Down at the Farm

I am now in charge of our ward's play group, and our Relief Society President graciously offered to give us a tour of her family's dairy farm. I jumped at the offer and we had several moms and little ones show up the morning of October 16. (This post is out of order.)

Sabrina walking with my friend, Karen, whose dairy farm we toured.

"Let me down! I want to run and explore!"

"Now where is that calf?"

Karen's husband told us that the cows are milked at 5 am (for about 5 hours) and at 5 pm (for another 5 hours)!

This is a newborn calf being fed with a bottle.

Ward Halloween Party

I was in charge of the Halloween Party last Friday night for our ward. It was fun but boy am I glad it's behind me! We had a cake walk, a Jack-O game, glow-in-the-dark t-shirt decorating, cookie decorating, a Halloween puppet show, a costume contest, and indoor trick or treating.

Sabrina as a Fairy Princess.

Once again, Darren and I just "dressed up" by wearing t-shirts supporting our favorite sports teams. I just channelled all my creative energy on Sabrina's costume. Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday, but I am sure someday I will "really" dress up.

My two favorite people on Earth.

Brooke with kids at the Jack-O game.

This was my favorite costume of the night by far. This is my friend Kourtne and her son. She is Little Bo Peep and her son is Little Boy Blue. Her mother-in-law made the dress for her without even measuring her! I definitely want to copy this idea when I have a little boy. She even said I could borrow her costume.

Peas and Carrots with their cute little sweet pea working at the cookie decorating station.

My talented friend Holly's cake for the cake walk. (She is beautiful, too, and wouldn't let me take her picture!)

Some wonderfully dressed up ward friends.

The Yellow Riding Toy

I don't know what this thing is called, but it's fun. Plus I am not too heavy to ride on it, too! Sabrina and I had fun riding it down the driveway. Well, actually I had fun. The two of us just rode around on the level ground but she really wasn't interested.

Fun Fun Fun in Oklahoma City

With Cookie. All pictures in this post were taken by my fabulous picture taking dad.

With Papa

With my Grandma Pat

Sabrina really liked playing with this toy. My mom said it only cost $15, and I would say it was worth every last penny. It played demo songs and you could change the keys on the keyboard to play all kinds of different instruments and beats.

She was caught reading, ie wadding up the paper.

Oklahoma City Lunch Group

From left to right: Sabrina, Liz (my mom), Karen, Christina, Chris, Connie, Sally, Andrea, & Valerie. A fun group of women of varying ages and backgrounds.

Every where that my mom has lived, she has created a "gourmet" lunch group. It is usually 8 women. They meet before the start of each year to plan the lunches for the upcoming year. They typically meet once a month except for the summer months. One person is the hostess and she cooks the main dish and assigns recipes for 3 other women in the group to make and bring and the other four women just show up and enjoy. Then the next month the other 4 women cook and the first group sits back and enjoys a worry free lunch that month. The recipes are taken from a local cookbook or a magazine. This group all subscribed to Southern Living (one of my mom's all-time favorite magazines) and they choose the recipes from that month's issue for each month's lunch.

The lunch group was to be held while Sabrina and I were there, so she took us along. It was SO fun. And the food was awesome. It is just as good if not better than going out to lunch at a nice restaurant! I have been fortunate enough to attend a lunch both with my mom's Belle Lunch Group in Dallas, and her NAN (Needs a Name) Lunch Group in Iowa City. I hope someday to create something like this with my own friends.

Flying the Friendly Skies

This is Sabrina in her own seat on Southwest Airlines. We were in route to Phoenix, where we made a connection to Oklahoma City to visit my parents there. We didn't get Sabrina her own seat since she is under 2, but the flight wasn't full so we found a row close to the front beside a nice BYU Alum with her 4 month old baby and had a fun time in our "baby aisle" with just us and our little ones.

We had the BEST time in Oklahoma City. I still love the Southwest part of the United States so much. I got to have my favorites when we were there--Tex Mex (chips and salsa, cheese enchiladas, guacamole, fresh tortillas, sopapillas, pecan pralines), vanilla Blue Bell ice cream, a Braum's Orange Sherbet Freeze, and a Grandy's cinnamon roll. And some great news: My parents will be moving here to Utah (Salt Lake City) as soon as they sell their house and my grandma's townhome!! My dad was offered a job here so they will be here 5 years earlier than expected, since they always planned on retiring here. I can't WAIT to have my parents so close. It will be like having one of my best friends moving back to where I am at. I am so happy that Sabrina will grow up having regular interaction with both sets of grandparents. Plus her Great Grandma Kay lives in Salt Lake and so will her Great Grandma Pat when my parents move here in the spring. Also, her great grandparents on Darren's side all live here in the Wasatch Front.

The Pinkster

The "pinkster" is a nickname my Dad called me when I was little. This velvety, warm dress was perfect for last Sunday--we woke up to snow. The news said we had record cold for October that day.

Just Because

I just loved the expressions on Sabrina's face in these pictures.

My Little Rascal

There is a picture of me pulling plastic sandwich bags out of the box when I was about Sabrina's age. I thought it was funny that now I have a picture of Sabrina having fun with the saran wrap she pulled out of the box.

First Haircut

Sabrina's bangs were getting so long, so my friend Mandy taught me how to cut them. I was pleasantly surprised that Sabrina didn't cry at all. The whole process was so quick.
"Please look up so I can take your picture, Sabrina!"

There we go! (I didn't get this picture until we got home)