Fun Pictures from Sept and Oct 2010

Here are just some fun pictures from the past few weeks of our little family.

Halloween 2010

For Halloween Karsten was a giraffe – a crazy giraffe! He loved his costume. The first time we let him try it on he played and danced around the house for an hour. On 10/30 we went to our ward’s trunk or treat and chili activity. My mom, brother, nephews, grandpa, and Margaret came along with us to celebrate! My nephew Che was Ironman and Rylan was a bee…a sleepy bee. We handed out candy and had a good time together. On Halloween we put Karsten back in his costume and let him run around the house for my birthday party, he enjoyed it again!

First time playing...





Trunk or Treat







Karsten and his pumpkin

Mother Nature's Farm

In mid-October we took another trip to a farm, Mother Nature’s Farm in Gilbert, AZ. We went with our friends, the Cox Family. Karsten loved the petting zoo at the farm where he got to see and pet baby pigs, a mama pig, a cow, some sheep, a goat, some chickens, and other farm animals. We also rode on a tracker hay ride, and Karsten picked out his Halloween pumpkin, ran through a hay-maze, and had lots of fun running around with his friend Eli. Afterwards we went out to lunch and enjoyed some Mexican food…yum!

Trip to the Dairy

In late September we went with some friends to Shamrock farms, where Karsten saw his first cow in person. Karsten really enjoyed seeing the cows, playing at the playground at the farm, and of course getting to see his friends. I thought it was pretty interesting how they make their milk, process it, ship it, etc. We also got to see the organic farm (yum) which I was pretty excited to see…well I got to see the cows making my yummy milk and dairy products.
According to the farm in order to be a cow at Shamrock farms the cow must give birth once per year and they control mating…you know to prevent brotherly sisterly love. So basically they have 10,000 female cows at varying levels of pregnancy and post pregnancy hanging out together…if I thought about this as humans…wow that’s a lot of women together all pregnant or having babies..a bit scary.
The day we were there, and at the time of the tour we took they had 15 baby calfs born since midnight (we went on the 10am tour). Apparently, they have babies pretty constantly there – which is pretty neat. They also said they don’t buy their cows, they just keep the babies and raise them up to stay on the farm.
I expected the farm to smell like…well cows you know…but they keep it pretty clean so the smell was very minimal. I highly recommend taking their tour, it was a lot of fun.