If you live in the Los Angeles area, or are planning a destination event, I highly suggest a sweet trip down to Melissa Joan Hart and Paula Hart's SweetHarts shop for a really fun time!

Room charge is only $150 which includes party assistants. The atmosphere is warm, inviting, sweet and delightful! You just can't help but be happy and filled with love-energy!! Oh, and if you ask, they may even break out a special game of SweetHarts Bingo that I'm creating just for the shop! It's nearly done - a work of love. It looks amazing and will be ready by (you guessed it) Valentine's Day -- the day for sweethearts!! (Or Sweetharts to you!)

For more information, email the SweetHarts shop here!

Throwing a baby shower or bridal shower in December?

Repurpose your holiday decorations for the occasion and add some seasonal games. You’ll be the best Ho-Ho-Hostess in town!

• Replace some, or all, of your traditional tree ornaments with baby or bridal decorations. For a baby shower, tie baby socks, rattles, pacifiers, and other practical baby items to the tree with pastel ribbons. After the party, gift the Mother-to-Be with your "ornaments". You can do something similar at a bridal shower using mistletoe and household items like cookie cutters, kitchen utensils, or think about decorating your front door wreath with shower items too. It’s a fun way to welcome your guests to the party.
  
  
• Add lots of candles to your décor. They’ll add elegance and foster the holiday spirit. Personalized candles make wonderful favors for your guests to take home.
  
  
• Make pinecone brides or pinecone mommies. In preparation, stock up on fresh pinecones from nature walks. You'll also want to head out to your local craft store and pick up fun items such as googly eyes, cotton, glitter, glitter glue, stars, sprinkles, pipe cleaner, mesh, veil, material, scrapbooking pages, or anything you see that can easily be glued or attached to the pinecone. Set up an arts & crafts area before the Baby or Bridal Shower. (This will be more fun than you even can imagine!)
  
  You can make this a simple relaxed fun project to do or make a contest / game out of it and have the guest of honor choose her favorite! At the end of the shower/party you'll have a pinecone-ville filled with fun pinecone brides or pinecone mommies! Once you're done, feel free to send your pictures to me here! I would love to see them! Perfection not allowed, as we're all just having fun!
  
  
• Fill a Christmas stocking with small gifts for the guest of honor. Blindfold each guest and let them feel around inside the stocking. Then have the guests guess what’s in the stocking. The guest with the most correct answers wins a prize!
  
  
• Have guests wear and play the personalized Stocking Surprise Game! It is such a unique game idea and a fabulous icebreaker. Who will be good and who will be bad? Well, that will be determined by what is inside their stocking of course! Award a prize to the guest who has the present (a small glass bead in the shape of a gift). The others will be opening up their stockings to reveal small pieces of, none other than, coal! Personalized to the name of your party guest, this is a great game to play and really gets guests in the spirit!

• Have guests make or decorate ornaments commemorating the special occasion. Let the guest of honor judge the best ornament and give the winner a prize. Gift the guest of honor with the new ornaments – she’ll remember her shower for years to come! Or, if you prefer, each guest can take home the ornaments as the favor to keep as a memory of the shower.
  
  
• As an alternative to Baby Bingo or Bride Bingo games you may opt to play Christmas Bingo or other traditional holiday games. Don't forget the prizes, too. Think: wreaths decorated with twinkle lights or a large garland centerpiece with a mulberry scented candle.
  
  
• Be sure all guests are gifted with favors to take home that are Christmas-Themed such as pine scented lotions or cranberry bath salts or cinnamon candles! No matter the way you celebrate the new baby or new bride, be sure the all have a token to remember your event.
  
  
• If you live in a snowy area – use it to your advantage! Build snowbabies or snowbrides. Advise your guests to wear their cold-weather gear and bring along some insulated gloves. Collect some accessories to decorate the snowbaby or snowbride and head outside for some old fashioned fun. 
  
  
• Afterwards, warm up your guests with hot appetizers and winter beverages, such as cocoa or hot toddies and get ready to have a holiday party that you've never had before!

Happy Holidays!!!

Make it a safe, wonderful, warm and special time to share with your loved ones!

Susan "The Shower Diva"
Where Fun Reigns!™

Making Thanksgiving* Memories through your Keepsake Family Album

When I think of Thanksgiving, I remember driving down the 405 freeway with my mom, stepfather Al, two brothers Michael and David, and Uncle to visit my nana and grandpa in Carlsbad, California. Entering their home we would smell the delicious aromas from the kitchen from the turkey that had been baking in the oven all morning. My brothers would soon run outside, then I'd hear the sports on tv, we'd all catch up on conversations, and feel the warmth of the fireplace, and it was never a Thanksgiving without Uncle Tom asking every other hour "when are we going to eat?" I'd help polish the good silver, set the table, then we'd sit down to a lovely perfectly set right-out-of-the "Good Housekeeping" era from the 40s table to eat, drink and rest a bit. We'd slowly wind down by playing our family's favorite board game Scrabble® and enjoy grandpa's homemade secret hot fudge sauce over freezing cold vanilla bean ice cream with some delicious coffee.

My grandparents are gone now and I am left with memories to treasure. Mostly in my mind, in some photographs around our house and in items I was given. 

A question was posed to me:
What craft would be fun for kids to make this Thanksgiving?

I thought long and hard about this because Thanksgiving is such a treasured holiday for me. Non-commercial (at least I think it's supposed to be that way, right?) I came up with an idea that's probably not new at all. But let's try it out here. 

What about creating a brand new tradition for your own family?  This could involve everyone from the newborn, yes, the newborn all the way to the oldest member in your home! It could turn out to be the most treasured family tradition and a keepsake you will treasure beyond your wildest imagination. Ever. This would be something fun for the kids to get involved in, and would be a great time for family bonding. A time for reflection and projection. And a time to stand still.

My idea behind the Family Keepsake Album is to have a family journal that would be taken out each year at Thanksgiving time to relive the memories created as the family grows and changes through the years. We've all heard of individual journals, but not so much a family one.

Here's what you need:

1. Purchase a lovely blank acid-free bound book from a craft or stationery supply store. You'll want this to be a nice book because it is meant to be a treasured keepsake to last throughout the years.
2. Visit an art store and purchase quality colored pencils and a few thin to medium black ink markers, a pencil sharpener, and a white eraser (the good kind that won't smear).
3. The day of or before Thanksgiving, head out to gather up leaves with the kids, and press them in books between wax paper (optional). You may opt to do this if you choose to add leaves to your page.
4. This Thanksgiving Day, announce that you are starting a family tradition called The Keepsake Family [Smith] Album. Everyone will be assigned one page to do whatever they want. It's like a scrapbook, but it won't be 3 dimensional for the most part. It should mostly be flat. Let your family members know they are to write down their thoughts of where they are, what they feel, think or simply just draw. They could do as little or as much as they want to on their own page. If there is a newborn in the house, an idea for them could be to use a baby-safe ink and put their handprints down and make a turkey drawing from them. The idea behind this is to have FUN! Let go. Relax and enjoy.

There is typically downtime during Thanksgiving days even for the cooks! So take a moment and hop on over to the Journal Station which you've set up with your colored pencils and thin black markers. Be sure that only one member at a time is given his or her space.

Before each individual page, you'll want a group page. It'll serve as an introduction to the Thanksgiving Year. Some ideas would be: 

• Who won the wishbone contest?
• Post funny comments that happened that day.
• Have everyone sign the page.
• Take silly snapshots and print them out and paste them.  
• Post the news' headlines from the paper that morning.
  (You may need to carefully fold it over into a plasticine sleeve and glue the
  sleeve onto the page. It makes for an interesting reflection a year from now.)
• Take a family photo and place it in the center.
• Decorate with leaves or items that remind you of fall. 
• Place items that remind you to be grateful for what we have, be it big or small.
• Write a family gratitude list. Everyone can chime in and say what they are grateful for.
• Exhaust that page with as many gratitudes as possible.
  (You might even copy this page, send it home with everyone as a gift for the entire year!)

Be sure to date every page. Put the journal away until next Thanksgiving where you will continue the tradition. Look forward to adding new family members as your group grows. When the journal is complete, add a second volume and watch it bloom into a family heirloom. I guarantee, this will become one of your most prized possession. And it's basically free. Why? Because it's all about the love!!

In my own family, I am thankful for what we have, be it big or be it small. We are all together as a family and we have celebrated another year together. Through the ups and downs of life, we have each other. Love is the most precious gift of all. I always want to know how best I can give to others and what I can give thanks for. As much as I want to say I always do it perfectly, I don't. I'm human. But I always, always, always get back up and try. I never ever give up.

I want to wish all of the Modern Moms and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving and Safe Holiday filled with love and good eats. My wish is that everyone will be filled tomorrow, not just in food, but in spirit. Everyone. Our thoughts go out to all of those here and abroad. In our country and in others.

Happy Thanksgiving!

*You can turn this tradition into a Fun Bridal Shower Activity, gift it to the bride and then annually on the couple's anniversary, they could take out the journal and use it to renew their vows.

For a Fun Baby Shower Activity, this can then be turned into an annual Birthday Party Journal for the baby as he or she grows.

You can turn this tradition into one for any holiday or occasion simply by your imagination!

I found these fun journal designs at Wrapables.com

The terms bridal shower and wedding shower are sometimes used interchangeably, but times have changed. There's the new twist, and that has to do with the growing co-ed shower trend.

Wedding planners generally make a designation between ladies only showers and co-ed showers by referring to one as "bridal" (female only) and the other as "wedding" (men included). Co-ed showers are less intimate and more event-oriented. Themes like "Las Vegas Weekend," or "Indianapolis 500 Mile Race Weekend" (if co-ed takes place over Memorial Day Weekend) bring men and women together in a venue that's comfortable for both sexes.

Bridal Showers are typically (though not necessarily) more intimate affairs. Along with the traditional kitchen and household gifts, sexy lingerie and honeymoon night negligees can be part of the gift giving. It's more tasteful to give (and open!) such gifts in an intimate, all female setting. Besides, lingerie is a surprise for the groom -- at the time the bride models it for him!

Keep lines of communication clear by letting the invitees know whether the shower is Bridal (all female) or Co-ed (guys included!). Your choice of invitation and theme go a long way towards helping prospective guests in on the ground rules! Don't forget those RSVPs!

Happy Showering!