Stacie Toot watched Friday as her children wandered around the three bedroom, two bath house that will soon be their home and smiled. It was a lengthy process, but now, thanks to Mountain Spirit Habitat for Humanity, Toot will within weeks, for the first time, be a homeowner. 

There’s one thing in particular she’s excited to be able to provide for her two children, ages 7 and 11. 

“I’m very excited for a yard, very excited to be able to get us a dog, because I didn’t want to do that in an apartment, it’s just not fair to anybody,” she said. “So I’m excited to be able to expand our fur family.”

And Stacie, who assisted with painting the house, is grateful to have had the support of the Habitat community, ever since she first applied in late 2024 and was accepted early the next year. 

“I wouldn’t be getting it without Habitat, and I have been very adamant about that with everybody,” she said. “I’ve been telling everybody, apply, apply, like this is amazing. And I would be forever a renter in an apartment if it weren’t for them. So I’m excited to be, with their help, getting my kids a yard and a home.

A former apartment neighbor was there to greet Stacie and her children Khloe and Evan — Shianne Gifford was there with her bunch of excited youngsters three-and-a-half years after her, her husband and their oldest were finally able to move into their new home on New Hope Drive in Cody. 

Since then her sister-in-law with her family has moved in next door, giving her children a chance to play with cousins, and she has met more young families in the area. 

“It’s nice to have more families here,” she said while holding her youngest. 

There is room for six more houses in the development, local Habitat Executive Director Rachel Williams said, and then the organization will have to look elsewhere to build, potentially in Powell. 

Those six lots won’t take long to fill up, as Williams said contractor Jim Atnip likes to be working on two at once, which means it could only be another few years before the subdivision is filled. 

So, as full of young kids as Friday’s open house was, it’s likely future open houses could feature even more smiling youngsters. 

“It’s fun because there’s new young families moving in, which is exciting,” Habitat board chair Amy Wells said. “So all these kiddos … they’ll all kind of get to grow up together.”