Happy Gotcha Day Cupcakes!

Max eyeing the second cupcake since he ate the first one
before we could get a good picture.

Today was Max's 3rd Gotcha Day! In case you haven't heard of it, Wikipedia says that Barbara Bizou wrote, Gotcha Day "is designed to show your adopted child how much you wanted him and that every year you continue to cherish him." I think that about sums it up. 


So today Max had an extra long walk, two yard fetch times and a bath! Sounds great, right? He was good with the walks and playtime but not so much with the bath as you might have guesed.
In celebration I made cupcakes (pupcakes? I know...groan.) For these I turned first to the trusty garbanzo bean flour and then to the trusty google for a recipe. I actually made 18 of these so two of them went to a friend's dogs, 2 were given to Max and 14 went to Chain of Hope, a local organization that helps dogs living on the end of a chain with basic medical, food, water and shelter. 
In case you need proof about what mean mom's we are, here's the video of us trying to get a good pic.

Max's New Friend- DIY Hedgie Toy

If your dog is like Max, you have a graveyard of forgotten toys. Max also has a glut of toys thanks to the check-out lines at the pet store filled with last minute, cheap squeakies.  Max's toys tend to rip along the seams because he loves to fling them in the air and shake them so I had a small pile of very worn toys to repair and I can't say I was excited about it. Then I saw this idea for a hedgehog toy from a car wash mitt on pinterest and decided I'd try it for Max. It took about 30 minutes start to finish so not a bad night's work.

First I destuffed the toys we were going to sacrifice and one of them still had a working squeaker so I kept that too. You can buy squeakers at your local big-box pet store if you don't have one to reuse. Next I went in search of the car wash mitt with thumbs. They were rumored to be at the dollar store but I didn't find any there so I headed next door to Old Time Pottery (love that store!) and found one for $1.99. They had several different colors but only the orange mitts had thumbs.