I was working in the office this afternoon (I work from home) when we had one of those moments.  We have kind of a busy house as you might imagine and from time to time, as it seems to in everyone’s life, things started to happen all at once.  These moments do not happen very often, but they are not too uncommon either, and we’ve grown accustomed to such bouts of busy-ness in our little world.  Here is what happened in the span of about fifteen minutes…

Eliot and I went upstairs to play with the babies for a few minutes as two of the volunteers were getting ready to leave. Before the two volunteers left another arrived followed a couple of minutes after that by a second volunteer, both ready to play with babies for the 3:00 shift.  Right after that, a third volunteer arrived unexpectedly to drop off a casserole she had made for the night (dinner…thank you!)…and of course she came up to say hi to the babies…who wouldn’t?!  So now, we’re up to five volunteers, five babies, one Eliot, and one supposed-to-be-working dad.  As the dinner-bringer exits, I hear a knock at the door, but do not see anyone out there so I forget about it as my phone starts ringing…I didn’t make it in time to answer.  As the phone stops ringing, the doorbell begins its chime, but again, no one is there.  So I head downstairs to see why we seem to be the victim of some pranksters only to discover that a friend has stopped by to see the babies…unexpectedly…that happens a lot…

What are we up to now?  Oh yeah, still at five adults, five babies, one Eliot, and one supposed-to-be-working dad because one volunteer left and the friend came in.  Alright, so we’re settling in, two volunteers are heading out, two are getting their hands on babies, the friend is doing the same, Eliot is playing, I’m refereeing, and yes, the phone and the doorbell both start to ring…again.  This time I make it to the phone and guess what, it is a contractor I work with who is in the neighborhood (literally) saying he needs to stop by…awesome timing.  And the door?  That is one of Eliot’s neighborhood friends coming over to play for awhile. So I go downstairs to meet the contractor then quickly head back up to pick up where I left off, which I think was holding Jack and occupying Britton.  The friend stayed for about ten minutes and had to head out (I think he had had all he could handle!) so I walk to the door with him.  And as things begin to settle back down, the count which will remain for the next 30 minutes or so is two volunteers, five babies, one Eliot, one friend of Eliot’s, and one still-supposed-to-be-working dad!

And, oh yeah, the whole time this is happening Casey is in the bedroom laying down in recovery from the shower she had just taken…recovery from the mommy makeover is a bit ssslooooooowwwww…

And now, this supposed-to-be-working dad is writing a blog because I’m having a hard time concentrating on the work that I was supposed to be doing…imagine that!

Thank you to all of the volunteers and friends who help to keep this house hopping!!  Good times in the JonesLife…I just had to share!

Eliot is the Photographer!

Alright, so I’m sitting here, freezing my tail off (it is 65 degrees in here!), in a hospital room that will house Casey and me for the next 24 hours or so.  Casey is in surgery at the moment and probably will be there for another couple of hours as they work to repair the damage done by the Fab Five’s seven month lease on life inside Casey’s belly.  More on that in a few days…

This is how you roll when you've got eight on board!

Now on to the recent past…the Thanksgiving road trip.  Oh boy – the trip, the trip, the trip!  Were we a bit too ambitious with our decision to take all five ten-month-olds on their first road trip – a typical four hour quest – over the Thanksgiving holiday?  Hmm, I’d have to say and emphatic “Yes!” to that.  However, we needed it, the family really wanted it, Eliot loved it, and the babies, well, they’re babies and they’ll never remember it!

So here’s the deal.  We hadn’t been home in what was getting close to two years.  Everything happened so fast after we found out about the five that we didn’t have time to sneak up to Denton for one last visit before life went into overdrive.  We tried to go up last October, but had to cancel because Casey was already feeling really rough and we did not want to put her on the road in that condition.  Obviously, our parents have been down quite a bit to see us, but nothing feels quite like going home and being a guest in the town you grew up in.

The trip up was eventful enough as what is normally a four hour jaunt up I-35 quickly became a six hour trek.  We stopped in Waco for a bite to eat and yes, we took the babies inside the restaurant!  That was actually a lot of fun because we had never been anywhere with all five where others around us didn’t already know about the babies…oh, the looks that we got!  One lady just had to come over to take a peek at the TRIPLETS…and just about hit the floor when she saw the other two…funny!  After that, there was a more urgent pit stop after Brooklyn threw up which seemed to set off a chain reaction of general fussiness out of all five.  We won’t mention the part where I left from that pit stop with the trailer door wide open and pulling over on I-35 to close it…I was a little frazzled, ok?!  Wait, did I not mention that we had to borrow a trailer to make this trip possible?  Oh yeah, no vehicle exists that I know of that can transport our family along with all our stuff under the same set of wheels without the driver having a commercial driver’s license!

Welcome to the tiniest restaurant in Waco - Health Camp!

When we finally made it home, the babies had had enough fun for the day, but we weren’t done with them yet!  I guess it’s not every day that your son/daughter comes home with their five babies so both sets of grandparents had parties planned for their friends to meet the babies while we were up there.  My parents got to go first so we walked into about 30 or so folks, eager to grab a baby and expense some good lovin’.  Casey’s family had a similar arrangement for the Friday after Thanksgiving.  In between those two days, aside from the added challenge of caring for the quints while also putting together a huge Thanksgiving feast, the holiday was as it normally is – lots of food, lots of football, lots of family and more of the first two to cap off the evening.

The trip back was about as eventful as the trip up, but we managed to make it in a little less time.  There were two stops again, but this time we all stayed in the car.  And right about Waco, the babies were done with traveling and were quite eager to let us know about it.  You could clearly see the relief on their faces when we finally got them back to familiar surroundings in Jones Baby Central back in Austin.

So we made it…we survived the first of what we expect will be many road trips in our future.  Were we a little overly ambitious?  Yes, I really do think so.  It was a ton of work, complicated by the resurgence of this nasty, little, lingering cold the babies have been fighting for the last three months.  At times, Casey and I felt like we were roadies on the Fab Five World Tour – only thing missing was the free swag!  There were also plenty of assurances to the family that they would likely not see us in Denton again anytime in the next 2-5 years…

Nobody gets out of the car on the way home!

But I must admit that it was worth every ounce of effort.  The parents, family, and friends certainly appreciated us being there (and were also thrilled by every bit of love they were able to expend to help keep the calm!).  But more than that, I think it did the three of us a lot of good – Casey, me, and Eliot, I mean.

Going home for the holidays is just what you do in this country and that is what we have always done in our family.  It’s rarely easy and it’s always too short-lived, but it’s what you do.  And it felt really good to be home, to be surrounded by family…

…to struggle simply for the sake of being together as family.

Our lives have been so far from normal for so long that we have forgotten what normal is anymore.  Our familial traditions have either been turned upside down, have limped along unrecognizably, or have been cancelled altogether over the last 18 months or so.  And somehow, amidst the chaos and the crying of crabby babies and the added stress of a population boom amongst the Jones and Krueger households, being home felt normal again.  And that fact alone, without a doubt, made this trip worth every ounce of effort it required to make it a reality…just don’t expect it to happen again anytime soon!

Hello!  And welcome to the new look of The JonesLife!  What began as a simple desire to make the blog page look a bit more slick has morphed into this – a whole new website complete with the new look we were after as well as new features and a more refined purpose.  It’s funny to see how a solitary idea can snowball into something so much…well, not so solitary after all!

I’ll give you a quick tour to get you acquainted with everything…

• Above the JonesLife banner, you will see the links to the different pages on the site.  There is a distinct purpose to this site which you will discover on the “Shine On” page.  As with the original site, Eliot has her own page, “Little Miss E~”, with an update on her world!  We’ll update that page with pics, videos, and as many of her wacky quotes as we can keep track of!  We will provide frequent updates on the ever-growing, ever-changing Fab Five through the blog posts and on most every other page on the site.
• Below the JonesLife banner are the different blog categories.  We went back through all of the blog posts and categorized them for easier following.  Each new post will be categorized as well.
• All of the categories are pretty self-explanatory except for “Gotta Have It!”  This is one of the more exciting parts of the new site for us and will be evolving quite a bit over the next few months.  Read more about what that’s all about by following this link:  http://joneslife.net/wordpress2/2009/11/gotta-have-it/.
• To the right of the categories, there is an orange button that says, “RSS”.  If you’d like to make following this blog a bit easier, click that button and follow the instructions to get an email every time we’ve updated the site…cool, huh?!
• The “Featured Posts” box will highlight a small group of the more popular posts that have been done along with any other special features we’d like to highlight at the moment.  Just click on the picture to visit that post!
• Below “Featured Posts” are the most current blog posts with the latest one appearing in the biggest box.
• To the right, we have some of the features of the old blog – Twitter Feed, Blog Comments – and a new feature – Flickr photo feed.  The Flickr photo feed will be constantly changing as we move along through this life, camera in hand, ready to capture the moment!  The side bar will continue to change on a fairly regular basis as we come across cool new features and other stuff that we’d like to share with y’all…fun stuff, to be sure!

Of course, this site will revolve around the happenings of the Quint Crazies and their impact on this family as it always has so check back often for baby updates, pictures, videos, and general wackiness from Brooklyn, Britton, Jack, Lila, and Ryan.  But the coolest thing about this new format is the opportunities for community growth that we have strived for from the start and also the fact that this is only the beginning of what we hope to accomplish by sharing our family life with as many folks as we can!  That snowball that started to roll a few months ago has really picked up steam and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon!

God Bless!

Thank you, Kelly, for putting that video together of the Fab Five…hilarious!! Hope everyone has a safe and happy
Halloween from Tinkerbell, Casper, and the Four Plumpkins!!


God Bless,
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net

Jack William, aka Big Bad Jack, aka Laid Back Jack, aka Mr. Happy now has a new nickname…Mr. Giggles!  Too dang cute!!

The picture on this video isn’t great, but if you like the sound of baby belly laughs then this is for you! Ryan and Brooklyn were having a blast…doing what, no one will ever know!!





Eliot and Ryan had some fun together the other day…very cute!





Y’all enjoy!!
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net