The Birthday Girl

Even though we had a big party planned for the weekend, we wanted to spend Catherine's actual birthday with our family of three. Husband took off work and we headed to the McWane Science Center with our one year old! 

I'm not sure who was more excited about going - Catherine or us. Husband and I had never been either, so we were pretty pumped and even more so to get to share this day with her. 

The McWane Center is huge and only a little part of it is toddler appropriate, but we somehow managed to spend three hours there taking it all in. We started with the World of Water because we just knew Catherine would love all the sea life. We were right! She was in awe of all the fish and there were some tanks that were right on her level. She was a little afraid of the big fish (they were bigger than her) and buried herself in my legs, but she loved the smaller, brighter fish and really liked the jellyfish.

...ignoring my double chin because she looks so cute...

After looking at every creature under the sea, we made our way to a play area just for toddlers called "Just Mice Size." As the name suggests, it was mice themed, with a maze and a play area shaped like cheese. In this area, was a miniature sized water table. It is meant to teach water flow with movable dams, waterfalls, and plenty of cups, funnels, and mesh to watch the water move through. It was like a giant river of bath time fun with clothes on. We got soaked and she LOVED it!

A little more play time while we dried off...

 

Then a snack before we headed home...

 

And as we pulled out of the parking deck, our birthday girl was wiped out after a fun filled day!

On the way home, we stopped by Edgar's for a birthday surprise, because it just isn't a first birthday celebration without a little cake smashing.

What a perfect day celebrating the day we became a family of three.

Happy birthday, sweet girl!