Murphy has turned 5! Above we have Murphy enjoying an online birthday card from Jaime, an English Springer Spaniel friend from Ontario. Murphy received birthday wishes from many online friends, as well as a cake and several gifts.

The cake was a bit of an issue. I'm still feeding Murphy a limited diet as his allergies keep flaring up. I'm guessing they're a combo of environmental and food allergies, so he's still pretty much limited to fish, yams, pork, apples, bananas, peanuts, eggs and several uncommon flours (chickpea, kamut, etc.). I looked online for a cake, but came up with nothing that fit these needs other than last year's cake. So I modified it to give Murphy something slightly different from last year. This year's cake was made with potato flour, sugar, eggs, ground peanuts and mashed bananas. Of course Muprhy had to supervise the whole thing:

I mixed up the batter, then spooned it into 3 different cookie cutter shapes - bone and fire hydrant for Murphy, and a maple leaf for me to share with my parents. Threw that into the oven and then mixed up some icing made with sugar, peanut butter, margarine and vanilla. Here it is step by step:

The first layer of cake was baked:

That layer was then iced:

Then I laid down a layer of bananas:

A second set of cakes was baked,
then sandwiched on top of the first:

Then the whole cake was iced:

So they came out not looking all that refined, but they were very edible! Murphy enjoyed the dog bone all to himself that night, while my parents and I had the maple leaf. The next day the 4 of us split the fire hydrant.

As for gifts, Murphy benefited from the fact that he and I are moving into our own condo come September. He's going to be babysat by my parents at their house when I'm at work, so he needs doubles of all his doggy accoutrements to keep him comfy while he's there, including:

A new bed, perfectly matched to my parents couch:

He got used to it very quickly, and is snoozing in it already:

He also got a new set of bowls, and a new toy:

Allie bought Murphy a new set of bowls, but they were too big for him. Murphy currently has spaniel bowls, which are tall and narrow to keep his ears out of his food and water. I've combed all the local stores for them, with no luck. Allie got Murphy a set of bowls similar to spaniel bowls, but they were still too wide, and Murphy's ears fell right into them. I found the ones pictured above locally. They are still too wide, but they're to best I could find! The toy in the picture to they right was from my parents. It's sort of like a big fluffy jack, with 6 prongs sticking out in all directions, with a squeak in each prong. Murphy quite enjoys it, as it's sort of like a combo between his 2 favourite toys - Patches and Octopus. From me he also received a bunch of oatmeal and chickpea cookies, in veggie, fruit and fish flavours.

And below we have a shot from a hike Murphy and I took with my friend Heidi and her little 10 month old Carter:

Murphy's not too sure about Carter, but with Carter up nice and high I don't think Murphy even knew he was there! Caret on the other hand is a big fan of dogs, and keep his eyes on Murph as we walked along. And if you think Caret is cute in this picture, you should see him in real life. This picture doesn't do him justice!

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: November 2005
Here's the link to the previous update: June 2005

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