Chrissy Probst, Julianne Rawlins, Lauren Hardcastle, Meghan Voss: These amazing women planned, coordinated, and carried out the evening events. These are my GIRLS! I LOVE these beautiful, amazing women! We decided Friday morning to do this ceremony, so they had exactly three days to pull it off. They are angels and wizards!
Bret Wright from Huish Construction: We seriously love this man. He didn't know us when he first saw a post on facebook asking for help and he has stepped forward as the builder-- a job he has already spent hours and hours and hours on. He is donating all of his time. Truly, Bret is one of the greatest guys we have ever known.
Jamie and Mickey from Walker Home Design: These are the guys who have drawn up the plans for the home. They are INCREDIBLE. (The guys AND the plans!) Again, this has been done free of charge. Holy cow.
Jodi and Amber from Children and the Earth: These women are so selfless. Their foundation gives and gives and gives without the overhead that many foundations have. They have been amazing to our family and because of our affiliation with them, people are able to have their donations be tax-deductible. They have blessed our lives tremendously.
Munchkin Radio: Mike was called Friday afternoon and was able to fit us in to his busy schedule for free. He is an amazingly talented guy and his music/prizes/games kept the night fun for the kids. All of my kids love this guy.
Great Harvest Bread: These guys are so great! They donated 200 huge and super yummy cookies for the event. They are also helping with fundraising at their store. WOW.
Honeyville Farms: Donated the hot chocolate. These are the same guys that have helped us with flyers, fundraised $2,000 AND donated some food storage. Amazing!
Karman Schulz Photography: Took all the awesome pictures I'm about to post. Karman has also agreed to do a time-lapse photoshoot of the home going up. (:
Mia Love: I know. Can you believe Mia Love came? This lady is the real deal. She was so thoughtful and sweet and personable and wonderful with our kids. I have no doubt she will continue to do great things in our community and nation.
Holly Richardson: "Holly on the Hill" has been generous enough to share her insights and connections with us during this project. Holly and her husband have adopted TWENTY kids (wowza!) and when their home was destroyed by fire, their community (Pleasant Grove) did their own "Extreme Makeover" for Holly's family. It was Holly who shared this project with Mia Love and many others. Thanks, Holly!
Coralee Moser: A city councilwoman who has been so supportive of this project. Such a nice lady.
Jill Kynaston: Ok, I just had to mention Jill specifically because I was so impressed by her. Jill is a blog reader from Payson (an hour away) that messaged us awhile ago to offer her brother's help on the project. She is the sweetest lady ever. I've never met her, but she drove all the way up here from Payson with her three adorable littles just to be here and support us. Seriously. Can you believe that?
Russ and Candice Smart: These two amazing people are not only our laundry fairies and surrogate grandparents for our kids, they have also offered to do outdoor lighting for our home-- we are THRILLED. Last night they came over to our house to drop off laundry and we visited for awhile. After they left, Jeremy said, "I have to say, I'm so in love with those guys." Perfectly put.
FRIENDS: It made me feel SO GOOD to have friends and neighbors come out and support us. Thank you to EVERYONE that was there. I wished I had had the chance to thank you all individually. We are so blessed to have you in our lives.
Ok, and I'm not sure how appropriate it is to thank our Heavenly Father on the blog rather than privately, but I just have to point out that we woke up to lots of snow on Monday morning. We had so many people praying that things would clear before the groundbreaking. At about 2:00, I spoke to Mike from Munchkin Radio who thought that he probably needed to back out because of weather. I looked outside and sure enough, the snow was really coming down. As you can tell from the pictures, our prayers were answered in a beautiful way. We even had some sunshine. God is in the details. (:
My awesome friend, Julianne, emceed the event. She welcomed everyone out and introduced many of the people mentioned above. She let Jeremy and myelf say a few words and of course we both blubbered our way through that. I was so overcome with emotion and gratitude-- my heart was seriously just bursting inside. Jeremy dedicated the ground with a most beautiful prayer/blessing. Among other things, he blessed it to be a place of refuge for our children and others, where they would be protected spiritually and emotionally and that it would be a place of great service. Parker read a poem he had written after school that day. It was awesome-- I'll include it at the bottom. Our family, along with Bret, Tami, Mickey, and Chrissy, were then able to simultaneously turn the earth with gold painted shovels-- how cool is that? Once we dug a few shovelfuls, other kids came up and took turns while we all visited, had refreshments, and watched the kiddos have a blast with Munchkin Radio. There were lots of fun prizes given out.
In other words, it was PERFECT.
I wish you all could have been there, but since you couldn't be, here are lots of pictures from Karman:
The lot
Lexi meeting Mia Love
Cali meeting Mia
Tami and Jodi from Children and the Earth
Jer shaking hands with Mickey from Walker Home Design. His son, Jamie is standing between them.
Russ and Candice (can't really see their faces, but they are our laundry fairies), Bret (our builder) and Jamie (architect)
Julianne introducing our family
Me blubbering
Graci, Bret, Amber and Chrissy (the woman who started it all)
Cali, Parker, Jer, Graci, Me, Lexi, Sophi, Elli (helping her is Missy, her teacher at church), Xander, Chrissy, Jesi, Taylor, Bret, Mickey and Amber
Parker reading his poem
Cali's cute friends: Rachel, Kara, and Jessie
Julianne, Jer, and Holly
Amber, Jamie, me, Jer, and Mia
Jer shaking hands with Tim from Honeyville Farms
Coralee Moser from Herriman City
Parker's poem:
Today’s the day we’ve waited
for
We’re finally breaking ground
And as I’m standing here
I see great people all around
It was a magical day
The day we got the call
And Chrissy told our family
That she would help us all
Our family is quite special
With lots of different needs
Well, this house will take
care of that
I hope you all agree
Like in the house we live in
now
With Cali’s wheelchair
It’s hard for her to move
around
And it really isn’t fair
Elli is amazing
We all love her so much
But in our house right now
She ruins all our stuff
When we build our new house
She can jump and sing and
play
She’ll do that in her special
rooms
That will brighten up her day
This is the greatest miracle
That we have ever known
And we just want to say
We love you, Puzzle Them
Home!
