the conduit between earth and the heavens and they add color, pattern and sound to our world. When we think of them and enjoy them, we must do what we can to protect them; our life and our world will be richer because of it.

Below are some of the beautiful and diverse birds that I photographed with my daughter on a birding trip to Veracruz, Mexico.