Maksim's Room Completed!!!

FINALLY, I have the final product ready to share with the blogging world :) It's been a long time coming...about 7 1/2 ish months and Grant and I worked hard on it! I wanted something modern and not typical and yet still fun! I think he will be able to grow up in this room too (at least for a few years) and I still got to stick my designer knowledge in there too!

Here's the rundown of the room:


1. I started by picking out the fabric...the black fabric with elephants, birds, giraffes and other zoo animals. I originally wanted a fabric with owls on it, but it was way too expensive and I am so much more excited about this one! The fabric is from Fat Quarter Shop and it is a Michael Miller fabric. I chose two of his fabrics...one as the main fabric and one with dots in different colors to coordinate.  I had my friend, Hannah, ask me if the fabric I bought just happened to be Michael Miller (even before she saw it or I described it to her) because she thought that looked like me! My friends know me so well!

2. I handed off the fabric to my seamstress, Jenny Beth Rodden, of The Preppie Peonie who did an excellent job of making the draperies and bedding for Maksim's room! She's taking orders now!!! (The above picture with the black blobs are my sweet cat, Jack Bauer, and my handful, but sweet Puggle, Reilly.)


3. I debated on the wall color for a while. I didn't want to do the typical blue for a boys room (not that that is a bad thing....I just wanted Maks' room to be different and outside of the box). I visited one of our close friends, The Metcalf's, house to see their BEAUTIFUL baby's room, Eleanor or Ellie, and right next to the baby room was their upstairs bathroom done in yellow stripes! I don't remember if it was wallpaper or paint, but I loved it! So....then started the long, grueling process of painting stripes. If you get up really close to the stripes in Maks' room then you can see pencil markings, but I am ok with that. If someone has an idea on how to remove those, I am all ears!

4. After that I started working on wall decorations! I got a text from a good friend, Laura, one day who had seen my fabric and was in Hobby Lobby one day and saw these wall pieces that were black, big, and zoo animals! So, I put those on my list of "must-haves" and waited for them to go on sale to 50% off. Because they were 50% off, they did have a few bumps and bruises on them, but nothing that spray paint couldn't fix! (See picture below...we are still working on the dresser, but you get the idea).

5. I don't remember exactly when we stumbled upon this website, but Grant and I were keeping our eyes open for Maksim's room as well as for some decorations for our Arlington youth room at Christ Church and one day Grant sent me this website, Dali Decals, where he had found an awesome tree, gorilla, birds, squares and some other decals for our youth room. Little did he know that I had stumbled upon the same website as well! I was already getting ideas galore for the room! Grant purchased and applied the decals at the church and they turned out GREAT!


The idea to use a tree decal in Maksim's room came from my above friend mentioned, Hannah. She has a daughter named Ivy who has a white tree (I believe) in her room.


A quick note on Dali Decals, they have been beyond AMAZING to work with. I was hired on to design two large areas at Hope Church here in Cordova, Tennessee and Dali Decals did several custom decals for us along with some decals that are on their website for the two areas I worked on. They were extremely helpful and wanted to make sure we were 100% satisfied...and we were! Another blog on Hope Church's designs will come soon!


So, all of the decals in Maks' room are from Dali Decals. The green tree, the birds, the owls, and the elephants. I can't speak enough good about the company!

6. The furniture is from the ole faithful Target! The brand is Delta and the crib is one that you can "transform" into a big boy bed when the time arises! I hear time flies with the babies! We did have a little trouble with the dresser, but the company made it right (after about 3 months)...it was Delta's issue, not Target's.


7. And, luckily, my parents bought Grant and I the glider for our anniversary back in March! So nice!!! And, the little baby rocker is from an Amish community in Ohio that Mom picked up for me on a trip to see family back a few months ago! Also, if you see that white thing that looks like a coaster on the side table...that is a handprint of Grant's from when he was around 5 years old. We hope to do one of Maksim, too and put them side by side....a little sentiment there :) So that it doesn't get mistaken as a coaster, I will probably buy a small stand to prop it up.

8. The letters for Maksim's name were from an idea I stole from our friend, Laura, who just had a baby, Isabella! I believe her sister made the letters, so I wabbled down to Hobby Lobby and found these white, wooden letter cut outs (which would have been pretty on their own) and I bought scrapbooking paper to go with our "zoo" theme and spray painted the letters and placed the scrapbook paper on top of the letters and used a small box cutter (an exacto knife would have worked better, but I couldn't find my floral printed one) and just cut away the excess paper. I was pretty proud of the end result! One of the letters was trial and error because I rushed it, but I fixed it...no biggie! We won't say that the reason for the lettering was because I placed the elephants in the wrong spot on the wall. OOPS!

9. And, last but not least, the rug is from Walmart. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I am pleased with the overall look.

All of this was done on a budget. Don't believe me...ask :) I am PRETTY proud! I know that a lot of people say that for the first child you go all out and then you don't want to do the same for the second...but I think I still will....especially with my degree being in interior design! I just love it! And, Grant is pretty good at the designing, too...must come from his artist background!

NOW, all we need is Maksim!!!!

Updates Galore! The Countdown Begins!!!

Yesterday was my 38 week appointment with the doctor and things are looking good! Maksim has dropped (Stage 2 now...he said I was a Stage 3 last week and now I am a Stage 2...I guess all that's left is a Stage 1...whatever all that means,  ha!), 80% effaced and about 1 cm dilated. Sorry if any guys are reading this and it weirds you out. I never thought I would talk in terms of weeks, effacement, dilation, stages, etc! But, here I am!!!


I asked the doctor whether he thought Maks would come early and he was very general in his speaking (I guess they are so scared of getting lawsuits that they can't speak freely) saying that he could be in our arms before next week or he could wait until his due date to grace us with his presence! I told him the only thing I am nervous about is that I won't know I am having contractions...or I will mistaken them for little pains...Doctor said I will for sure know. We live about 45 minutes from the hospital so that makes me slightly nervous, but from what I hear, the first one is the longest labor wise.


So, the news for now is that if Maksim doesn't get here before September 8th, then we will head into the hospital to be induced. I told my doctor my fear of being induced too early and he definitely made me feel better about it and said that he just didn't want me going past my due date. He said they like for the babies to weight between 6 and 7 pounds because anything bigger than 8 makes the delivery a little more challenging for the baby to maneuver down the birth canal. I am trying to be as nice with my words to not make anyone feel uncomfortable, here...bear with me!

The countdown for today is 15 days until my due date!!!

Grant and I spent the later part of yesterday visiting new babies! We visited two brand new baby girls from two girls/MOMS (!!!) that I have went through the pregnancy process with at the same time! Here are the beautiful baby girls!!! Maksim has some pretty cute girlfriend options to choose from :)

Isabella Ann Epting

(This is the "Tucker" that I wrote about two posts before)

Parents: Mike and Laura Epting

Laura was 2 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy.

Addyson Ann Butler

Parents: Rhett and Lauren Butler

Big Brother: Reese

Lauren was 8 days ahead of me in her pregnancy.

So, life is pretty much about babies at this point :) Fun! Fun!!!

Here is a little update to our work in Maksim's baby room! We stole this idea from the Epting's where you buy wooden letters and spray glue scrapbook paper to the block letters and then I used an box cutting knife (very small one) to cut the extra paper off of the wooden block letters and the final result were these cool designs! I made a little boo boo with some decals in Maks' room (you will see the final product later with the fix made with these block letters below the elephant decals) so we had to improvise and come up with a cool way to make it not look horrible :)

Here are the block letters that spell out "Maksim" (I used a camera on my Evo phone called "Retro Camera" and it gave these polaroid looking shots) and a picture of our changing table with some new baskets added (boring stuff to some, I would assume!)

On another note...

Today in my quiet time I read about "The Evil Personality". The scripture was from Revelation 2:12-13. Basically it just talked about how Satan runs rampant on this planet as John confirmed it in one of his letters: "The whole world is under the control of the evil one" (John 5:19). It says that we don't engage in a philosophy of evil; we fight against evil personalities...so Satan and his demons are very real! I liked the wording I read today where it said: "Forsake all thought of evil simply as a force in this world. Never depersonalize it. Recognize that there is a relentless, malicious intelligence behind all the pain you see....and when all hell breaks loose against you, rely completely on Him." 

I think that I needed to hear that this week. Not that "all hell" has broken loose against me or Grant but we have faced a few challenges but through it all we are confident in our Lord and his ability to take care of us. If you have ever seen any of my old posts, we have several situations where things seemed impossible to see past but the Lord has NEVER, NEVER let us down. It's pretty awesome if you look at things from an eternal perspective. Looking at things and situations from a worldly perspective will always leave you broken down and discouraged. 

'Til next time!!! I am trying to do better with my posts :)

About My Pregnancy

Thought this would be cute to do...

Your name? Angela Nixon

Fathers name? Grant Nixon

Were you trying to get pregnant? YUP!

When did you find out?  I believe New Year's Eve Eve. We had always said we wanted to "get pregnant in 2009 and have the baby in 2010" and I think this was God's funny way of laughing at us and keeping us guessing until the last day of 2009! 

Were did you find out? Blake and Allison Butler's house in their master bathroom...used all the pregnancy tests she had and went to Walgreens to buy some more expensive ones because my responses weren't 100% clear. Funny story...I went to the Dr. the next day and took 2 tests and they were negative and they told me I wasn't pregnant so I got 3 more very clear "PREGNANT"/ "NOT PREGNANT" tests and they were all "PREGNANT". Needless to say, I switched doctors immediately :)

How far along were you? 4 weeks-ish

What was your reaction? SOOOO excited and wondering if the tests were really accurate! Too hesitant of the tests to believe I was REALLY pregnant because some tests came out YES and some came out NO

Who was the first person you told? Grant then Allison and Blake

How did you tell the father? He was there

What was his reaction? So excited!!! We were kind of in disbelief...it was the first month that we actually tried and we got pregnant. I had been off birth control for about 3 months before that though, but we were kind of "family planning" it up to try to not get pregnant until the month when we were trying...and it all worked. 

When is your due date? September 11th at first and then September 8th and that date has been pretty steady

Did you have any morning sickness? Nope. I was extremely lucky. Well, I take that back...I did get sick maybe 2x but I think it's because I took my prenatal vitamins at the wrong times 

What are your fears? Delivery and that I don't know something that I am suppose to know or I didn't bring something I was "suppose" to bring to the hospital

What are you most happy about? Maksim getting here! The nursery! Having a baby!

Did you want a boy or girl? It didn't matter to me

What did the father want boy or girl? Boy :)

Do you know what your having? BOY!

Do you have a name picked out? Yep! Maksim "Maks" Samuel Nixon. See earlier blog posts on the reasons behind the names

How much weight have you gained? HHHAAA! Definitely not saying...let's just hope there are like 3 babies in there so the weight would make sense :)

Have you felt the baby move? YUP! 

Do you plan on a natural or medicated birth? Epideral but nothing over the top medicine wise...I want to REMEMBER seeing my baby for the first time!

Are you scared about labor? YEP!

What do you think will be the worst part of labor? Getting the epideral and the contractions beforehand. I am nervous I won't know what the contractions feel like and I will barely make it to the hospital in time.

Have you taken any classes? Nope

Who will be in the delivery room? Just me and Grant (and the medical staff, of course...hopefully!)

Are you having the birth videotaped? Nope unless Grant and I set up our phones or something but we won't be videotaping anything further down stairs than my belly :)

Do you think you will cry when you see the baby for the first time? I am sure I will!

What do you think the fathers reaction to the baby will be? He just might cry too! 

How do you think family and friends will feel? Ecstatic!!!

Busy, Busy Couple of Months

I may or may not be able to get back to a "normal" blogging schedule, but I do miss it! This may be a long one, but the blogging world may need to be filled in a good bit!


It said the last time I posted was back in June! Wow! A lot has happened since then! Basically the months of May through now are pretty crazy busy with my job, Camp Electric. We haven't exactly slowed down so that's GREAT but the busier part of the job is behind us for now. Camp Electric went AWESOME! We had a great two weeks! We had bands such as TobyMac, Family Force 5, Salvador (my fav!), Cloverton (the band that won Camp Electric's "Rock the Camp" contest...amazing! You will be hearing of them soon!) and a ton more! It was a great few weeks!


Yesterday we had some pretty exciting news from our friends, Mike and Laura Epting! Laura has been exactly 2 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy and I got a call Monday night saying Laura was headed into the hospital having contractions about 3 minutes apart (WOW!) and got updates throughout the night that Tucker James Epting would be here in the morning! So, around 8:30 a.m. we got a text saying Laura was pushing and then from there we didn't hear anything until about 9:30 a.m. with a very simple text saying "Baby was born 8 lbs, 12 oz! Mom and baby are doing great!" and that's was it. So, I get a text from Momma Laura saying to call her. I was thinking that she was gonna fill me in on the delivery since the night before I told her to "remember everything so I will know what's coming". Well, as we are talking, Laura says "WELLL, we have a surprise!" and here I am thinking they had twins but instead, Tucker James Epting turned out to be an Isabella Ann Epting! It's a GIRL, not a boy like we all thought!  From what I understand, the three ultrasounds they had were not 100%-for two of them the baby's legs were crossed and for the one they found out the sex it was a picture from behind, so it was just a mistake. The Dr said that it looked like she owed them a few girl outfits! Here's a picture of me and Isabella!

Since June, I have grown quite a bit in my pregnancy...I am now 37 weeks along and the doctor said this is considered full term so he could be here at any point! We are getting excited but I also realize how much I truly have to do. We got the bulk of Maksim's room done. SOMEONE (ok, me!) had the bright idea to paint stripes in Maks' room (never again...well, unless we pay someone!) will I want stripes. I love the final product but this has been a few months in the making. I am sure this is all common sense, but you have to paint the base coat and then we waited a while and then measured out the lines and then Grant and his Dad drew the lines, and my Dad and Grant's Dad taped off the lines and then the painting came! It sounds easy, but it's definitely not!  Here are a few "sneak previews":

More pictures will come soon! We have a few decals to put on the walls (a 5 1/2 foot tree and a family of elephants!) and a few really cute wall pieces that I am excited to add, so as soon as we have the finished product, I will devote a whole blog post to the room! This baby is pretty much spoiled and he's not even here yet! That blob of black on the carpet is our cat, Jack! We heard/read somewhere that in order to keep your cats out/off of the baby furniture that you need to put aluminum foil in the pieces so we put foil in the carseat and pack n play that Grant assembled last night! Looks funny but hopefully it will keep the cats from intruding in our baby's stuff. I think the animals are wondering what is going on, but they will be fine! 

And, a few final pics of me pre-baby! My AMAZING husband surprised me and my sister, Kristina, with tickets to see SUGARLAND at the Snowden Grove Amphitheater last Friday! I have a few top bands that I love and Sugarland is one of those!!! Here we go for all of you that need my list, ha! 

1. Lady Antebellum

2. Sugarland

3. Carrie Underwood

And, poor Grant pretty much HATES country music and I am pretty much their biggest fan! He's a great sport though! He had originally planned on going with me to Sugarland and then realized we had a youth event planned that night so he got Kristina to come with me. It was an AMAZING concert! Blazing hot, but amazing! Here are a few snapshots: 

Until next time! It won't be as long, promise! Hopefully I will try to update every day or every other day...unless Maksim graces us with his presence earlier than 40 weeks!