The Art of Being Mom

Crayon Flower Pot

My mom's an avid crafter. For Mother's Day, we sent her to the Maker's Faire in San Francisco. Tickets presented along with a gift card to a craft store in this Mother's Day flower pot. (To make: hot glue crayons to pot; attach card to bamboo skewer and add ribbons.)

Spring into Party Season

Springtime Easter Chick Piñata

I can't get enough of sunshine, so at the first peek of spring try to take the party outdoors. For our family Easter celebration, the kids enjoyed this chick-inspired piñata while we dined on strawberry shortcake al fresco.

To make piñata, papier mache over a large balloon leaving a 3-4" open space at the top for filling. To reinforce the piñata for hanging, wrap a sturdy cord around the balloon after 1-2 layers of papier mache have dried -- sort of like you're wrapping a package. The cord will cross at the top opening of the piñata. Then add another 1-2 layers of papier mache, encasing the cord inside the layers. When the layers dry, you'll have a more sturdy way of hanging the filled piñata that supports the full structure.

When fully dry, glue yellow crepe paper around the circumference of the balloon, overlapping layers to give a tiered effect. You can fringe the crepe paper for an even fluffier look.

Cut eyes, beak and wings from construction paper. Add some fringed yellow construction paper around the top opening to create cute "tufts" of feathers and hide the hanging cord. A colorful ribbon tied and hot glued to the side gives an extra custom look. Fill with candy, and let the kids swing away!

Don't Be a Turkey: Mind Your Thanksgiving Manners

Big dinners don't come often for me (we're not a fancy family as a whole). So a brush-up on basic etiquette for gatherings like Thanksgiving is nice every once in a while. Here are a few tips I learned—or was glad to be reminded:

• Dress considerately: Show you appreciate your hosts' efforts by showing up in something better than sweats (surely there are elastic waistbands in other styles?)
• Simple hostess gifts are a great idea
• Greet people warmly and by name
• Arrive and leave on time
• Pass serving dishes to the right; pass salt and pepper shakers together
• Don't begin eating until all have been served
• The host officially ends a meal by placing his/her napkin to the left of place setting and rising
• You're done when the host is done
• Help with clean-up: Just jump in and do a bit. Many hands make light work and your host deserves the help!
• Say thank you (whether you're the guest or the host)

With thanks to these great articles:

http://bit.ly/tC29D1

http://bit.ly/rX7vx2

Any manners you appreciate most?

Thanksgiving Game Day

...and we're not talking football. Engage your guests young and old with some good old-fashioned family fun.

At-the-table Games

Thanksgiving Mad-Libs

Chopstick Pass-Along

Thanksgiving Word Search

Bird Brain Builders

The first player answers one of the questions below, filling in the blank. The next person repeats that response, plus adds his or her own answer at the end. Repeat for each player so there's a long string of additions—and if you forget something in the sequence, you're out! Play until there's one adult and one child left for that round.

Start a new round with the next question and everyone plays again!

• Last Thanksgiving, I ____________ (e.g. ate three pieces of pie)
• My favorite Thanksgiving food is ____________
• The Macy's Thanksgiving parade has a ___________ balloon
• On Thanksgiving weekend, I like to ______________
• On the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ______________
• Next Thanksgiving, I sure hope we ______________

Family Who, What?

In advance, ask each family member to bring an old, candid photo of themselves. Pass the photos around the table, and try to guess who the person is, where they are, and what they are doing. For a bit of tom-turkey-foolery, add one or two photos that have nothing to do with the family (find something online or borrow one from a neighbor). Watching people try to make the connection can be a lot of fun!

Baseball Party: Take 'em out to the ball game

My 10-year-old's team just had an end of season party—appropriately, at the ball park. We watched the Salt Lake Bees, our town's Triple-A team, and had a great time. The tickets were affordable, the weather was dreamy, and it was even Kids Eat Free Night (can't beat that!).

A ball game is a terrific summer party, whether for a birthday, Father's Day, a neighborhood night out, or a team get together. If you don't have (or can't afford) a major league game nearby, check around for minor league or college games. Be sure to ask about special group activities. The Bees offer a "Field of Dreams" promo that, with advance sign-up, a little league team can attend the game at a discount, get a tour of the locker rooms, introduce themselves to the crowd, and stand on the field during the national anthem with the pro athlete who plays their position. They also walked away with free loot like team baseball cards, t-shirts, baseballs, and more. Sadly, the home team lost, but you'd never know from our group's home run smiles.

Thanksgiving: Teach Your Kids Gratitude

Thanksgiving is the time of year we pause to be grateful for people, for belongings, for happy circumstances. And while it comes naturally to some, giving thanks is actually a skill—one that can be taught to your children. Fun Properly Done shows you how.

Think Grateful. Act Gracious.

FunProperlyDone.com is all about good manners, and a big part of basic etiquette is being thankful. Just thinking about what you’re grateful for is a good step, but it’s even better to act on it. That’s why we take the motto, Think Grateful. Act Gracious.

You can put this into play by teaching kids about gratitude in three ways: Explain, Express, and Exhibit.

Explain gratitude

Kids don’t need a lot of help knowing what makes them happy, but they often need guidance recognizing that their happiness comes from someone or something. You can help kids Think Grateful by helping them verbalize what they appreciate—it can be a list, a picture, or a regular dinner-table conversation. Follow that up by discussing ways they can Act Graciously to let someone know about what they appreciate.

Gratitude can be as easy as demonstrating to someone that they’re important to you. For Thanksgiving celebrations, we often do this naturally; we invite the people we care about to spend time together at dinner. As an invitation business, FunProperlyDone.com sells creative Thanksgiving Dinner cards. By simply sending a special invitation, you’re demonstrating you think that person is important. You “Think Grateful” by remembering them, you “Act Gracious” by sending an invitation.

Express gratitude

An excellent exercise at Thanksgiving time—and year round—is to keep a gratitude journal, make a “thankful list,” or even like one family, have Thankful Thursdays on which every family member points out a blessing.

But, no one knows that you’re thankful for them or something they do if you don’t say it! And that’s where Act Gracious comes in.

Teach your kids to write a thank you note to someone who aligns with their thankful list. Maybe it’s a teacher who gave extra minutes at recess. Maybe it’s the author of a favorite book. The cookie baker at the grocery store. The school crossing guard. A coach, music teacher, or a scout leader.

With a little help, kids begin to realize there is a real person behind everyone and everything they enjoy during their days. FunProperlyDone.com has a selection of blank thank you cards you can keep on hand for any occasion. Write a note a week during November to create a habit—and a practice—of showing gratitude.

During Thanksgiving Day itself, kids can show what they appreciate in the people around them. Our Baskets of Thanks cornucopia can be used as a place card, or just a “thank you for coming” favor. Write things you appreciate about a person on the back of each vegetable, and fill the cornucopia with thoughts of gratitude.

Exhibit gratitude

The best lesson, of course, is to be an example of gratitude every day. Parents can do this by simply saying “thank you” to a clerk at the store, and by recognizing the small services people do in their everyday jobs. Another lesson is to say why you’re leaving a tip at a restaurant; giving a specific reason is a good lesson for your child—and a great note for a waiter to receive.

Since Thanksgiving Dinner is a special meal in and of itself, it’s perfectly suited for teaching good manners beyond “thank you.” Have some fun by turning Thanksgiving into your family’s own Etiquette Dinner. It’s the ideal opportunity to teach kids about how to politely greet guests, use proper place settings, put a napkin on their laps, hold out a chair for someone, etc.

The Etiquette Party invitation at FunProperlyDone.com helps make it a formal affair. But even if you don’t use etiquette as a theme, use the opportunity for kids to practice their best manners. And when you see them do it, Think Grateful and Act Gracious yourself! Award the good-mannered one with an Etiquette sticker you can find at FunProperlyDone.com. They’re a fun way to reward family members of any age for saying their pleases and thank you’s.

You can find all of the Thanksgiving and thanks-sharing products here at www.funproperlydone.com.

Halloween Candy: What to do after the sugar rush

Curses upon whoever invented Hershey's Snack Size. When it comes to the candy, I. have. no. restraint.

Fortunately, nutritionist Julie Negrin has some great ideas for what families can do with your sacks of sweet loot to avoid a month-long sugar rush. All are very well mannered, of course; my favorites are the first two. Here are her suggestions, you can link to the full article here.

1. Give it away (at the office, or perhaps to a good cause)

2. Donate it to soldiers!

3. Send it to the Candy Fairy

4. Store it out of sight

5. Make holiday gifts

6. Create a game or candy art

Halloween Games: Ghost Catcher

We throw a neighborhood Halloween party every year, and it's been going strong for 13 years now. Though every year has its highlights, this game has been a long-standing favorite.

Ghost Catcher (credit to FamilyFun Magazine)

This game works best with a group of 4-8 people, and grown-ups will have just as much fun as the kids. If you have more people at your party, break up into smaller groups (we had three groups of 5 to 8 playing at once).

For the game you'll need:

• Large funnel (check the auto maintenance section at the store; a pan lid will work in a pinch, too.)
• Dice
• Ghosts (you need one fewer than the number of people playing)
• Candy corn

To make the ghosts, wrap an 8-10" square of thin white fabric around a small rubber bouncy ball. The ball is the ghost's head; tie one end of a 36" piece of curling ribbon to secure the fabric around the ghost's "neck." You need the long end of the ribbon to grab the ghost.

Place all the ghosts in the center of the table. Each player gets 5 pieces of candy corn to use as "points" during the game. One player begins as the Goblin -- he or she is in charge of the dice and the funnel. All other players hold on to the long ribbon attached to their ghost. Now the fun starts.

The Goblin rolls the dice so that everyone can see. If the Goblin rolls a 6, the other players yank their ghosts from the center of the table before the Goblin can trap them by slamming down the funnel on the ghosts.

• If the Goblin captures a ghost under the funnel, that ghost player gives the Goblin a candy

Here's where it gets tricky. The Goblin can try to trick the other players by faking a slam.

• If a player yanks his or her ghost away and the number is NOT a 6, that player gives the Goblin a candy
• If the Goblin captures a ghost, but the number rolled was NOT a 6, the Goblin gives a piece of candy to every player

The Goblin gets 10 rolls of the dice, then trades the dice and funnel with the next player for a turn as a ghost. If a player runs out of points, they're out of the game.

This is a great game for school parties. Try playing it as one of many activity "stations" the kids rotate through during the party. Play for a set number of minutes (5-10 minutes is good) and the player with the most points wins.

Tip: The kids love playing with candy corn as points, but with the swine flu season in full swing, we opted to use pennies this year instead. (The thought of germ swapping is scary enough.)

Happy ghosting!

Halloween Party Invitations

Invitations are half the fun of parties for me. And this one's my all-time favorite. To invite the neighborhood to a Halloween party, we attached a ribbon to this Halloween bat invitation and hung him upside down from the front door frame of each house. A spooky surprise in itself -- then unfolding his wings uncovered the information about the party.

Another favorite from www.funproperlydone.com is the witch hat invitation. Pull the buckle on the brim and the spider spins her web to crawl up the invitation.

Best tips for invites:

1. Make it interactive (can it move? does it surprise? do you want to keep it on the fridge as just a dang cute decoration?)
2. Throw in some bewitching wording (Wand to party with us? I vahnt to see you next Saturday... etc.) Puns are fun -- just don't go too overboard.
3. Remember the basics: Who's giving the party, Where and When, What should the guest expect (wear a costume? will there be a meal/refreshments? should they bring anything?), How to RSVP

Got any ghoulish invite ideas to share?

Halloween Party Invitations: More Ideas

Here are a few other great ideas we've come across:

• Skeleton invitation. Its arms and legs move! (Credit to Martha Stewart)
• Mad scientist invitation. Spooky stuff in a test tube. (Martha, again.)
• Mummy invitation. Print your invitation on a paper mummy shape then wrap him in long, thin strips of toilet paper. Kids get a kick out of unwinding him.

Halloween Time: Wand to Party?

Witch kind of party is best? What skeletons of ideas are piled in my closet? What do I carve out the most time for every year? You ghost it...Halloween.

Okay, okay, I'll stop. But I do love Halloween to its very bones.

So, in the spirit of the fun-loving dead, check out the ideas coming this month that are sure to leave everyone involved with haunting memories:

- Halloween party invitations

- Halloween parties at school

- Neighborhood Halloween parties

- Halloween Night: Beyond the candy bowl

Check back every week to get suggestions for your spooky shin-digs, and please be sure to share the wicked ideas you've concocted!