The most important thing your cat would tell you, if they could, was that you have to keep the cat little pan clean. Some cats will put up with a lot, and others are not going to tolerate very much. Using scoop little in cat litter pans is always the best idea, and having a few minutes each day to scoop is the very best way to go about keeping them clean for your pet or pets. If you go a few days without scooping, they can rebel and go somewhere else. If nothing else, scoop once a day to avoid that problem.

Scooping the cat litter pans is not the only thing you have to worry about when it comes to keeping them clean. You have to take everything out, and clean the pan itself. No matter how often you scoop or how well you take care with it, some things are going to get onto the cat litter pans that will cause a small odor. You may not smell it, but your pets can. If they are very picky, they are not going to want to use that litter box. Clean it out with soap and water once a week to keep them happy.

If your cat is going outside of your cat litter pans, and you know you keep it very clean, there may be something else going on. If your cat gets a urinary tract infection, they may have trouble using the little box. They will just go wherever they are. Urinary tract infections are very painful for cats. They will try to use the cat litter pans, but that is not always going to happen. If you see your pet going elsewhere, and they appear to be in pain, get them to a veterinarian as soon as you can.

Some other times when pets will not use cat litter pans are a bit more abstract and it might take you a while to figure out what is going on with them. If the pan is too close to where there is a lot of foot traffic and noise in your house, they may not like it very much. They want privacy when they are in there just like you do when you use the restroom. It makes them nervous and upset if their cat litter pans are too out in the open. There could be other small things bothering them as well, so look around where you have your litter boxes to see if anything else could be a problem for them.

Planning activities for these weekend-long celebrations doesn’t have to be difficult; in fact, it can be quite a bit of fun if you keep everyone’s needs in mind. First, consider the wedding. Will this be a formal wedding with a sit-down dinner at its center? If so, you might want to ban a formal rehearsal dinner and replace it instead with an informal barbecue dinner or picnic.

But how will you keep people occupied during the long weekend? There are many activities to consider. Will the wedding be near a lake? How about planning a day at the lake on Saturday, filled with pre-wedding activities like swimming races and beach volleyball.

One popular pre-wedding activity is a scavenger hunt. Prior to the wedding weekend, a list of meaningful items should be drawn up, and guests placed in two teams. The list should include things like “get a brochure from the jewelry store where (groom) bought (bride)’s ring” or “take a picture of the group at the location where the couple got engaged”. You will have to tailor the scavenger hunt list to the location of the wedding and the energy of the guests who will be participating.

You can even offer lavish prizes for the team that wins the scavenger hunt, such as gift certificates or gourmet food and wine baskets. It might seem an obvious choice to divide the teams into groups who know or are related to the bride and teams who know or are related to the groom, but it might be a little more fun to mix it up a bit. You can create teams of friends versus family, or men versus women (always a popular choice).

Another activity that’s popular during wedding weekends is a competitive sport activity, such as baseball or flag football. Again, add a special twist. Offer prizes for performance (first home run gets a kiss from the bride) or make silly rules, like members of the bridal party have to wear tiaras while running bases or members of the groom’s family should always have their shirts on backwards.

It’s important that during the wedding weekend, planners keep in mind that the weekend itself might be expensive for some guests, particularly those who had to fly in for the occasion and many of the activities should be free, or inexpensive. If they are more expensive, and planned for the entire group, they should be paid for by either the bride and groom or their families.

But there are plenty of activities that don’t have to be expensive, but can provide big bang for the little buck, such as the scavenger hunt suggested above. If the wedding weekend guests will mostly be family, you can schedule a home movie-viewing event, including home movies from both the bride and groom’s families. For even more fun, consider an activity where the movies are mixed up and the guests have to guess which family’s videos they are watching. This might sound easy, but depending on the contents, it could be hard, particularly if the bride and groom are babies in the photos.

If you are planning a wedding and know that most members of this wedding party are hams who won’t mind the whole “public speaking” thing, then by all means keep the toasts traditional with dad, the best man and others taking their expected turns at the microphone.

But if you’re looking for something different, either because you want to save putting people on the spot, or you simply want to do something different and fun, read on.

First, you can certainly take the whole toast thing off the agenda if you wish. There are no rules requiring a toast at any wedding. Weddings should be unique events and reflect the personalities of the bride and groom.

But if you want to do something a little different, there are options. You can go the video route, which asks people to essentially make a toast on camera and then the video is given to the bride and groom later. This isn’t a particularly unique idea, but it does solve the issue of not wanting to put people on the spot and still gives everyone a chance to say something special to the bride and groom.

If your guest list includes many outgoing people then consider “pass the microphone”. This can work in several ways. You can either be silly with it, or deadly serious. Most people like silly. Say dad takes the microphone first. His last name ends with T (so, let’s say dad’s last name is Smith). He must find someone whose first name begins with a T (Tom? Tony? Tina? Theresa?) and pass the microphone to that person, who then gives a toast.

This method of giving toasts does put people on the spot (certainly before the fun begins you can warn them so if they are really uncomfortable, they can escape to the restroom or bar) but it can also be a lot of fun. Getting people when they least expect it and then asking them to remember something funny or meaningful about the bride and groom can result in interesting, funny and truthful results.

You might also decide that one person at each table be required to give a toast. Number the tables and at various intervals, have the MC or DJ call a number, which will require guests at that table to decide amongst themselves who will give the toast at that table. Certainly, more than one person can if they like, but there will likely be at least one ham at each table who will enjoy standing up and toasting the newlyweds.

Say you have plenty of public speakers in the group, and finding willing toast participants won’t be a problem. But you think the subject matter might be. There’s an easy solution to this problem. You can provide open-ended topics for the toast speakers. Say you are providing an “open mike” toast arrangement, where anyone can request the microphone and offer a toast. The DJ, MC or someone else in the wedding party (perhaps the maid of honor or best man) can offer the speaker a surprise topic, which might be pulled from a champagne flute or drawn out of the floral arrangement on the head table. There might be slips of paper to choose, or just one sheet of paper with several ideas.

The speaker might choose to finish this sentence, “I remember when (groom’s name here) was a little boy, he always …” or answer this question, “When was (insert bride’s name here) at her silliest? Tell us the story”. You might have to give each speaker a minute or two to collect their thoughts, but you’re sure to have some interesting stories, some unique anecdotes and some different perspectives on the bride and groom.

If you’re planning a sit-down formal dinner, fun games and activities can still be on the menu. In fact, if a formal dinner is part of the plans, having some interesting activities on the agenda is not only a good idea, but also an excellent one. There’s been a lot of planning, and a lot of stress and the wedding party and close friends and family will welcome the opportunity to have a little fun.

The success or failure of any games or activities largely depends not just on the planning but your venue. If you’re having a sit-down dinner in a restaurant, try to get a private room. Then a myriad of fun activities can be planned, such as “pin the veil on the bride”, in which blindfolded guests spin around a few times, then try to pin the veil on a picture of the bride. Silly, yes, but also fun.

One fun activity sure to help everyone blow off some steam is charades. Whoever is up will act out a scene from the bride or groom’s life, so it might be when graduating from college, or getting a huge promotion at work. The “it” person might choose to act out when the bride tripped and fell at another person’s wedding or when the groom saved a dog from getting hit by a car. This is a little twist on charades that helps people get to know the bride and groom better, and adds intimacy to what is already an intimate event.

If the wedding rehearsal dinner is a bit less formal and held in someone’s home, there are many more activities that can take place. For example, how about a night of playing board games? Who needs formal food? You can have that the next day at the formal wedding. At this rehearsal dinner party, the games are center stage.

Bring in some sandwiches and tell everyone to wear their comfortable clothes and settle in for a night of board games. You can set up games on different tables, divide people into groups of 4 or 5 and have everyone rotate tables at designated times. You can even instruct game players that when they move to another table, the game stays out the way it is. So, for example, dad might begin playing Monopoly where the bride was and he’s stuck with only a little money in the bank and no houses on Boardwalk.

So, let’s say the bride and groom are big into sports. If the wedding is to be held in the summer and the days are long, how about a game of touch football or baseball? You can play bride’s family against groom’s family, men against women, or for a twist, the bride plays with the groom’s family and the groom with the bride’s family. Any combination works. The idea here is to have some fun, relax and enjoy each other’s company.

Other outdoor activities can include anything that is physical and might help people blow off steam. Has the bride been more a “bridezilla” than anything? How about a game of tag where she’s it? Or you can create two bridesmaid’s dress-up trunks. Go to a thrift store, fill the trunks with old prom dresses and large-size shoes, and costume jewelry. Divide the guests into two different teams and have someone sit with a timer. The team who dresses one of the men (ideally, the groom and best man or perhaps the two dads) first wins. Be sure to have a camera at the rehearsal dinner/event, because this is one activity you’ll want to have pictures of!

Let’s move from the popular to the less well known. One very popular option allows guests to sign a picture of the bride and groom. Simply take a picture of the bride and groom and have it matted in a mat several inches larger than the photo itself. Place a frame around this, but don’t include the glass or Plexiglas frame. You’ll add this later. Some people prefer to use “bulldog” clips to keep the mat together instead of putting the picture in the frame. The picture can be framed after the wedding.

Most couples choose a nice photo of themselves for this picture/guestbook option, although if there’s a formal engagement photo, this is an excellent way to preserve that photo and show it off to friends and family. If photos are taken before the wedding with the bride and groom in their wedding attire, you can certainly use this photo. Many couples opt to either leave the mat empty or they place a temporary picture in the mat and add a wedding picture later.

Be sure to have a nice Sharpie marker handy and place the picture on either a sturdy easel or on a table where guests are sure to see it.

Another option is instead of providing a picture of the bride and groom to sign, the guests are provided with a picture of themselves! Simply provide a Polaroid camera and assign someone the job of taking pictures of the guests as they arrive at the reception. Once the picture is dry, provide a Sharpie and they can sign the picture, make a note to the bride and groom or hand draw a silly picture. It can be whatever the guest wants it to be. This is a unique, and personal, way for guests to “sign in” at the wedding.

Whoever handles the taking of the pictures should also handle putting them in an album of some sort. A scrap booker might provide a special memory book with the Polaroid pictures in it, or the pictures can simply be placed in a nice album and presented later to the bride and groom.

Many guests don’t give a great deal of thought to the guest book. They whiz by the guest book table more concerned with getting their cocktail and hitting the dance floor. If this is a concern, provide a “traveling” guest book. Send each guest something either to sign or decorate before the wedding.

In this “traveling” guest book scenario, there are several options. One of the easiest is to send each guest a small piece of paper and ask them to write something meaningful or thoughtful for the bride and groom on it. The pieces of paper are returned prior to the wedding (to ensure a better response, provide a self-addressed stamped envelope with the paper) and can be compiled in some meaningful way for the bride and groom and presented to them on their wedding day.

If the guest list is a creative or particularly close group, there is one other option that is even more meaningful. Again, in a scrapbook fashion, send each guest a piece of paper to sign or decorate. The paper should be the size of a photo album, so it might be a 6 x 6 piece of paper, an 8 x 8 piece of paper, or even 12 x 12, if the guests are up to that larger size.

In a letter that arrives with the paper, the guests are instructed to create a memory page for the bride and groom. They might include photos, quotes, little anecdotal stories, or combine all of these with stickers or embellishments. It’s thoughtful, meaningful and personal and it’s an excellent way to include guests who might not be able to attend the wedding, but would still like to be a part of it.

Of course, watching the bride and groom push cake into each other’s mouths is a long-enjoyed tradition, but there are many more fun - and less messy - activities to consider as well.

One new option that’s gaining popularity is to have cupcakes instead of a cake. This is a method that is usually more affordable than having a cake and it can be a lot of fun. Cupcakes are decorated in alignment with the wedding theme, just as a cake is, but the cupcakes are instead arranged on tiered cake plates and displayed on a cake table until it’s time to eat them. The cupcakes can be simply handed out on plates to each wedding guest.

Now, what’s fun about using cupcakes instead of a whole wedding cake is you can save money, certainly, as many reception halls and caterers charge a per slice fee to cut and serve the wedding cake, but you can also build activities into the cupcake presentation. For example, the cupcakes that are for the bride and groom can have a different decoration than the ones for the guests.

As an extra touch, you can have the baker include a special prize in one or several cupcakes. A small charm or tiny toy can be baked into the cupcake. Whoever gets the charm wins a special prize. These prizes can range from a gift basket or gift certificate to a restaurant to a dance with the bride or groom.

Some brides like to use a Southern tradition and have charms baked into the wedding cake. Similar to the idea above for cupcakes, this involves baking small charms or tiny toys (but usually charms) into the cake. Those who get one of the charms are said to have good luck. You might even consider having charm bracelet charms baked into the cake, which are then made into a charm bracelet for the bride.

Not everyone enjoys cake. How about an activity for those who won’t be eating cake? They can be required to do the “Macarena” or the chicken dance during the time when everyone else is eating cake. If they manage to do the dance continuously while the other guests enjoy cake, they win a prize. Or they simply get to sit down, as now they are tired!

In keeping with the dance during cake theme, how about a requirement that in order to get cake, a guest must perform an impromptu dance first? Or there could be trivia questions about the bride and groom or about popular culture. Guests must correctly answer the questions before getting their cake. There could be competitions among tables or individuals for most questions answered correctly.

Many people believe that once the cake is cut, they are free to leave if they wish. Since cake cutting usually comes after the meal and after dancing and other traditional celebration activities, many people take the opportunity to leave the party after the cake is cut and enjoyed.

If the bride and groom want their guests to stay after the cake is eaten, it is worth some extra effort to build some activities into the cake-cutting event so people will stick around longer. This can be as simple as telling people not to leave, or can be more subtle and fun.

For example, each person could receive a slip of paper with his or her cake. These slips of paper could be prepared ahead and provided to the catering company with instructions that one folded strip of paper be placed on each plate with the cake. The paper might give an agenda for the rest of the evening or might ask its recipient to perform a little dance, to head over to give the groom or bride a kiss, or might ask them to take the flower girl out on the dance floor for a spin. The unknown will keep all the guests guessing and provide some entertainment as the instructions are carried out.

Bring in two large stuffed hearts (either pillows or just plush stuffed hearts). Divide the kids into two teams and tell them they must run to the finish line with the heart between their legs. So they won’t run as much as stumbled forth. Once they return to the group, they should take the heart and give it to the next child, who puts it between their legs and so on. Whichever group finishes the entire relay first wins.

Give the children a couple rolls of toilet paper and instruct them to wrap another child mummy style. This is a popular game at Halloween, but in this case they are wrapping a present. Divide the kids into two teams and time them. The team that finishes first, wins, and gets to put a big red bow on their “package”.

Help elementary students remember some of the great couples by having them complete the match to a famous other half. For example, if you say “Romeo” their answer would be “Juliet” (hopefully). To play this game, divide the kids into two groups and give each a buzzer or similar type item. Present the famous start of the pair. You might say, “peanut butter” and if one of the teams knows the match is “jelly” they will buzz in with their answer.

Some other options are:

“Eggs and (bacon)”
“Coffee and (sugar or cream is OK here)”
“Cinderella and (Prince Charming)”
“Cookies and (milk)”

Kids love those little Valentine’s candy conversation hearts available everywhere around Valentine’s Day. Create a heart-stacking contest, which is a lot of fun and can create some team spirit. Initially, each child will get many hearts. Plan to have a few bags on hand if you are doing this game with a classroom full of kids. Have them build as high as they can with the hearts within in a given period of time (30 seconds to a minute is plenty). If their contraption falls, they are out. Keep playing the game over and over again until you are down to two final contestants. Have everyone cheer him or her on as they try to build the highest (and longest lasting) tower of hearts. Be sure to have a prize for the winning architect.

This game is always a hit with kids because what kid doesn’t love a good balloon? Give each child a balloon (not inflated) and have him or her blow it up. Have a target somewhere in the room, and in this case a big heart will do, and have them let go of their (untied) balloon in the direction of the target. Whoever gets their balloon the closest to the target gets a prize. If someone gets a direct hit, that’s two prizes. Keep the target on the ground to make this game easier. Based on the ages and abilities of the kids in the group, you can have them stand close or somewhat far away from the target when they let their balloon go.

All kids love a good game of Bingo. For a seated game that might help the kids rest for a minute, play a game of Valentine’s Day-themed bingo. The bingo squares might have pictures on them like hearts, flowers, cupid, arrows and the like. Be sure to have a prize for the winner, and play the game over and over so the kids can all have a turn at winning.

To make everyone happy on this day of love, play a game of “throwing the smile”. Sit everyone in a circle and have one person smile wildly at the rest of the group. Everyone else must sit as stone-faced as possible. Then the person smiling dramatically wipes the smile off their face (by literally using their hand over their mouth in a swiping motion) and “throws” the smile to the next person in the circle. That person puts the smile on, and again makes a wild, silly smile at the group, then wipes it off and moves on. As soon as someone smirks or smiles that is not supposed to be smiling at that moment, they are out. It’s harder than it sounds and kids often end up in gales of laughter, even when they’re trying to be serious.

Preschool-age children love to fish. You can create a fishing game with small toy fishing poles and hearts (as fish). Use an empty plastic tub as your “lake” and put into it red hearts cut out of construction paper or cardstock. Each heart is good for a prize. One might be good for a Hershey’s kiss, or other small candy, another might be for a small plastic heart. Put magnets on the cardstock hearts and a magnet on the fishing pole. Then the kids can “fish” for hearts and win a prize at the same time. Each child should only be allowed to “catch” one fish each.

Preschoolers love balloons and you can create a heart target for them to aim their balloons at. Create a target out of cardboard or heavy cardstock and put it on the floor somewhere. You might want to have several targets on the floor. Give the kids balloons that have been blown up but aren’t tied shut. Let them let go of the balloons in the direction of the target and see where their balloon lands. Be forewarned: kids will want to play this over and over again. So either have plenty of balloons ready to go (perhaps held closed with a clothespin) or have plenty of adults around who want to blow up balloon after balloon. You can also play a similar game by putting a heart target into a box or laundry basket and having the children try to hit the target with an inflated balloon. Be sure to provide prizes for everyone!

Preschool age children love a good game of “Duck Duck Goose” or “Simon Says”. For Valentine’s Day, you can put a twist on these classic games. Have the kids play a game of “Cupid, Cupid, Love” instead of “Duck, Duck, Goose” or have them play “Cupid Says” instead of “Simon Says”. Be sure to add a smooch at the end of each order in “Cupid Says” or have the kids incorporate Valentine’s Day activities, like “Cupid says, give your neighbor a hug”.

This is a game young children love. Have them “throw smiles” at each other. Sit them in a circle and show them how the game will work. Only one person in the group will smile first. He or she will smile wildly and widely for the whole group. The rest of the group will not smile, not even a little tiny smirk. Once the smiling person is done, they will literally “wipe” the smile off their face and pass it to the next person in the group, who will repeat the wide smile and hope nobody laughs. The kids that laugh or smile are out of the game (those who should be stone-faced anyway). The game can continue until only one stone-faced person is left. Be sure to provide every child with a fun prize just for trying.

Preschool teachers might want to encourage creative thinking with a little game of “Valentine’s 20 questions”. The teacher can have a visual in mind, which might be a heart, or Cupid, or a card or something relative to the holiday. The teacher says “I’m thinking…:” and the children must ask questions about what the teacher is thinking. The teacher can give tiny clues along the way especially if he or she is losing the interest of the younger children in the group. Whoever figures out what the teacher is thinking can be the next one to begin the next round of 20 questions. Be sure to ask the child what they are thinking before the next round begins or it could go on longer than it needs to!

Children love “pin the tale on the donkey” so why not “pin the heart on Cupid”? In this game, simply provide each child with a big red heart with his or her name on it. Have a big cutout of Cupid on a wall and blindfold each child, spin him or her around and have them stick their heart on Cupid (there should be adhesive of some sort on the back of the heart). Once everyone has stuck their hearts, let them look at where they ended up.

One fun activity is all about giving each other “snaps” for being who they are. Over the course of the year, mom and dad, and the kids as well, can add “snaps” to a special jar or containers. These “snaps” might include things like “dad helped me build my pinewood derby car” or “Joey read books to his sister each night without complaint”. Read these little slips of good things, thank each other for caring and empty the jar to start it again for another year.

At dinner on Valentine’s night, have each family member tell others why they love them. What about dad made mom love him? Why does Joey love his sister? What about sissy is special to dad? It might seem a little corny at first, but in the end, everyone will enjoy hearing wonderful, positive things about themselves.

One fun family game involves family trivia. This game is particularly fun if the children are a bit older and there are at least 2 children in the family. Mom (or dad) creates a trivia game that looks something like this: there will be a series of index cards with a bit of family trivia on each card. Someone draws a card and tries to answer the question correctly. If correct, they get a point. The person with the most points at the end of the game gets a prize or extra chocolate syrup on their dessert. Some questions might be things like this:

*Which one of us suffered a broken leg at the age of 8?
*Which of us, at the age of 3, flushed an entire box of Tide down the toilet?
*Which of us snuck into mom and dad’s room every night until he or she was 6 years old?

At a certain age, children begin to enjoy preparing meals for mom and dad. For a fun Valentine’s activity, the children could be asked to prepare a meal for mom and dad. Ideally, this would be breakfast in bed and could include foods that are traditional “romantic” foods (like strawberries and chocolate) or whatever the kids want to make. They might even like to prepare a special Valentine’s Day menu and let mom and dad choose off the menu. This would be a fun tradition to start as an annual event on Valentine’s Day.

Consider a fun family game of “hidden hearts”. In this game, children are given clues to find chocolate hearts hidden around the house. The clues can be easy or more complicated to figure out depending on the ages of the children. If one or more children are very young, mom and dad can help them with the clues. When they find the hearts, they can eat them, but mom or dad, remember where you hid the hearts and be sure to count how many are found, so there aren’t any left to get ugly in the house!

Finally, a fun family activity around Valentine’s Day is to make cards for other people. Have the kids make handprint cards for the grandparents or have the kids make cards for their friends. Handmade cards can be so much more meaningful than the store-bought kind and kids learn a lot from the experience of putting their hearts (literally) into making the card for others.

What to do? It’s not that hard. There are a myriad of activities you can plan that will not only engage and entertain the guests, but also help them get to know each other and - most importantly - the bride and groom just a little bit better.

Here’s one that’s fun and might remind you just a little bit of a football game. Make a placard for each guest. On one side, letter “Bride” and on the other, “Groom”. Someone, and if you have a DJ it can be him or her, or the best man or maid of honor, asks a series of questions. They might be simple, like “who was born in New York City”? Or they might be more complicated, such as “who, at 6, broke their leg when they were playing with their German shepherd puppy”?

Guests don’t yell their answer, but rather show their placard, turning it to the “bride” side of they think the question pertains to the bride or to the “groom” side if it’s the opposite. The guests’ guesses can be revealing, but even more revealing, are the true answers. It’s a great, fun way for everyone to get to know a little more about the bride and groom.

One word of caution about the above activity: Keep ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends out of the questions and don’t ask anything that might be a little too revealing or too risqu. Remember, grandmothers and grandfathers and young children will likely be present!

If it’s too much work to create signs for each person, you can create just two and create two teams - a team of men and a team of women. Grouped together, the teams can work together to decide on the answer and answer as a group. This “men versus women” concept is always popular and sure to be fun for everyone.

One silly game that’s always a hit really puts the groom in the spotlight. How well does he know the feel and touch of his new wife? In this game, everyone finds out. You can do this several ways. You can enlist just the wedding party in this game, or as many of the wedding guests that want to participate.

Line each participant up and blindfold the groom. Put the bride somewhere in the mix, and send the groom on a hunt for his bride. The participants can either shake the groom’s hand or give him a kiss on the cheek. In some versions, he might feel their hair or their leg. The details are up to you.

Depending on how far you want to take this game, you can add a fun element to it that is sometimes popular. You have the groom feel the leg of each participant. The best man, or other male member of the wedding party, rolls up his pant leg, puts on a garter and has the groom feel that. The groom has to kiss whoever he thinks is his bride, while still blindfolded. Often, he ends up kissing a man.

For an activity that allows the guests to be audience members instead of participants, consider the game of “feed me”. In this game, the bride is seated and the groom is (again) blindfolded. He’s given a piece of food and then spun around a few times so he’s a little bit dizzy. Guided only by the helpful words of his new bride, he has to find her and get the piece of food into her mouth. Be sure to have the wedding party shadowing him so there are no accidents.

Once the groom has fed his new wife, the tables are turned and she is blindfolded and must find him.

A few notes about this activity: when feeding the bride, don’t use wedding cake or a piece of bread with dip. In other words, don’t use anything too messy. If the groom has a hard time finding her mouth, he might likely smear the food on the bride’s face and that is something that won’t make a bride - prettily made up just hours before - too happy.