Joanna Gaines makes heartbreaking admission as teen daughter prepares for milestone moment

Joanna Gaines has admitted she doesn’t know how to “prepare her heart” as her eldest daughter Ella prepares to move out for college.

“It’s like you’re losing the one that you go on the weekends to get coffee with and shop at the antique stores. I’m like, ‘Where’s my friend going?'” Joanna told People.

Ella, 18, is in her senior year of high school and it sounds like she will be moving away from their home outside of Waco, Texas. Joanna’s eldest Drake, 20, moved out in 2023 after he was accepted to Baylor University in Waco.

“I was so sad,” Joanna said of Drake’s decision to move into the dorms. 

“I couldn’t believe how it hit me because Chip always says I’m not super emotional. I’m pretty steady. But, I think just the idea that I realized that [that] one moves out with that one kid, it triggers something now where it starts feeling everything goes fast.”

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Joanna has been open about how her children;s absence has impacted her, writing an essay for her Magnolia magazine in the months after Drake first left.

“In the grand scheme of heartbreaking things, this one comes with a lot of gratitude and excitement,” she wrote at the time, though noted: “Still, my first child is moving away, and our family dynamic will change because of it, and that can feel like a loss of its own.”

“I catch glimpses now of what that life will look like and wonder if — or how many times — that might bring me to the floor,” she confessed.

The Magnolia Network founder and her husband Chip are parents to five children; Drake, Ella, Duke, 16, Emmie Kay, 14, and Crew, six.

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She keeps her teenage children out of the spotlight but has shared several snaps of Crew, including most recently an adorable picture that showed the young boy dressed in a cozy sweater while he slept soundly laying on top of a fuzzy blanket. 

The sunlight streaming through the window gently illuminated the little boy’s face. Joanna captioned the adorable photograph: “My little dreamer.”

Drake is now in his sophomore year, and Joanna, an interior designer, previously revealed that she had helped to decorate his dorms – only to discover that the following day he had made his own changes.

“The day that I leave, he’ll send pictures to his siblings and then they’ll show me,” Joanna shared.”It’s all about lighting. So he wanted more lighting. He bought some lights on Amazon and strung them throughout his whole apartment, now it looks like a club.”

© Courtesy of The Paley Center For Media

Over Christmas Joanna and Chip had a full house again, as all five children were under one roof for the festive season.Joanna shared a video of the family pitching in together to make candy.

“Sharing some of our simple, tried and true favorites,” she captioned the clip, revealing some of the delicacies they’d prepared for the year.