Day at the McWane Center

While we were in Trussville to celebrate Brooklyn’s birthday back in February, we decided to stick around for the long weekend and stay through President’s Day on that Monday. Paw and Rae Rae’s big birthday gift to Brooklyn was tickets to the McWane Center in downtown Birmingham, so that Monday was the perfect time to go. It was Travis’s and the girls’ first time there, and I hadn’t been since probably a middle school field trip. We were all looking forward to it!

We weren’t sure how crowded it would be since it was a holiday and kids were out of school, so we decided to try to get there right when they opened at 9 AM. We actually were some of the first people to arrive, so that worked out great. We got parked, bought our tickets, and headed straight for Itty Bitty Magic City—one of the newest sections of the McWane Center. It’s designed for kids ages 6 and under, and it’s almost 10,000 sq ft. Plenty to do and check out! I think we were the second family to get to that part of the museum, so we had the place almost to ourselves for a little while. It did get more crowded as the morning went on, but it never got as bad as I thought it might.

The girls had a BLAST! It was seriously so much fun. Even we adults loved it. It was so neat because the girls were learning through play and didn’t even realize it. Definitely much more interesting than sitting in a classroom. I took a ton of pictures and tried to condense it down into only the best of the best. Just looking through these pictures makes me want to take the girls back soon!

When we first got inside Itty Bitty Magic Center, I think Brooklyn had no idea what to do first. There was so much to see! She loved the “diner” area and enjoyed fixing food for Paw and Rae Rae. There were also plenty of stairs and places to climb for my little climber, Savannah. And she always loves building with blocks!

It didn’t take long for the girls to discover the water play area. This was probably the biggest hit of the day. It was so fun! They had little aprons for the kids to wear to keep their clothes dry, so they didn’t get “too” wet ;) They stayed in this part for quite a while after first discovering it.

One of the coolest features of the water area were all the chutes that you could send yellow balls up into. The chutes would suck up the balls, spin them around/toss them, and spit them back out into the water. Brooklyn and Savannah were both mesmerized. In the bottom two pictures in the collage, Brooklyn is standing under a bubble. You could then spray the bubble with several different sprayers/showers. You can tell by the look on her face that she absolutely loved it! :)

Savannah enjoyed pressing the button on the wall to sound the fire alarm, but didn’t actually enjoy being in the truck too much. I think it was too loud and crowded with other kids ;) Brooklyn didn’t mind one bit! She thought it was pretty fun to wear the fireman gear and press all the buttons inside.

Back to the diner! They even had a supermarket where you could “shop” for your food with baskets and check out at the register. Brooklyn bought quite a bit of food as you can see ;)

I only got one picture of it, but another area was a “mechanic shop” where you could charge an electric car. There was also a veterinarian office (that I didn’t get a picture of) with stuffed animals and doctor kits for giving them check ups. So many neat things to do!

One of Savannah’s favorite things to do that morning was milking the cow. You could pull on the cow udders and “milk” would come out. Brooklyn thought it was pretty neat too! Then we made one last trip to the water play area, and it was time to go eat lunch. By this point, we’d been in Itty Bitty Magic City for at least 2 or 2.5 hours, so everyone was hungry!

After eating a good lunch in the food court (the girls were hungry after playing so hard), we all got some energy back. We then headed downstairs to the underwater area. They had a tank where you could touch sting rays and sharks. I didn’t get pictures of it because I was too busy trying to help Brooklyn or Savannah touch one, but they really thought that was neat! They also had all sorts of fish in different tanks. We found some that looked like Nemo and Dory!

Back upstairs, this was the biggest hit on the main level. You could push the little pegs back and forth from one side to the other and make an imprint of your face or hands. The girls thought this was great! If it hadn’t been so crowded with other kids, they probably could have stayed and done this for a long time.

Can you guess who’s who??? We were all cracking up!

Top left: Brooklyn (see her face and hands above it??)

Top right: Savannah (with a paci in her mouth…haha!)

Bottom left: Daddy (see his thumbs up?)

Bottom right: Paw (I loved the imprint of his glasses!!)

Making huge bubbles was trickier than it looks! We made a few big ones though :) My favorite picture is the top right one. Not sure what they were smiling about, but it turned out cute.

Savannah was worn out by this point! It was after 1 PM, and she’d been going going going all morning.

This little maze was pretty neat! You could open the doors all around the outside to bring the ball toward you. Brooklyn had fun with this for a while until some bigger kids came and kind of took over ;)

Proof that Mommy was actually there! Photographers don’t get to be in too many pictures unless you take a selfie :)

One of the last stops of the day: building with these huge foam blocks. Daddy helped the girls build a huge cave and attracted several other kids along the way who wanted to be part of it. I loved how stuff like this was fun for kids of all different ages!

On the way into the museum, one of the first things you pass is this bed of nails. We asked Brooklyn first thing that morning if she wanted to try to lie on it, and she said no. But she got brave when we passed it again on our way out to the car! She loved it and wanted to do it 3 or 4 times in a row.

We had such a fun time at the McWane Center! Even though we live almost 2 hours away, I almost think we could make a membership worth it. I think we’d only have to visit 2 or 3 times a year to get our money’s worth. There was so much left that we didn’t get to see because everyone was getting tired by about 2 PM, so I know we’d love to go back sometime soon. Just looking through these pictures has gotten me excited thinking about how much fun we’d have going again. Thank you, Paw and Rae Rae, for the awesome birthday gift for Brooklyn! We all enjoyed the day!