Miss Magda turned eight yesterday. Look at that white snout.

As you know, I adore dogs endlessly, but watching them age is still hard. I mean, this girl still has her spirit. She’ll still steal a full stick of butter from the kitchen counter and she’ll steal Ezra’s sandwich right out of his hands. But … she sleeps more.

Her snout has turned white. There are lumps and bumps under her skin (we’ve had them all checked — she’s fine). She has cysts in her eye and she’s now terrified of computer alert noises (which is hard when we are all home working all day on computers every day).

But she still loves long walks, snuggling by the fire and stealing mittens out of my coat pocket and hiding them through out the house.

She likely (hopefully) has 4-6 years left, but we are past the prime, and that is still hard.

Yesterday we celebrated her birthday with her favorite cake, an orange and olive oil cake. It is the best and I highly suggest you make it.

How do we know it is her favorite? Because this summer she somehow climbed onto the kitchen counter to snag the cooling cake from the top of the toaster oven. That’s a lot of work for this small girl! And man was she happy to have a piece handed to her last night.