Spaghetti, Silent Auction, and Sass!

Mark your calendars everyone! Friday, October 14 is the date for our spaghetti supper and silent auction.  We are holding this awesome event at Golden Hills.  I am so excited.  My Midway ladies are really helping to pull this one together for us.  I have received numerous offers of help, so I thought I'd post some of the things we will need for this event.  If you are interested in donating, feel free!! We are going to make up some tickets to sell so we have an idea of how much spaghetti we will need to make.  Once I have those, I'll put the word out. 
The biggest and best thing you guys can do for me now is just spread the word about October 14 and bring all your friends and family! It is a family friendly event.  There will be a bar and music, but I would love to see kids there dancing it up and keeping us entertained.  Food will be served 7-8:30 for sit in or pick up.  During that time, bidding for the silent auction items will be going on.  Bidding will close at 8:30.  Then, we'll have a DJ or band (whatever we can get our hands on) to crank up some music and let the fun begin.  My "workers" will figure out the winners of the silent auction and we'll announce those around 10.  You won't have to be there to win, we'll give you a call. 
So, here's how you can help:

September:

• buy tickets to attend
• get your friends to buy tickets
• donate items for silent auction (services, baskets of goods, whatever!)
• donate ZITI noodles, sauce, cheese, bread,
• find me a band or DJ!

October:

• Buy tickets to attend and bring friends
• bake yummies for the dessert bake sale
• SHOW UP and BID on items

I'm hoping all this doesn't come off too "give us money".  We really really want this to be a fun time for our friends and family with the added benefit of funding our adoption.  As the details become more concrete, I'll let you know, but for now SPREAD THE WORD - OCTOBER 14!!
Recommending my blog to others will help keep everyone informed.  And really, this is riveting stuff :-)

One step closer

We are one step closer to a baby today.  Yesterday we attended Bethany's all day training session.  We heard from a lawyer, a financial planner, the social workers, two adoptive couples, and a very powerful story from a birth mom.  It was a long day, but so good.  We met couples from all over SC who are planning to adopt.  There was 12 couples total - our competition :)  They are currently waiting on DSS to send over our background checks.  Then we will move forward with our home study.  That will entail first a visit to our house with the social worker.  Then we will go to their office for individual interviews.  Lastly we'll have one more interview at our house.  Once those are complete, we will be officially "waiting".  In the meantime I'll begin working on our "Dear Birthmother" letter and photobook. 
I loved hearing from the birth mom.  She told her story of getting pregnant and giving up her baby and all the emotions she felt and  still feels.  It was amazing.  And the two couples who adopted had the most precious little ones!
The lawyer broke the news to us that we will have legal fees to pay in addition to the $17,500 we are paying Bethany.  So our grand total is now around $21,000.  But, I know the Lord will provide for us as he already has in so many ways.
My friend Sharon and her husband Brian had a yard sale in Arizona today and raised over $1200.  Here are the pics she sent me. 

Next up for AdoptaMixon is the spaghetti dinner and silent auction.  I am so excited about this! We have some great stuff coming in to bid on and it's gonna be a BLAST! Going tomorrow to look at our possible venue, then hopefully we get a date nailed down this week.  And we have coozie's being made so everyone will want to wrap their drinks in those little gems :-)
So much going on!!

Formal application complete... on to the next step

We got our formal application complete and turned in today!! After filling out numerous papers, getting drug tested, TB tested, writing our personal testimonies, doing our health histories, filling out our cash flow, and various other papers, we got it all turned in today. 
Our next step is to attend the training session on August 26.  This is an all day training that they said will cover lots of stuff.  I think we will meet our social worker and hopefully get going on that. 
I ordered 100 prints from Snapfish, so once I get the info on our photo book I think I may hit up some creative person to do the book for me :-) Scrapbooking is not my  strength. 
We are very excited to be moving to the next step.  We have a couple of fundraisers in the works as well, so stay tuned.  We'll be scheduling our Adopt-a-Mixon Nights Out and our "Completing our family puzzle" coming up.
On another note, my little fur baby had his teeth cleaned and one extracted today.  I was a little nervous because he had to be put to sleep, but he is fine and his breath is actually tolerable for the first time I can remember!! Baxley had an allergic reaction to something this week, but he has recoverd as well.  So both the fuzzy faces at our house are doing well!!
I am including pics from our yard sale since I haven't done that yet.
School has started back, so we are in for a busy few months!