Willow is 4.

Willow turned 4 with a bang. 4 year olds sure know how to party! We held her birthday at the local zoo, and they reserved an undercover BBQ area for us. About a dozen of Willow's friends came, with their parents. We spent most of the day scattered about the zoo. There were peacocks and peahens with chicks, there was a walk through aviary, snakes, wombats, bats, various monkeys, goats, sheep, maned wolves, geese, dingos, large lizard things, Tasmanian Devils, wallabies, loads of parrots, koalas, loads of feathers on the ground for kids to collect, and lots of birds to chase (while I trailed behind shouting "IF THAT PEACOCK TURNS ON YOU I WON'T SAVE YOU COS YOU DESERVE IT!")
I'm sure there were more animals, but I missed a lot between setting up and trailing after kids who all set off in a large group, then suddenly split off into 4 different groups going in four different directions. I also didn't take a whole lot of photos, so a few of these are stolen from Laura and Karen, who are better organised than I am.

The zoo ran animal talks and feedings throughout the day, so the kids got to pat a baby wombat, see the monkeys get fed, watch maned wolves and dingos being fed, pat a snake and a alligator etc. Aside from the monkeys being fed and patting the koala, alligator and snake, they didn't hang around long for the talks before running off elsewhere. Willow and one of her friends were absolutely fascinated by the Tasmanian devils, a pair of which spent all day hissing and yowling at us. They also seemed fascinated with the tortoise.

The koala photos were.... interesting. I missed the photo of a lifetime when the koala took Willow's hat off her head and began to chew on it. (I was too busy trying to alert to animal keeper, who was distracted by getting the group of children around the koala organised. I dunno, that cotton can't be good for a koalas digestive tract. What if they made us pay the vet bills because I was the idiot taking photos instead of fishing the hat out of it's mouth?) Willow still talks about the koala that tired to eat her hat at her birthday party. She wants it to eat her hat next year.

The koala was REALLY into Willow. After Willow removed her hat, the koala kept reaching out for Willow's head. (To... pat it? Maul it with it's inch long claws?)

Lesson learnt: It's hard to get a photo of a group of kids when they don't know which camera to look at.

You can tell from these three photos that at least one of the kids REALLY loves to pose for photos, and is really photogenic. I actually bribed the kids for this photo, with a lolly. Not pictured: the two kids who ran off because they really hate having their photo taken. 

I got this group shot while the kids were watching a concrete truck do it's concreting thing right next to us. The zoo staff had informed us that they were concreting today, and offered to help us move, but we decided to stay since we figured kids love that kinda stuff. For a good 20 minutes, they were more enthralled as a group than by anything else the zoo had to offer. 

The adults agreed to either hold the next birthday in a housing estate. Or when they get their driveway concreted. Did I mention the kids were really into this? 

So, uh yes. That is a $5 cake from Woolies- jam with fresh cream, decorated with decorations that vaguely represented Frozen (they were kinda snowflake shaped, silver, blue and/or sparkly.) Willow originally wanted a rainbow cake, but then begged for a cake with Frozen on top. M tried baking her a cake- the first one he iced while it was warm, the second was overcooked. (What do you mean, I have to reduce cooking time for a fan forced oven?)

The zoo has a walk through aviary. It was either really cool or really scary, depending on how you felt about birds.

Oh, and the fake snow? Massive hit. A little goes a long way, and we used up only about half the container. It does make a mess, and most parents commented that they "had never seen anything like it" followed by "what the hell is it?"

It was a good day. Willow wants to have her birthday there next year, which I'm ok with.