Tag archive for "holidays"

Oprah and The Six Pack and a Little Christmas Cheer

Good Times

Oprah and The Six Pack and a Little Christmas Cheer

38 Comments 23 December 2010

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!!

Halloween with The Six Pack and a Quints by Surprise Update

Good Times

Halloween with The Six Pack and a Quints by Surprise Update

41 Comments 02 November 2010

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

The Thanksgiving Road Trip

Good Times

The Thanksgiving Road Trip

2 Comments 30 November 2009

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!

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!

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!

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!

Good Times

Happy Halloween from the Jones Six Pack!!

Comments Off on Happy Halloween from the Jones Six Pack!! 30 October 2009

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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

Eliot

A Rockin’ Valentine’s

2 Comments 16 February 2009

As has become our annual tradition on Valentine’s day, Eliot and I went to Build-A-Bear to find the perfect bear to add to her collection. I started this tradition for her first Valentine’s and we’ve been every year since. In years past, it’s been a lot of fun for me to watch her take it all in and try to get her to understand what was happening. Every year she did better than the last, but she never quite got the concept which made for some fun times. This time was cool because it was the first year that she really knew the program and fully understood what she was there to do. The result was one very fluffy panda bear named Spots and one very happy little girl!
As you can see from the pictures, I decided to add a little adventure to our annual Valentine’s tradition. Once the Build-A-Bear mission was complete, off we went to The Main Event where they have an incredible indoor rock climbing facility. Eliot had tried to do climb one of these walls about 18 months ago at one of our church events, but she was way too small. I really don’t think she was officially big enough to do this one either, but the staff didn’t check her and we didn’t offer it up. As you can probably also tell by the pictures, what she lacked in size, she made up for in attitude…there was no fear in her as she attacked these 30′ walls!!
On the first couple of tries, she got stuck after she got about 1/3 of the way up on the vertical walls so I moved her over to one of the angled walls. She quickly scrambled her way to the top and rang the bell! After that, there was no stopping her. She handled about five of the different walls, including two that were vertical and one that had a pitch change about half way up. She went for an hour non-stop – I had to drag her off the wall when our time was up!!
To understate it just a bit – I was one proud daddy! Not so much with how well she did, but with the spirit she carried as she took on this new challenge. I didn’t tell her anything about what we had in store for the day so she knew nothing about the rock climbing walls until we got there. When she saw the walls and realized what we were there to do, she was all in. She didn’t get frustrated when she got stuck and she even ignored my attempts to coax her over to some of the easier walls. She simply said, “I just have to try, Daddy. As long as you try, you can do it, right?” Though not 100% accurate in her statement, I was bursting when she echoed back to me one of the many lessons Casey and I have tried to teach her from the day she was born!
I’ve always been a little cynical about the most pernicious of the Hallmark holidays, but I’ve got to say I am now a full fledge convert to the ways of the Valentine. To put it simply, Valentine’s ROCKS!!!
God Bless,
Ethan

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