This is a blog about our journey of adoption from the beginning;
typed by me, written by God.

Monday, October 29, 2012

God's Miracles

God constantly amazes me with his miracles all around us and his answers to prayers.

One major example:

We said "God, we have mice in the house. What do we do?" God said, "Here's a cat".

Hahaha. True story:

So, a couple weeks ago, we started noticing mouse droppings. Figured, well we will keep all food covered and not worry about them until we see more. Few days later, the hubby leaves one of his breakfast muffins in a baggie on the counter and the next day we see mice nibbles on bag and in muffin. So we started thinking about how we could get rid of this problem. You see, we live outside of town, on 2 acres of land, so: "we are surrounded by this thing called nature and mice happen" - Lorelai Gilmore, Gilmore Girls  :)

We prayed about it and decided to buy a couple mouse traps. Fast forward to a couple days ago. Our friend was over and we were just hanging out and talking. All of a sudden, he stops and says "do you have a cat?", hubby says "no". We giggle, but become quiet and hear this tiny meowing. Hubby and friend go outside and see a kitty on the porch acting like it belongs here. We gave it a piece of deli ham and put a water bowl outside for her. She hasn't left. The dogs were in the house one night and we opened the door to go outside, trying to block them... well, kitty meows, and out goes 2 dogs pushing me into the door. Kitty goes up into our pecan tree. We bring the dogs back inside and talk to kitty as she learns to climb out of the tree. We were excited when she got down by herself! Now we don't have to worry about her getting stuck up there. I've found her in the tree playing with leaves a couple times too  :)

Hubby made her a small house in the carport with a milk crate and towels. She likes it. We thought, well, we will keep her as a outside cat and see if she learns to kill mice for us. The next day (yesterday morning), we notice one of our traps has caught a mouse  :)  Hubby figures, let's see if she will learn to eat mice. He drags the trap around teasing her a little and she grabs the mouse out of it and immediately started eating it. We left her alone, went back outside a couple minutes later and it was all gone. Good kitty!

Last night, I see a little thing moving near my bookshelf of kids books, and so do the dogs, but of course it was too fast for them. So, I put the dogs outside and bring in our little kitty. She looks around, because she hasn't been inside before, but then picks up on a mouse trail. She heads into our office (which is where we've noticed them mostly), and lies down and waits. A mouse comes running near her, and pow! She caught it in her mouth and ate it  :)  I was so proud of her! Although it was quite disgusting to watch. haha
I left her in there for a few more minutes and she got another one, then comes trotting out like "ok, now what?!" We both saw another one on the kitchen floor as I was taking her back outside and she runs and catches that one too! Though she decided to play with that one until it died and then ate it. Happy kitty tummy tonite  ;)

We are thrilled at how fast she is learning to fend for herself. She likes her little house, drinks her water, plays around on the wood pile, in the tree and teases the dogs from the outside of the fence, and she loves us. She lets us pet her and plays with us a lot now. She even kisses my toes when I'm barefoot standing outside with her  :)

We have named her Tiger:
Meet Tiger

She loves playing (yes those scratches on my hand are from her - she's getting better at not scratching though)  haha

She's so sweet

"What are you doing? I wanna see!"

Isn't she so cute?!  :)   Yes, God is so amazing. He definitely helps His children when they ask for His help! He continually amazes me with all He knows and how He protects us.


In other news... Our adoption is moving along great as well. Our baby boy is due in one month!! I'm having a baby shower next weekend and I'm soooo excited!  :)

Thanks for all your support! Bye for now  :)

Saturday, October 13, 2012

First Pictures

We received wonderful news about our baby boy this week. The birthmom had a sonogram on Wednesday and her advocate called us to tell us about her appointment.

Our son is at 5.5 lbs right now, so he's right on track! His heart is still looking great and his kidneys and GI tract have no obstructions!!! They originally saw the skin on the back of his neck that was thicker than normal a few months ago; but now it looks healthy and perfectly normal.   :-)

They believe that he will be very high functioning and since he's growing normally now, he should continue to do so! They also think his due date will be a week earlier, so he is due now November 30-December 1ish  :-P

We got our first pictures of our son too! Here they are:

 Isn't he perfect and so beautiful?!  :-)  ok, maybe I'm biased  ;-)

He was moving around so much they could hardly get pics. He kept sticking his thumb and fingers in his mouth too! He's so cute!!

So, we are very excited about this good news and are anxiously awaiting his arrival!  :-)

We are almost to our goal of $8,000 for the adoption. We know that's how much the whole adoption expenses will be. Thanks for all your help!
We are still looking for helpers for our Both Hands project as we will be working on our friend, Judy Valentich's house; cleaning and weeding her yard. If you can help or would like to sponsor us working (100% of proceeds go to our adoption), please let me know. Thanks so much!!  God Bless  :-)

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Both Hands project

Hi friends!

Well, we have been busy preparing for the addition of our little boy to our family! He is due December 8th and we are so excited.

We have one fundraiser going on now as well as a Rescue Mission we are doing soon:

1) Pampered Chef online party (30% of proceeds are going to our adoption) - Through October 14th!


If you'd like to purchase anything to support our adoption in this way, please go to: www.pamperedchef.biz/marthacalmes   Click on 'Shop Online' and Enter in "Hurley" for the host name


2) Both Hands project (details below) - 100% of proceeds are going to our Adoption!


Project will be November 24th and we will have more information to you soon if you'd like to help!

      
Helping a Widow… 
Helping an Orphan


Dear Friends and Family,
As you all know, we've been going through the process of adopting a wonderful child from here in the United States. We started the adoption process in March, completed our Home Study in May. We have just been matched with a baby boy from California! He is due December 8th and has Down Syndrome, but as of now, he has no heart problems! We have raised a bit of money, but are in need of more help. We will need to pay for the agency services, an attorney to finalize the adoption, and for Early Intervention for our son when we bring him home.
Right now, that’s the hard part because it’s all expensive. However, we are very confident that God is going to provide a way; and a very interesting fundraising idea has made us believe that all the more.
If you can use a tool, clean a window, paint a wall, stuff envelopes, make phone calls, arrange food, or simply pray… then we need you! With your help, we have a chance, not only to raise the funds necessary to bring our baby boy home, but to also serve a widow, just like it talks about in James 1:27. Here’s how it works:
Caleb and I find a widow in need (we have selected a friend and sister in Christ, Judy Valentich, from our church who is wheel-chair bound, on oxygen and isn’t able to get around much). We then assemble a team of our friends to complete a Both Hands Project. Then the team (including us) would send out letters to family and friends asking people to sponsor us for the day, as we work on this widow’s house.  All the funds raised go toward our adoption.  It’s just like asking someone to sponsor you for a 5K Run for the Cure.
This idea has been done over 100 times around the country already! Attached is a link to a video that might help give you a good idea of what the Both Hands Project is all about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98PD-O97N3I
Here is my request. Would you consider being on our team? You may be jumping up and down like I was and saying “pick me, pick me” or you might have several questions. Please give me a text/call or email me if you're interested in praying, sponsoring workers, and/or volunteering to work on the house (landscaping and minor cleaning).
Thanks for even considering it.

Caleb & Caitie

i www.BothHandsFoundation.orgi
i One for the Widow – One for the Orphan i



You can join the Project on Facebook at:
You can donate to the Project online through Lifesong for Orphans (100% of the proceeds go to our adoption) at:
http://bothhandsfoundation.org/caleb-and-caitlin-hurley



If you'd like to help us get ready to bring our son home, we have a couple registries open:
Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/registry/baby/3DAT7DWCQZP86
Target - http://www.target.com/baby/registry/VPWYlThZboaNhJhwdDvkFg


More soon to come about our son!  :-)

Thanks for all your help and God Bless!!