Family and friends cheer Hazel on as she checks out her smash cake and later as she opens gifts (with lots of help from Big Sis).  I seems like it was just yesterday when I first held her.  There are flashbacks to Willa’s first birthday too.  It is wonderful to watch them come into their own but I do wish time would slow just a bit.  I’d like to savor these moments a little longer.

I have the honor of being baker.   A moist apple cinnamon cake (the flavor a nod to Hazel’s taste for apples) is covered with cinnamon buttercream icing.  Smash cake decoration is all Hazel too, a field of grass dotted with clover and dandelions­. She snatches up a fistful of grass anytime she can get close enough to it.  She seems to appreciate the buttercream version as well.  A three-tier layer cake wrapped in LOTS more cinnamon buttercream goes over well with the rest of the guests.  We step up the “party factor” of Willa’s slice with some sprinkles.

Kent continues his tradition of wooden toy building.   Check out Hazel with her duckie pull toy. Willa’s 1^st b’day grasshopper makes an appearance for some cross-kitchen racing.   Willa presents her hand-made dolly and we a stuffed bat adopted as a symbol of support to Bat Conservation International and their work to preserve essential habitat for bats and other animals that share it.  A little unconventional I suppose but seems in line with her love of the outdoors.