“I prayed and prayed and prayed for this,” said Neely. “I thought this wasn’t going to happen until I got into the wheelchair!”

Food Network star Gina Neely announced this week that she is going to be a grandmother. The 56-year-old chef and entrepreneur’s eldest daughter, Spenser Lewis-Neely, is reportedly expecting and due in August.

“I am exploding with happiness,” Neely told People Magazine. “My heart is so, so, so full right now. I’m really ecstatic. I’m like, screaming with joy every minute. My first grand baby! I am just crazy about it. I really can’t believe it!”

Gina Neely announced this week that her oldest daughter is having a baby in August, and that she’s thrilled to become a first-time grandmother. (Photo: Donna Ward/Getty Images)

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this day? I prayed and prayed and prayed for this. I thought this wasn’t going to happen until I got into the wheelchair!” Neely jokes. “I told my daughters, ‘Step it up, I want to enjoy the baby, too! I want to be playing with it, helping with it — you gotta hurry things up here!’ And my first born, my lead girl, my 33-year-old, she came through!”

Neely told the entertainment magazine she plans to go by the nickname “Gigi.” It was painted on a mug Spenser gave her for Christmas to announce the baby news.

“They all kept it a secret from me,” Neely recalls. “Everybody was in on it. Spenser told everyone and made them keep it from me because they wanted to record my reaction. I came home and went to get undressed, and they said, ‘Mom, what are you doing? Put your clothes back on you have one more gift to open!’ And then next thing I knew, Shelbi was filming me.” Shelbi Neely is Gina Neely’s 27-year-old daughter with ex-husband Pat Neely.

Neely previously co-hosted the hit Food Network show Down Home with the Neelys alongside her former husband. The popular chef couple filed for divorce in 2014. She bemoaned the period with her daughters when “we weren’t as close as we are now.”

“After I split from my ex, we were all in our pain. I was in my pain, they were in their pain, and not everyone was ready to step back and remove themselves,” Neely told People. “And there was always a concern of mine that we would never find that level of closeness again. But I kept on working it and working it, and I’m really, really happy because our relationship now is stronger than ever.”

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