The Excitement Is Building

 …The excitement and expectation of the arrival of Isabella Alaina. 

Our daughter Holly is 33 weeks along and doing so well, however the doctors do not expect her to go the full 40 weeks.  A week or so ago Holly and Richard were home (from Florida to Alabama) for a weekend filled with baby showers.  They received tons (really) of wonderful and thoughtful gifts, hugs, love and well wishes from lots of family and friends.  It could not have been any better.  Here are a few photos shots from one of the showers.

The door hanger I made which was hung on the door at the church

Thank~You favors

 

Daddy's Love Bug

Watermelon drinks in frou frou jars

with stripey paper straws

Richard and Holly with God's blessing

As you can see by the invitation insert above, we asked

that everyone attach a book instead of a card to their gift,

leaving a special note to Isabella inside.

She got lots and lots of books that we will enjoy reading to her.

 

This is the book I chose for her. It also reminded me

of Holly....when she was little, she loved to go!

I called her Holly-Go-Phillips!

On Monday we arranged a photo shoot for maternity shots of Richard and Holly.  They turned out so darn cute… thanks to the magic of Framed and Frazzled Photography.

She also took the shots at the baby shower too!!

~One of my faves~

~Too Sweet~

~~LOVE~~ 

After a FULL long weekend, Richard, Holly, Isabella and fur baby Willow returned home to Jacksonville and low and behold they got caught in the flooding from Tropical Storm Debby.  A portion of I10 was closed with water over the interstate so they had to detour which led them to an accident on I75…an 18 wheeler had overturned stalling traffic to a dead stop for miles.  Now use your imagination here with me and picture a 32 week pregnant woman sitting in stalled traffic in the pouring rain with a dog who has a small bladder.  Yep you guessed it…..they got out on the side of the highway in the rain….Hey nature calleth!  They finally made it home through more flooded back roads etc. which turned their 4.5 hour trip home into an 8 hour long tiring ride.  But God is good….He got them safely home….Amen.

Jackie and I have just returned from the 4^th of July long weekend visit, where we finished out Isabella’s nursery.  Well almost finished that is…they still lack the floor covering. They just purchased this house and the carpet was so bad it had to be ripped up....leaving a cement floor for now. 

There was a lot of painting, hot gluing, burned fingers,

and creating before it all came together. 

Happi Tree designs and the door hanger that I made.

This is the chest of drawers that we used for Holly when she was born.

Of course I had to strip it down to the wood and repaint it.

These are Holly's bonnets and baby shoes and

Richard's cap and his baby shoes.

This is a birdie mobile that I made.  They are made

from wood and match the birds in the Happi Tree design.

They hang in front of an antique framed mirror.

God is so good to us!

The frou frou corner.  Holly and I made the feathered lamp

and the feather and tulle covered table.

The rocker came from a dumpster in LA.  Holly found it one day and

it was in perfect condition....Jackie and I stripped it down and painted it.

See the before photos here in another post.

The changing table is an antique buffet which I painted, added

some scroll work and replaced the knobs with pink glass ones.

 From white feathers and tulle froufrou …all the way to hanging a mirror in an antique frame, everything turned out beautiful.  Holly wanted me to paint the brown baby bed….but I refused to paint another thing!!  It would have looked better maybe, but I think it looks very nice with the brown tree trunk and birdie limb hanging from the ceiling.  Next up in the near future is the flooring.
We cannot wait until the arrival of Isabella.....the excitment builds everyday along with a little anxiousness, but our faith and trust in the Lord far outweighs both! 

  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh

 down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,

neither shadow of turning.  ~James 1:17.