bee and rose

Today there is a happy celebration in Heaven as it would be my beautiful grandmother Gigi's birthday.  Gigi was definitely the most important influence on my life and it became crystal clear to me how deeply when I was asked to write the eulogy for her memorial service a few years back.  I decided to send a letter directly to God explaining what amazing treasure was on it's way.  It is a letter meant to bring smiles and giggles.  Thanks in advance for allowing me to share that special letter with you today as we honor her memory:) Dear God, On the day I was born, you bestowed upon me a truly precious gift...my grandmother.   Gigi, Mimi, Gram, Grandma...she had many names, but one heart overflowing with love for her family. There's not a day that goes by that Gigi doesn't influence me in some way.     Sometimes it’s the crocheted potholders I use when getting Catherine's pizza out of the oven.  Some days, it's watching Cat...

After a bit of a hiatus created by a series of very unfortunate events, Bee is back and ready to blog!  What better way to conquer the frustrations of life than to have a party! Miss Catherine turned 8 last week and we celebrated over the weekend with a Monster High themed bash at Pump It Up! P ump It Up is an inflatable play arena...we had the whole arena filled with jumping castles, obstacle courses, and giant slides reserved just for our party guests!  It was a blast! Coming down the ginormous slide! (I made personalized student ID party favors for each of the guests!) After an hour of crazy bouncing fun, we headed into to the "Creepeteria" for pizza and cupcakes!    My new favorite cupcake topper...the candy crown cupcake pick These little tasty beauties were made by yours truly! Monster High student "Lagoona Blue", daughter of the Creature from the Black Lagoon,    came by to visit our birthday girl and her guests! We set up a birthd...

Ok 45th year....I'm ready for you...Throw me your wrinkles, body aches and inability to read fine print...I'm NOT afraid of you.  So what if my brain makes it to the coffee pot before my body does?  Who cares if I can't remember why I'm standing in the family room?  I got kids who can tell me what I'm doing there.  So HA! I don't even care that my hormones are making me look like the bearded lady from the carnival!  I say Bring It!   And while we're at it, Ms. 45th Year, I don't care if you think I'm middle aged or almost 50...I can still win the age game at the county fair and come home with a ginormous stuffed animal...so boo-yah!  (completely due to my great gene pool from the parents...)  I welcome you and embrace you, Ms. 45!  Whether you bring me age spots, forgetfulness or saggy body parts...I'm all in!  Just don't bring me balloons or clowns...{{{shudder}}}  That would be just plain mean... Peace Out...

Let's get right to the " Did You Know" fun, shall we?   DID YOU KNOW... that I have been blessed by the luck of the Irish lately?   I have won 3 giveaways in the last two weeks!! Check me out!  I won an $80 gift card to CSN Stores from Otin . ..a $25 Gift Card to Krogers from Polka Dot Moon (who has a very cool etsy shop btw...) and this morning I won a $60 gift card to CSN Stores from Shannon over at It's Trickey!    I 'm hoping this arrives any day now! DID YOU KNOW... that this photo of Catherine (who looks psychotic here) and her dance teacher, Caitlin (whom she adores ), was taken only an hour before Irish Dancer Girl came down with major illness and had to leave her dance competition?  She could only complete 3 out of 8 dances, poor girl!  We had to high tail it back to Tucson for recuperation asap!  She's doing much better now, thank goodness! DID YOU KNOW... that I HATE clowns?  (my evil sister sent me that magnet a...

(taps microphone...)  Is this thing on? Well, it appears that I have found my way back to the Land of Blog.  Whew!  I thought I'd never get back here! Lots of activity around the Smith house over the last month! Some cute little 6 year old girl turned 7  last week!   We had fabulous Powerpuff Girls themed party!   ( By the way...this is for the Boomerang network on tv...uh, yeah...thanks for bringing back the Powerpuff Girls...do you know how hard it is to find PPG themed party stuff, Boomerang???) I spent over a month trying to win various ebay auctions for party supplies just to have some stupid person snipe my bid in the last 5 seconds of the auctions!  I finally managed to outsmart the snipers and pulled together a pretty fantastic party.  We had a "City of Townsville Carnival" complete with villains trying to wreck the fun.  The Powerpuff Girls came to the rescue and the carnival was saved!  Buh-bye, Mojo-Jojo!  NO...