Thank you kindly, ma'am

Easy, but sweet nonetheless. Turn some inexpensive market flowers into a western-themed hostess or thank you gift.

Place a few blooms in an empty root beer bottle. Tie with red and white ribbons or red bandana. Accompany with a card featuring a lucky horseshoe: "I'm so lucky to know a gal like you."

Kitchen Bridal Shower

Chances are, soon-to-be newlyweds need just about everything but the kitchen sink. Get their lives started right with a kitchen or house-warming shower.

INVITATION:

A microwave party invitation opens up to reveal the details about the shower. There's room for the time, date, place, etc. -- plus where the bride and groom are registered.

GUESTS:

Showers can be intimate gatherings with just the bride and her entourage. They can also be a great way to celebrate with friends and acquaintances who might not be close enough to attend the wedding itself. Include them in the festivities; a low-key open house is a great way for lots of people to stop in and share good wishes.

Our shower was an open house that included neighbors and church friends. About 35 were invited which kept a nice flow of 8-10 people coming through to visit with the bride throughout the night.

ACTIVITIES:

Bridal shower games can be fun with a smaller group. Should you have an open house (or people who'd just rather visit with each other), get everyone involved by sharing some advice or a favorite thought or memory about the bride. We had people write something they loved about the bride (so her groom would remember how lucky he is!) on pre-designed pages that match the invitation. At night's end, the pages were collected and bound into a book along with pictures of the evening. The bride received the book as part of her wedding gift.

FOOD:

Good girly stuff (can you say, chocolate?). A selection of homemade and store-bought treats can go a long way without too much effort. Our menu:

Homemade chocolate cake, cashew cookies, slush punch (easy but fancy)

Purchased cream puffs, pastries, sugar cookies shaped and decorated as bridal dresses

Fresh fruit

DECOR:

Pick something the bride loves:

Seasonal -- our shower was close to Valentine's Day, so we leveraged the holiday theme of hearts and love. It was easy to transition pink, red and white decorations into shower decor without feeling like a Valentine's party. Think blushing bride and use any of your seasonal decorations to give your shower a relevant feel.

Interests -- What does the bride love to do? At a previous shower, our bride was well envied for her closet's fabulous contents. We raided her shoe selection and decorated with them. Shoe boxes were wrapped in black paper and her colorful heels displayed on top of them. Inexpensive mini "glass slippers" came from a party supply store and served as decorations as well as favors.

Gift Specific -- Try keeping with the party theme of kitchen/home and decorate using gifts the bride may have already received (place a new toaster on a pedestal, arrange flowers in a blender, make a display of her dishes).

THANK YOUS:

As part of the bride's book with wishes from the guests, a few pages served as a record of gifts received. Not only could the bride look back at her friends' generosity, she can use the list to write thank you notes. Matching thank you notes were given to the bride as part of her shower gift from the hostesses.

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.

Pet Store Party

When people ask if we have pets, my typical response is "yes, two boys." They're wild enough. But truth be told, they're dying for a pet. My answer: regular trips to the pet store. And we have so much fun you'd think it was, you guessed it -- a party!

INVITATIONS

Choose a favorite animal to be the star of your party (examples here on the wild and mild side). You might consider asking guests to bring a can or bag of pet food in lieu of a birthday gift (more on this momentarily).

ACTIVITY

Take a trip to the local pet store or animal shelter. If you've got more than 4-5 kids in the party, call ahead to ensure you'll be welcome. While most kids can entertain themselves the whole time just by peeking in the cages, looking for the lizards hidden behind plastic tree leaves, and making up wacky conversations with the parrots, you could come prepared with a few games of your own. Try an age-appropriate scavenger hunt (can you find the Yellow Canary? a 20-lb bag of Alpo? a furry purple kitty toy?). Learn where the animals originally came from. Or see what animal best matches each guest in the group.

A thoughtful twist is to turn the birthday gift booty over to the animals. Guests might be invited to bring a can of food, a dog toy, etc. in lieu of a child's gift. The group can then present the gifts to an animal shelter (or to the pet store who will often donate them in turn).

THANK YOU'S

Take each guest's picture with their favorite animal and send it home in a customized thank you card. If he/she gave a gift to an animal, you might include a "pawprint" of thanks from it too.