On a quiet stretch of pasture in Washington, Missouri, children sip pink lemonade beside grazing sheep, teenage boys cradle baby rabbits like prized possessions, and a miniature donkey named Belle prepares for her next wedding appearance. It may feel like a page torn from a storybook, but Little Dreamers Barnyard is very real and very much in demand.
Founded by Sarah Case-Murphy in 2024, Little Dreamers Barnyard offers highly curated, full-service experiences, ranging from bunny tea parties and mobile petting zoos to therapy animal visits and festival appearances across the St. Louis region. With a background in law enforcement and healthcare, Case-Murphy brings a blend of safety, structure, and compassion to her work. The immersive, low-stress events are designed not only for adorable photo ops, but also for meaningful, memory-making connections between families and the herd of 41 animals.
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At the start of the custom experiences, Case-Murphy explains, kids typically hover uncertainly outside the pen. Given time and gentle encouragement, they edge closer. By the end of the event, many are inside brushing sheep, hand-feeding goats, or sitting cross-legged in the hay with a rabbit tucked in their arms. (Even “too-cool” teenagers linger in the bunny pen, she adds with a laugh.)
“When you let kids come at their own speed, you can watch the shy or anxious just melt away,” she says. “Sometimes all it takes is a bunny in their arms or a cow lying down beside them.”
Behind the scenes, those calm encounters are the result of hours of preparation. Case-Murphy researches each breed, selects animals with the right temperament, and spends countless afternoons desensitizing them to loud noises, unpredictable movements, and sticky toddler hands. “We probably look like maniacs sometimes,” she says. “But I need to know they’re not going to spook when there are 30 kids running around.”
That steady transformation doesn’t happen by accident. A former elementary school resource officer and longtime labor-and-delivery nurse, Case-Murphy is trained to anticipate chaos before it unfolds. “I’m hardwired to think about safety and structure,” she says. “I plan for the worst and hope for the best, so when families show up, it just feels effortless and joyful.”
That attention to detail extends well beyond the animals. For Little Dreamers Barnyard’s signature bunny tea parties, Case-Murphy and her team handle nearly everything: child-size tables and chairs, place settings, décor, and snacks for the rabbits. Setup and cleanup are included, with parents simply providing the food for guests. “We try to leave it better than we found it,” Case-Murphy says of the traveling pop-ups. “I don’t ever want us to be the stress point of someone’s special day.”
The Background
For Case-Murphy, the leap into full-time entrepreneurship came in 2024, after years in high-intensity roles. She began sketching out a business plan at her kitchen table, looping in her family and slowly transforming the Washington property into more than a family farm. If they were going to do it, she decided, they would do it thoughtfully. That meant traveling finding the right animals, expanding pastures, adding shelter space, and learning the intricacies of caring for dozens of animals with different needs.
“It’s been humbling,” she says. “There’s been a lot of learning and a lot of late-night calls to the vet. But they deserve for us to get it right.”
The business has become a family affair. Her husband, who grew up working on his grandparents’ cattle farm, handles tractors and fencing. Her three children—ages 14, 13, and 5—are rarely far from the action. On many afternoons, her youngest can be found in a princess dress paired with cowgirl boots, bottle-feeding lambs or coaxing sheep to eat from her palm. The older two help load trailers, prep animals, and occasionally name the newest additions to the herd.
For Case-Murphy, those everyday moments are as meaningful as the events themselves. In a world where nearly anything can be delivered overnight, she believes that families are searching for something less tangible and more lasting.
“Most of us already have everything we need and most of what we want,” she says. “What sticks isn’t the toy from four Christmases ago—it’s the memory you made together.”
That philosophy has resonated across the St. Louis metro area. Little Dreamers Barnyard has a busy calendar of birthday parties, school festivals, senior living visits, and community events this year, with spring and fall weekends filling fast. Around the holidays, demand spikes even earlier, so Case-Murphy recommends that families reserve dates at least a couple of months in advance. After all, she explains, there are only so many chances to create such childhood magic.
“I just want kids to feel safe, seen, and a little bit braver when they leave than when they arrived,” Case-Murphy says. “This whole thing was a leap of faith. But seeing the way these animals bring people together, I would take that leap all over again.”
