As we begin a new year,  I think of many things that make our world wonderful. I want to preserve these for our future generations...the birds, marine life and animals that share our world.  

I am worried about all of the trash in our environment, particularly the plastic in our oceans. I want to do my small part to help clean our environment.  I carry recycled bags to shop with and many of these bags have a message on them to support causes that I believe in.  Most stores in California now offer reusable bags and many non-profits do.  These are from the Audubon Society and The World Wildlife Fund and the one in the middle is a good example of recycling and repurposing.  It is made completely of discarded plastic bottles!

Happy New Year!
A post from Laurenn (Mimi)  

Even though we did pass surfers on the way to the beach in the balmy southern California weather, our family celebrated Christmas in a very traditional way, complete with turkey, corn pudding, sweet potatoes and all the trimmings.  Two of the images that I really like from the day are one of my daughter-in-law Cindy with her sons, Enzo and Hudson and one of me telling the grandchildren about Olive, the Other Raindeer.  If you aren't familiar with the story, Olive is a little dog who thinks that she is a raindeer and she "flies" with Santa and his sleigh.  She saves the day with her powerful doggie nose when Santa and the other raindeer can't see in the fog.  She smells the cookies waiting for them at the North Pole and everyone gets home safe and sound.  If you haven't read it, it is truly charming and I highly recommend it. 

My best wishes to you as we bring 2014 to an end.

posted by Laurenn (Mimi)

In our family, we put up a Christmas tree for the holidays. At present, I sit facing our tinseled, illuminated tree in an old comfortable wing-back chair, sipping my tea as gusts of northern wind whip through opened windows. In a few short hours, I will need to shut the sashes as a cold front from the North sweeps the sea-level flats of South Texas and brings with it a cooler Christmas than forecasted a week earlier.

It is our tree, an eight-foot fiber optic fir, which holds my gaze. My daughter describes the tree as radioactive (minus the science fiction green Day-Glo luminescence) because it undulates with soft multi-colored lights in waves all about itself. But this fake fir with its technological advances holds, within its boughs, ornaments crafted by the small fingers of my children when they were young, paper cutout decorations with pictures of smiling faces in them, and special trinkets that tell the stories of Christmases past.

Nowadays, so many residential Christmas trees are color-coordinated with matching decorations. They are stylized in the fashion of department store window displays devoid of character and sentimental value. They are coiffed with not a ribbon, bow, or ornament out of place. And I think to myself, “When did this become the trend?” When did people stop decorating their trees with construction paper chains, hand made ornaments, and children’s arts and crafts from classroom projects and family creative time? What happened to the type of tree describe in Truman Compote’s A Christmas Memory? (I highly recommend this book.)

There are all types of Christmas trees for all types of people. I believe the tree reflects the family culture. Trees tell you something about the people who decorated them. Our tree speaks volumes. You merely have to look at it to see the stories tucked in among the branches. One such story is told in the form of a picture. It depicts a tired looking Santa awkwardly holding my unhappy son on his lap. My son was six years old. Or the story found in an old family Christmas card. In the picture, the faces smile back at you, as you see our family standing around a 3 ½ foot snowman made out of sand. It took us all day to build. Then there are all the misshapen candy canes, elves, trains, stars and decorations telling the story of our family sitting down to make ornaments, and along with them holiday traditions.  

I finish my tea and rise to shut the windows. The holidays bring memories wrapped in the excitement of the present moment, nestled in the anticipation of what the future may bring. Our Christmas tree, a sentinel at the threshold of the change from old to new, emits a warm, soothing glow. Walking past it I think to myself, “Yes, all is well in this moment.” 

             
Happy Holidays!

from Chelse (Lae Lae team)

I am always looking for crafts for little children to make safely and with little adult supervision and great creativity for the children.  These holiday candles fill the requirement.  All it takes is a clear plastic cup, a little colored tissue paper, an LED candle light and a little Mod Podge to put it all together and you can produce a sweet candle.  

The children paint the cup with Mod Podge and place colored tissue pieces all around the cup.  The Mod Podge dries quickly with easy clean up.  Drop the small light in.  When lit, the cup makes either a bright translucent stained glass candle in the daytime or at night, a small Luminaire.  The colored papers chosen make it seasonal for this time of year but the candles can be colored for a valentine party, birthday or any other holiday.  Fun!

From Laurenn (Mimi)

Building family traditions is fun.  Every year, at Chelse's house, we add to our handmade holiday ornaments and add them to the growing ornament swag.  It's so much fun and everyone's personality shines through.  The ones in the middle have just been made this year and will be added to the others.  Drinking English tea (my son-in-law is from England and loves his afternoon tea) and eating holiday goodies adds to the fun.

from Laurenn (Mimi) 

We hosted the Sugar Plum Fairy event on Saturday for Miracle Babies.  My granddaughters, Caelan (L) and Rory (R), shown with me here, baked cookies and raided their piggy banks for "Pennies for the Babies".  And Rory was just getting over being sick all week to come to the event! I am so proud of their efforts.  As Herman Melville said "We cannot live for ourselves alone.  Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."  A concept that your child, like Lae Lae, can understand and a beautiful thought to remember.
from Laurenn (Mimi) 

It's a very rare rainy evening in Carlsbad - a good time to bake some cookies for the Miracle Babies party tomorrow.  I hope that the rain will be gone long enough to have a wonderful event for the children.  I will be signing my Lae Lae books and donating to the cause.  We will also have a darling little sugar plum fairy dancing and face painting and apple cider and cookies.  The children will bring "pennies for the babies" still in the hospital to help their families come to be with them for Christmas.  It will  be a lovely event in the true spirit of the season. 

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated…I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by [people] from the cruelty of [human kind]”—Mahatma Gandhi

This concept can be understood by the youngest child.  Lae Lae loves her adopted puppy Patches and Timmy loves his adopted puppy Bubbles.  They want you to think of the animals in our immediate world and in the wild when giving this season - either in love and care or a donation to a cause for animals. The animals give our world so much and we need to give back to them.

from Laurenn (Mimi)

What a great time to begin a new blog for the Lae Lae website.  Ending the old and looking forward to beginning the new!

 Lae Lae's books are the "Together Time Books" and the holidays are a wonderful time to do something together with your children...like making Christmas decorations.  A challenge for preschoolers but so much fun.  I always look for projects that I can do with my own grandchildren and also those whom I teach.  

This is a simple little decoration that calls for only white paper for the body, a small piece of colored paper cut into a triangle for the book, 2 12" white pipe cleaners wrapped together for arms, a  wooden dowel for the head, two white feathers for wings, a cotton ball for a fur hat or hair, and as many stickers as you want to decorate the skirt. 

Simply make a cone out of the white paper and push the dowel on to the point of the cone.  Now you have the body of the angel.  Wrap the pipe cleaners  around the neck of the angel front to back and then again back to front and twist the ends into hands to hold the "book".  Staple the feathers together in the shape that you want for wings and slide them into the pipe cleaners in the back to hold them to the body.  Wrap the dowel with cotton for hair or a hat.  Decorate the skirt with the stickers and you have a sweet little angel or fairy for the top of your tree.  With supervision, a child can do most of this and feel very "accomplished" in showing their creation to family and friends.

From Laurenn (Mimi)