First and foremost, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Jones family!!  We are all really looking forward to our Christmas break, but as you could guess, the kids are most excited of all.  Check that, Eliot is most excited of all…the Fab Five don’t really get it, but they do get a huge smile on their faces every time they see Santa…or his reindeer…or elves…or Christmas lights…or presents….or, or, or…let’s just say they are pretty big fans of anything Christmas!!  Unfortunately, I cannot say much more than that because “officially” I can’t say much about anything we’re doing these days…hint, hint…    :)

This holiday season we have something to look forward to that is almost exciting as the Christmas celebration – we taped a segment of The Oprah Show!!!!!  Our segment airs on December 28th so set your DVR’s if you are headed out of town for the holidays and when you watch be careful not to blink or you might miss us!  We were onstage for eight minutes, but we’ll see how long the segment actually ends up making the cut.  We actually taped the show in early November, but couldn’t say anything about it until now.  It was a quick trip and incredibly surreal (it still doesn’t feel like we really met Oprah!!).  They flew us up to Chicago on a Wednesday, we taped the show on Thursday morning, and left the studio to head straight back to the airport to come home…talk about a whirlwind!!  And you won’t see any pictures of the show on this site because they just about strip search you as soon as you walk in the studio door and take all phones, cameras, , writing utensils, paper, and etch-a-sketches and then they use that memory eraser thing from Men In Black when you leave…and you thought airport security was bad!!  The topic of the show is reality TV stars or something like that so we were there along with the people from “Dirty Jobs,” “Deadliest Catch,” “DC Cupcake,” and “Cash Cab.”  And no, we didn’t get to meet any of them – we were sequestered to our own little green room both before and after the taping.  Come to think of it, we have no evidence that we were actually there so the airing on the 28th will be as big a surprise to us as it is to everyone else out there!!

To make up for the fact that we have no pictures from the Oprah experience, I went ahead and posted pics from another quick, little, super-double-top-secret trip we took this fall – New York City!!!  That’s right, don’t adjust your monitors – the entire Jones family, Six Pack and all, took a weekend trip to NYC for a TLC photo shoot!!  We had a blast taking the kids to Times Square, Central Park, F.A.O. Schwartz, and soaking up as much of the city as we could in a three day weekend!  Again, we have no evidence that we were actually there for anything other than a weekend trip, but I promise you’ll be seeing some really cute and fun promotional pictures on TLC and their websites before too long…I hope you will, anyway!!  By the way, if you ever want to get TONS of attention just take five babies to Times Square…wow!!

So that is all I have for now except to say that we all wish you a very merry Christmas!!  And we hope that you take some time away from the craziness and busy-ness of the holiday season to remember the reason for the season…

“Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them.  They were terrified, but the angel reassured them.  ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said.  ‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.  The Savior – yes, the Messiah, the Lord – has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!  And you will recognize him by this sign:  You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.'”  Luke 2:9-12

God Bless, y’all!!

Hmm, what to say, what to say…?  It’s been a wild month, but we are unfortunately unable to speak publicly about most of it………….hint, hint?? :0

No, that doesn’t mean we have been filming, though we wish the cameras had been along with us on our many adventures this month!  (We STILL have not heard whether we will be picked up for a second season or not!) But it does mean that the good vibes have been flowing from those who hold the fate of “Quints by Surprise” in their hands and they have given us plenty to be excited about in spite of the absence of the news about the show we are anxiously awaiting!

So as I sit here, staring at my computer screen, contemplating the content of the rest of this post, the whole Six Pack is quietly playing with Whitney, one of our steady hands who has been with us since the beginning, and Casey is cooking up the season’s first pot of chili…hmm, hmm good stuff coming my way soon!!  We are coming off of a pretty busy weekend – Casey and I snuck out for a date night on Friday and on Saturday we celebrated Summer’s and Angel’s birthdays here at the house.  Because the girls (Summer and Angel) joined our family in the early stages of the quint invasion we have unfortunately not been able to devote as much time to them as we would have liked and as we originally had planned when the adoption papers were being approved by the necessary authorities.  Their birthdays are only a couple of weeks apart so we invited them down for an extended celebration.  It was so good to have them here and to have the opportunity to focus on having fun and loving on them finally!

Read here for the story of how Summer and Angel joined the family:  Summer and Angel and It’s Official.

It is amazing to think back on the last two years of our lives and consider that what I would imagine is one of the most life-altering events that can occur in the life of most any other family has had to take a back seat (for lack of a better term) to the other events that have commanded the attention of this family.  I consider this to be one of the less-than-ideal side effects of a life lived with the quintuplets, though maybe that is the way that it was intended all along…for Summer’s, Angel’s, and my parents’ benefit as well as for our own.  It is pretty amazing to think back to the day we met Summer and Angel for the first time.  They have come so far from the rough and tumble little girls, two loaded weapons that packed a serious punch to your gut with the story of their lives up to that point.  It is such a blessing to witness the impact that heavy daily doses of love, care, and respect from parents who adore them is having on these two little spirits…what a joy!!

In other news, we just completed another epic Jones family picture day and the sneak-peek results are displayed on this page.  Picture day was our typical, crazy-stressful-jump-up-and-down-sing-a-lot-of-songs-gripe-at-Eliot-for-goofing-off-when-the-rest-of-us-are-trying-to-smile-and-keep-the-babies-engaged-with-the-photographer kind of day, but we are thrilled with the pictures and can’t wait to see the final version!  Thank you once again, Ella Bella Photography, for your smiles, patience, creativity, and talent!!  And also thank you to Little Miss Princess Tutu for providing the tutus and to Birdie and Peanut Snap-Cessories for providing the headbands and flowers! :)

The Fab Five have been busy exploring new and creative ways of giving me and Casey a few good laughs and a whole lot more gray hairs…just imagine the trouble five, 21 month old, inquisitive minds can get themselves into!!  Lila has been giving us all kinds of fits with keeping her diaper on and the contents contained…the girl is very creative when it comes to removing clothing and emptying a diaper!!  Her new night-night outfit is (in order of layers from skin out) diaper, duct tape, jammy pants, onesie over top of the jammy pants…she is a fashion diva!!  Mind you, I say this all with love of course, but Lila has proven to be a devious little devil over the last few months!  Her exploits have included the aforementioned poop throwing, as well as blankie stealing, hitting, cracker stealing, and other quite hilarious yet totally worrisome acts of rebellion.  Just the other day I watched her steal a snack from Britton when Britton wasn’t looking.  When Little B discovered the missing treat and voiced her protest, I told Lila to give it back (she had not eaten it yet).  She immediately shoved the whole thing in her mouth and looked at me with puffed out cheeks and her bright, blue, innocent eyes which were clearly saying to me, “too late, sucker!!”  And that’s where she was wrong…the treat was recovered before she could chew, Britton was happy as could be upon its return, and Lila spent a few minutes in timeout to consider her crime (or more likely to consider how not to get caught next time!).

Though they are not without their moments, the rest of the gang seems to be a good bit less troublesome than Miss Lila-Bear.  We have five little parrots who are eager to identify everything in the room and all of your little body parts whenever you have a conversation with them…eeeeeyyyyyeeess, nnnoooooooosssssee, eeeeeeeeeeeaaarrrrssss, ppppphhhhhoooooonnnneee, bbbbaaaabbbyyyyy…so cute!!  They are doing very well with learning how to eat with a fork and spoon, how to dance to Eliot’s favorite music (Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” is a hit in this house!), and how to pray before meals.  Oh, and how can I forget??  They are also learning, well Brooklyn is at least, how to turn a light switch on…and off…and on again…then off once more and on again real quick………….you get the idea.  We discovered this after we listened to them playing in their beds for an unusually long time one night, followed by Lila throwing a fit before the noise and the chatter all finally went away.  When it had been quiet about 15 minutes, I went upstairs to check in and try to determine what it was that had them so riled up.  It did not take long to discover the source of their enthusiasm…their room was lit up like it was the middle of the day as Brooklyn had apparently figured out that she could reach the light switch from her crib!!  Can you imagine how many times that light went on and off before they all had had enough fun??  And poor Lila apparently did not like falling asleep in the bright light, but Brooklyn was either asleep already or did not want to turn the light out for her sister…hilarious!!  The next morning when Casey went in the room to get everyone up, the first thing Ryan said to her was, “Brooklyn light!!”  Looks like Ryan can be counted on for some inside information whenever mom and dad need intel in the future!!

So life has been interesting around here…who would have guessed?  We hope to have more for you soon…believe me, we’re dying to know if there will be a second season or not!!  Either way, keep checking in with us because if there is one thing we know for certain it’s that things will always be happening in the JonesLife!! :)

God bless,

Ethan

Halloween was a busy, fun, awesome time in the Jones house this year…surprise, surprise, right?!  We started the day with pumpkin carving and cupcake baking and ended it with costumes for The Six Pack, a costume change for Eliot McKenna, trick-or-treating for the whole gang, and eight worn out Joneses (and two worn out volunteers – thanks, Jen and Megan)!!  Eliot’s official costume was Jessie from Toy Story though we convinced her to dress up like a Japanese Geisha with her sisters…they were ADORABLE!!  My main man Jack was the child sensei, keeping tabs on all of the crazy ladies in his life…yeah, right!  I bought the outfits on my trip to China and Japan last May and we had planned on using them for Halloween for quite awhile, though we were holding out in case we thought of something better before the holiday rolled around.  I’m glad we stuck with it because the costumes turned out great and it was an awesome time putting it all together!!  The gang did awesome, even through the face powdering and hair painting, and we all survived one big, happy, messy, fun Halloween!!

In other news, we have not yet heard from TLC about a possible season 2…bummer, for sure!  But we are enjoying the break and living as normal a life as possible.  I was told today that the network has received a lot of positive feedback about the show so thank you to everyone for sending in your good vibes for us!!  We are hoping for more episodes and feel like things are heading in that direction…we’ll make an announcement as soon as we know!  Here is the link to TLC’s website if you would like to give them your opinion of the show:  TLC Viewer Relations.

Baking Cupcakes 101

Powder up, Ryan!

Lila, Ryan, and Brooklyn are ready for their turn with the spray paint!

Britton, blue dog, and black hair – what a combo!

Jack and black hair – not such a good combo!

The Asian Six Pack

Eliot was channeling her inner Mulan…

Not the most civilized of family pics, but a good one nonetheless!

The official costume for Eliot McKenna – Jessie from Toy Story

We are bummed that the 1st season of “Quints by Surprise” has come to an end!  Everyone has been so incredible and supportive of us since the show started airing so it is sad to see it go.  BUT, we are keeping our fingers crossed for many more to come and hopefully soon!  TLC has not made a decision yet as to whether they will bring us back so we will let you all know as soon as we know!!  There is a silver lining to the show ending, however…hopefully now I’ll have more time to focus on the blog……   :)

By the way, if you would like to message TLC and let them know your opinion of the show, go here:  TLC Viewer Relations.

Before we get to the pics, I wanted to share a few videos that a couple of JonesLife friends put together for our Gang of Six.  We love these videos…thank you, girls!!

Here we go for round two of the film day pics.  Princess Party Palace and Snake Farm here we come for a day of Jones Family fun!  As the pictures below attest, the princesses had a blast dressing up and being girlie-girls!  And Jack, well, I took the boy to see a bunch of crazy animals and eat barbecue…you don’t need pictures to know he had a great time!!

Pre-Party Palace Pic – Eliot is enthused, as always…

Brooklyn’s princess diva sixth sense had kicked in and she wanted to get inside!

Britton is born to be a DIVA!!

Lady Lila

Ryan put her inner lion to rest for the day…

Brooklyn loved it!

The Four Princesses

Princess Party Time!!

Can you say “Ring Leader”??

My beautiful Casey Ann…always a princess, never a queen! :)

And we can’t leave Jack out.  Here we are on our trip to the Snake Farm…sorry, the photographer had the day off…haha!

First off, thank you to everyone who has commented on the blog, emailed us, tweeted us, hit us up on Facebook, or otherwise reached out to support our family and the show!  The response has been overwhelmingly positive, inspirational, heart warming, and full of love, love, and more love!!  And to know that so many people out there are pulling for us and praying for our little family is quite amazing…THANK YOU!!!!!

And now on with the show…or blog post…or whatever…

Now that several of the shows have aired, we are allowed to post pictures of the days we were filming.  It is sooooo hard not to tweet or share stuff with y’all when we are filming, but it would be a big no-no if we did so!  We haven’t been filming for a bit now which has actually been a little weird.  We have gotten used to having the crew around and really consider them an extension of our family (not because they are around that much, but because they are great people to be around!!).  But even though we aren’t filming, the craziness around our house continues.  Eliot is in full swing of 1st grade and of course loving every minute of it, The Fab Five are all growing like weeds on steroids and surprising us each and every day with their antics, and Casey and I are still enjoying the ride!!  I have a heckuva story to tell about Casey’s birthday celebration (she told me I must brag!), but that will have to wait until next time.  For now, here are some pictures of our Summer of Fun!! (This is the first of a few blog entries that will be mostly pictures – I can’t fit them all into one post.)

P.S.  Check us out on Facebook for more pictures of the day’s events!

P.S.S.  Since I know you’ll be asking…the Baylor outfits were purchased at Spirit in Waco and the hair bows came from www.birdieandpeanut.com.   :)

With these beauties at our side, Jack and I are two lucky dudes!!

Sooooo nervous!

Daddy’s little Baylor Bear :)

The Jones and Krueger Clans made the trip from Denton for the day!

Family picture day was a STRUGGLE!!  Heat, humidity, and cranky babies!!

Amy’s Ice Cream – their first time to have the cream…mmmmm’ good!!

Deep Eddy’s – do you think she was ready??

Our little cowgirl got to go horseback riding for the first time – thanks, Ann Marie!

Welcome home from China, Daddy…soooo good to be back!

And the first stop when we got back?  Where else, but Rudy’s BBQ?  Britton is a fan of the SAUSE!! :)

Wow, it seems like the moment our family has been waiting for has taken FOREVER to get here!!  TLC has just announced the series premiere date, the new official name of the show, and we are thrilled, thrilled, and more thrilled with the way everything is developing!  First – the title:  “Quints by Surprise”…yay!!  Second – the date:  August 30th at 9:00pm Central…double yay!!!  Finally – yes, this is a series, not just a one time deal which makes the show on the 30th the series premiere…you know what’s next:  triple yay!!!!!   I don’t know if I can say how many episodes are planned at the moment or how many have been filmed so I won’t say, but I will tell you that they don’t call it a series for nothing!!

Wow, it has been a wild, crazy, fun, super-sized kind of summer for our family with cameras in tow most every step of the way!  Honestly, it has been a little frustrating to not be able to tweet or blog about all of our adventures which makes the airing of the new shows all the more exciting for us!  So set your dvr’s and mark your calendars for the premiere of “Quints by Surprise” on TLC!!!

God bless,

Ethan