Rummage Sale!

 

(Poster designed by my mom!)

We are having a Rummage Sale for our Adoption Fund. It will be on Saturday, June 30th, so if you are in the area, please stop by! We have LOTS of clothes, shoes, 4 TVs, awesome baked goods and lots more!! ALL the proceeds go to our Adoption Fund so it's a great cause!! Please let everyone you know, know about it!!  :-) 
Thanks so much!!

VBS!!

So it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Worked super hard to get to my next level in Leadership with Avon and.....

I DID IT!!!  I get some bonus money from Avon for moving up as well as making more money overall! I'm so excited and the hubby is proud of me.

VBS is going on this week and it has been so fun (and tiring)!! Spent a lot of time the last few weeks ordering prizes, decorations and figuring out how I was gonna teach. This was my first year teaching and it has been great   :-)   My classroom is the Ancient Laboratory and we are learning about Obeying with the 5th commandment.

Here are some pictures of our classroom (big thanks to my sister, Kristi Krohn; as well as my teacher helper, Kristi Bailey!!):

Our backdrop

(Outlined, then colored with chalk)

Walking into our Laboratory

Books on the walls and our "Lab Coats" hanging

up by the table

Most of the Laboratory

Our Bookshelf and "window"

Our Memory Verse puzzle (that took me awhile;

but the kids love it, so it's worth it!)

Our Rules of the Lab, puzzle and commandment

Tomorrow is the last day of VBS and it has been a blast teaching!! The last 2 years I was a teacher assistant, so it was great to be able to be the teacher this year (with Kristi Bailey as my assistant!)!!

On another note, I'm almost done with our Birthmom profile/scrapbook. I will post it as soon as it's done!!  :-)

Birthday Weekend!

So, very adventurous weekend  haha.
The hubby and I headed up to Albuquerque to get a "new" engine for his Volvo station wagon. It's been dead for over a year now.
On the way, we took a detour through Bosque Del Apache. We pulled over to look at some pretty yellow daisies, and:

 He picked me flowers! Isn't he sweet  :-)

Then, we got to Albuquerque and went to a u-pull junkyard to get an engine cheaper than elsewhere. Spent most of the day Saturday in the hot sun finding all the volvos we could and which engine was still in the best shape. Found the one we wanted and spent about 4 hours getting the engine out of the car. Those volvo makers really like their wires and twisting them ALL around the engine!! It was a hard day, but we got it out and loaded in the truck. That night we got Chinese food from Panda Express (LOVE that place!!) and watched part of a movie on tv. We went to bed at like 9:30 which is early for us! We were so worn out. Got up Sunday and made our way to Santa Fe. Thought about going through the Plaza but all the historic places including most of the shops around the plaza were closed. Oh well, we had fun driving at least. Headed back to Albuquerque and went to the Aquarium. That was fun!

 My favorite: bottlenose dolphins!!

That was a lot of fun! I love oceans and sea-life. We spent a few hours there and then headed south to Ruidoso. We were gonna go from Carrizozo to Ruidoso through Hwy 37 but it was a little blocked:

The smoke from the Little Bear Fire could be seen miles away. It's beautiful and tragic at the same time. I feel bad for the people that have lost homes. The smoke made beautiful pictures:

These are the sun through the smoke. On the bottom left of some of the pics you can see blue - that's the sky, the rest is smoke!

We had dinner in Ruidoso for my bday and stayed the night there. Monday morning, we went to Cloudcroft and stopped by the Railroad Trestle that they've helped refurbish. We both love railroads and the history behind it so it was fun to see. They have some info now and you can look out over a ledge at the Trestle:

Beautiful Trestle!

Part of an old Trestle

We got home Monday and I walked into our house to find this: 

and this:

My brother and mom are so sneaky  ;-)  They came over to feed our pups that morning and decorated the house as well  :)

Well, it was a tiring but fun weekend! Not much more to report on the adoption front. We are still waiting for a birthmother and in the meantime, we are just trying to raise money for the Adoption Fund. Sorry if I'm bugging you all with different fundraisers, I just want to have a variety of options about how you can help us if you'd like to. Thanks so much for all your help!!

Scentsy Fundraiser

We have started another Adoption Fundraiser. My awesome friend, Kristin Birge, is a Scentsy rep and she is donating 25% of the sales of our Scentsy party to our Fund!!!  :-)  If you're interested, I am having a small party tomorrow (Friday, 6/8) at 3pm (text, email, or call me for the address) and I'll be showing off a bunch of samples as well as some different scents like Sunkist Citrus and Pomegranate  :)   Please let me know if you'd like to come. It will probably be going on for a couple hours. We will have some food and drinks available too! Join us for the fun!
If you can't make the party (or are out of town), go to: useyourscents.scentsy.us and click on the Hurley Family Fundraiser to shop online! (If you're in the area and want to save on shipping, email or text me your order and I will deliver it to ya!)

We are trying to have different kinds of fundraisers so that everyone can participate how they'd like to  :)

Thanks again for supporting our Adoption!

On another note, the hubby and I are heading out of town for the weekend. FINALLY getting an engine for our poor Volvo station wagon that's been dead for a little over a year! Plus, he's taking me to a movie and dinner for my birthday monday!!  :)  Very excited to get out of town for a mini vacation! Special thanks to my brother for helping us out and watching our pups while we are gone!!

Well, I'll probably post more next week...

Puzzles

We got the puzzles in the mail a couple days ago!

I was so excited to start putting them together, so we started on the Bunny Babies puzzle since it was only 300 pieces. Here's the progress on it:

I convinced Caleb to help me:

 

  He doesn't like being in pictures much. 

But he even admitted that he had fun helping me put the puzzle together!  :-)

Much better picture  :-)

Not a great picture of me, but oh well  :-P

Kinda blurry, but you can still see it

Blazey wanted to help put the puzzle together too  :-)

ALL DONE!

We have 15 puzzle pieces sponsored so far. I have glued the puzzle together and am going to write all the names on the back of all the sponsors! Let me know if you'd like to sponsor this puzzle or the giraffe one!

So, I realized as I opened the giraffe puzzle that the entire thing is MANY different shades of brown! Set all the pieces out and this is gonna be a challenge!!

I started with the border today:

We have about 20 pieces sponsored of this puzzle so far! Such a great start!! :-)  Please let me know if you'd like to sponsor our puzzles. All amounts go into our Adoption Fund!
 

Adoption vs. Abortion

This really makes me sad and sick to my stomach. How can so many people just think they can kill their babies through abortion because they "don't want them" or "don't want the hassle" of kids?! Here we are trying to adopt a newborn/infant and these people just go and abort their babies. There are soooo many families across the US that are trying to adopt and now it's just getting harder and harder since the legalization of abortion and because of more contraceptives and "plan b" items.
I mean, I understand that most people don't care/believe that abortion is murder, but why can't you give the baby up for adoption? Those people that argue about pro choice have already been born. If their parents thought about or tried aborting them, I don't think they would be as pro choice. I'm not trying to get into an argument about "pro life" vs "pro choice". It just sickens me that it's so hard for us to find a baby to adopt because so many are being killed and not even given a chance at life.
Sorry if I'm being too blunt; this has just been weighing on my mind lately.

I know that God has a baby picked out for us. He is leading us down this road to our child through adoption and I can see His hands working in it. Though it's hard a lot of the time (hard to wait, hard not knowing yet, hard seeing tons of articles, etc about abortion), I do believe that He is working to bring our baby home to us. My good friend, Holly, told me that I am waiting with such grace and joy. Thanks so much, Holly, but the truth is that a lot of the time, it's hard to smile. I've hated waiting... it's one of the hardest things in life for me. Waiting for the "right guy" (totally worth it! My husband is the best man, better than I could've imagined a man could be!), waiting to get married (again worth it because we didn't want to have a lot of debt when we got married), waiting to get pregnant... which didn't happen in almost 3 years, so now waiting for our baby through adoption. I know it will be worth it when I get to hold him/her in my arms for the first time. So many people tell me that it's soooo worth the wait. I can see that, but while I'm here in the midst of waiting, it's so hard.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is mostly asking for a request for prayer. Please pray about all the expectant mothers out there that are considering abortion. Pray that they would choose life for their little one... maybe even the baby for us! Please pray that God uses this time to soften their hearts and that He uses my pain in waiting for a baby to be for His glory. Pray for the doctors doing abortions and the people working in abortion clinics that they would see God's light in their lives (and the lives they are about to end) and come to know Him through it all.

Thanks for all your support and prayers!

Puzzle Fundraiser! :-)

We have started a puzzle fundraiser! We purchased 2 jigsaw puzzles that will be assembled, framed and hung in our baby room. For this fundraiser, we are asking for sponsorship of pieces. Once we get each sponsorship, we will start assembling the puzzle. We will write your name on the back of each puzzle piece you sponsor so we will always remember how you've helped us bring our baby home! After the puzzle is completely sponsored and assembled, we will frame it in a double glass frame so we can see the back with all the names as well as the front!

Here are the puzzles we will put together:
1) Giraffe Kiss

This puzzle is 1,000 pieces. We are asking for $2 a piece for sponsorship. You can sponsor one piece, or more if you'd like!

The next puzzle:
2) Bunny Babies

This puzzle is only 300 pieces. We are asking for $2 a piece for sponsorship on this puzzle. Again, you can sponsor as many pieces as you'd like/are able.

I thought both of these were too cute not to buy, so we got both!  :-)
Please email me at kt_hurley@gmx.com and let me know which puzzle you'd like to sponsor and how many pieces you'd like to sponsor. Then, please mail us a check/money order to:
C. Hurley
PO Box 1538
Las Cruces, NM  88004

Thanks so much for all your support and prayers. We really appreciate all of it!! God Bless!!!!!