Grandpa Hammen's 90th Birthday!

Last Sunday was my grandpa's 90th birthday. (See last year's pictures here.) This is a great picture ... old fashioned in hand.

Our Hammen Family Grandpa with his great grandbabies.

(Both girls had already checked out at this point, can you tell?)

Grandpa has this cute little fountain on his deck just asking to be splashed in. (Of course her duck came too.)

Ember was having a good time dunking the duck in the water and then putting it in her mouth. Mmmmm!

...the end result...

Here's to wishing Grandpa another wonderful year!

As someone at the party said,

the first 90 are the hardest!

a night in

After our adventure at the zoo we hung out with Brian, Summer and Aubrey. You're probably tired of hearing me say this ... it's SO fun to see Aubrey (had her 1st bday August 4th!) and Mallory progress. Both are mobile and it made our evening quite interesting. It's hard enough to keep one toddler in sight sometimes, but watching them chase each other made me dizzy!

We couldn't believe how much taller/longer Mallory is! (It must be the Hammen genes in her.)

...playing nice...
...sharing...

Aubrey and her two-handed princess wave in her princess chair!

Mallory would apparently prefer to stand.

Zoo (a la carte)

Last Saturday Casey, Mallory and I went to the ZOO with Kevin, Jill, Ember, my dad and Lynn. It was a special weekend at the zoo called zoo a la carte where 26 vendors from all over the Milwaukee area come to set up booths so all the patrons can try the delicious food! (Do other zoos do this too??) Needless to say, this day at the zoo actually ended up being more about the food than the animals. Collectively we tried things like garlic cheese rangoon, sandwiches in the styles of corned beef(Casey), pulled pork, club, and gyro (Casey), pizza, cheesecake (not me, can you believe it?), ice cream (me, TWICE :)), corn dog (Mal and Ember), corn on the cob, chocolate covered bacon (Kevin), homemade raspberry iced tea (of course, me), Arnold Palmers (lemonade mixed with iced tea). One word: YUM-O.

Even without the food it was a PERFECT day for the zoo. It was cool (even more so since it's near the lake), but comfortable and everyone knows the best part about overcast days at the zoo ... the animals are ACTIVE!

With Mallory's affinity for ducks, she was not amused by this sign. :)Grandpa made her smile early on with a $1 gift shop purchase. A new DUCK. A princess duck to be exact. (Ember got a fiesta duck wearing a sombrero, see below.)
We saw LOTS of ducks this day and Casey brought up an interesting point. Why are rubber ducks yellow? Other than that a brown rubber duck wouldn't be very cute or attractive, I've got nothing. It's a topic Google will have to help me with later.
Mallory and Ember really wanted to touch these ducks. They were SO close. All I could think about was how much the ducks would probably like to bite little fingers.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this huge rack! It's so oversized it reminded me of the Grinch tying the antlers on his dog to look like a reindeer. Anyone?

A trip anywhere with Grandma Lynn would not be complete without a taste of something chocolate. In this case it was ice cream.

Watching MORE ducks.

... baby kisses ...

Unbeknownst to this guy, I snapped a picture of his crazy awkward looking shoes. My brother and I were super creeped out by these, but I have a feeling they're probably wicked comfortable.

... smiling at her daddy ...

My grandpa loves giraffes, so I took lots of pictures for him. Quite interesting creatures when you stop to think about it.

This does not look the least bit comfortable, but he (she?) didn't seem to mind.

Ole!

hey, wanna hold hands??

Sure!

I love how the girls look like they're just standing around having a conversation.

Both girls were obviously more interested in the goings on at the zoo than they were in May. The day was definitely a hit! (and free, again, thanks to Jill's fab hook ups from work.)

Ember Time!

While Casey and Mallory were in IL celebrating Meme's birthday (see pics here) I was busy with my cousin's shower and got to play with Ember!

She and Mallory LOOOOOVE this toy ... so much to see and do!
Don't you just love the tie dye? Her onesie and the one Mallory is wearing here were both gifts from our friend, Sarah ... it's her signature baby shower gift. :)

smiley, cutie, blue-eyed, three toothed, adorable, cuddly baby

Ember and Daddy!

Just for the record ... SOO funny, you'd think being minus a husband and busy baby for an entire weekend would have felt like freedom (you know what I mean) ... but I was bored.out.of.my.mind. I missed them like crazy and didn't know what to do with myself! The only bonus was being able to sleep in a little longer than normal.