Joanna Gaines’ five children are growing so fast – and as daughter Ella graduates from high school and looks ahead to her next chapter, her second-born son is celebrating a major birthday.
Joanna and husband Chip welcomed Duke on May 23, 2008, and as he turns 17 it will be a big moment for the family, as the husband and wife duo are seeing their eldest children grow up and leave the home.
The middle child, Duke, is now in his junior year of high school, and will soon be making decisions about his future, whether that involves college or the workforce.
Sweet 17
In 2024 Joanna celebrated Duke’s sweet sixteen, sharing a video of her decorating their family home with balloons and banners.
“Third time doing this and it still makes mama cry,” she captioned the video, referencing how he was the third child to turn 16 and then later revealing he had passed his driving test.
Duke has appeared on his parent’s TV show Fixer Upper helping his dad in season five when working on a wheelchair-accessible home.
“Shopping with my dad is kind of impossible,” Duke explained to the camera, to which Chip asked: “Why is it impossible to shop with me?”
“Because you look at everything and you’re like ‘Ooh we should buy this,'” Duke joked.
College era
Their eldest, Drake, 20, is currently a sophomore at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, where he’s earned himself a place on the college baseball team.
According to his bio: “Drake is studying business entrepreneurship at UMHB. He played four years of varsity baseball at Valor Preparatory Academy.”
Ella, 18, graduated high school this past week, and has appeared to have taken an interest in her parents’ business as Joanna revealed that her eldest daughter interned for Magnolia in 2024.
“She was interning with me, so she’d be in these meetings where I was like, y’all, I need vision,” she said on the Business of Home podcast. “Like, we need to get back to why we’re doing what we’re doing. And so she was listening and she was interested.”
The mom-of-five has also discussed how she believes Ella will be the one to follow in her parents footsteps, sharing that Ella loves to cook and has considered having a food truck.
© Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty ImageBaby boy
Joanna and Chip are also parents to 15-year-old Emmie Kay, and Crew, six.
She has kept her eldest four out of the spotlight, but often posts pictures of Crew, who was born when Joanna was 40.
© Kimmie SalmonIn fact, he appeared in the summer issue of her Magnolia magazine in a series of gorgeous pictures that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the young boy who asked the family to go for a hike, an activity Joanna quipped she had done very little of in her life.
“But with Crew as our fearless guide, the journey was fun and light,” she wrote adding that “Crew inherited some of his curiosity and sense of adventure (and love of skipping rocks) from his dad, so when Chip and Crew are leading the pack together, there’s almost no stopping them”.
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