A few things...

:) Hello!  I'm home alone with just the birds and the puppy so I decided to catch you up on a few things I've been working on!  Duke boy is knocked out under my chair, and even the birds are taking their afternoon nap.  So it's waaaaay too quiet in this house!  I must admit, it HAS been quite an adjustment going from having at least one child following me around all day (for the past 9 yrs.) to having none here.  Enough of that....here are some things I've made or done over the last few weeks:

I made these invitations for my cousin's baby shower "A Winnie Pooh Tea, for the Mother to be".  I replaced the tea bag's original label with one cut with my Cricut machine, then embellished with Pooh images found online.  Here are some pictures of the actual event:

For the party favors, I bought some fresh organic honey from the farm down the road, and filled up some cute mason jars with it.  I made the tags and the kids tied them onto the jars. :)  The cupcakes were all gluten free honey vanilla cupcakes with honey vanilla frosting.  (Just take your favorite Vanilla cupcake recipe and add some fresh honey to the batter.  The same goes for the frosting.)

Here's a shot of the table.  Everything except the sandwiches (of course!) had honey in it.  :)  Hmm, maybe I should've gotten "honey" oat bread for the sandwiches...DARN! hehe...It was a nice family event.

Last week, we also celebrated my mom's birthday!  (Check out my oldest "photo bombing"...sigh.) She is also attempting to live a gluten-free lifestyle, so I made her a GF peaches and cream torte! :)  Since she is also a diabetic, I had to be careful with the sugar content of this cake, as well as the cream!  My tip for the best fresh homemade whipped cream is to buy heavy cream NOT whipping cream as some whipping cream contains sugar.  Also, I find that heavy cream holds up better since it's thicker and can even be piped on for tarts and tiramisus! :) Make sure the bowl and equipment you are using to whip with is ice cold.  I place my metal mixing bowl and the mixing whisks in the freezer for a bit before I whip the cream.  To sweeten, simply add sifted powdered sugar a bit a time until you get the desired sweetness.  (The sifting diminishes any clumps in the cream.)

I've also been working on redoing Wunkie's room...so I added some stenciling in the corners of the back wall as well as some framed scrapbooking.  My mom in law, as I've mentioned before, is the QUEEN of scrapbooking, and she made this page for Wunkie.  It's one of my favorites.  The stencils are the Zinnia Grande in small and extra small from Cutting Edge Stencils  that I won from a giveaway at All Things Thrifty last year.  (I still can't believe I actually won something!) 

Oh, and I've spent a lot of time with this big boy right here! ;) He's 21 weeks old now, roughly about 5 months, and is growing by the minute!  It seems every time I glance at him he's doubled in size!  Duke is special to us for many reasons.  One, he's ADORABLE; but more importantly, he is training to be my son's autism service dog.  I've mentioned before that my Peanut is on the spectrum, and one of the things he does when he's upset is bolt.  So Duke is being trained to find him! :)  He's wonderful with the kids, and he knows that the Peanut is his special friend.  We're very grateful to have him! :)  Off I go!  Chris has his first football scrimmage of the season tonight, so I better make dinner now! :)