On November 3, 2023, a 5-pound, 10-ounce baby girl named Leighton Drew Bolden arrived in Forsyth, Georgia, and Trent and Amber Johnston walked into the hospital as Mom and Dad and walked out as something brand new: Lolli and Boppa.
Eleven years into 7 Little Johnstons, the show’s sweetest storyline does not belong to a wedding or a breakup. It belongs to two grandparents who thought the baby years were behind them, and then got them back, better.
November 3, 2023: The Night the Job Description Changed
Leighton was the Johnstons’ first grandchild, and she changed the family overnight. Trent and Amber had spent nearly three decades raising five kids, and suddenly they were starting over, this time with the best job in the house: the one with no bedtime battles and all of the cuddles.
It was not all instinct. Leighton is average-sized, and Trent and Amber have talked openly about how different it is caring for an average-sized baby after raising five little people, from the car seat to the crib to the way you hold her. They learned it all in public, on camera, and fans loved them for it.
Lolli and Boppa: The Names Fans Instantly Loved
Every grandparent needs a name, and the Johnstons landed on two of the best on television. Trent became Boppa, Amber became Lolli, and the nicknames stuck so fast that fans use them like first names now.
Trent even made it a standing date. His regular “Boppa Thursday” time with Leighton became a small fan favorite, the kind of low-key, ordinary-grandpa content that reality TV almost never slows down for. Amber, meanwhile, marked every milestone like only a grandma can, including Leighton’s first birthday in November 2024, complete with a yellow cake, balloons, and the whole family crowded around a one-year-old who had no idea she was the guest of honor.
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Then came the second one. On September 8, 2026, Liz Johnston and Brice Bolden welcomed their son Coleman, and TLC announced it with four words that said everything: “Officially a family of four!” Leighton became a big sister just weeks before her third birthday, and Liz and Brice have confirmed that Coleman is their last baby, which makes the grandkid count final at two.
That matters more than it sounds. Trent and Amber now have one of each, a granddaughter who has been stealing scenes since 2023 and a grandson the cameras have barely met. The family that spent eleven seasons growing up on screen finally has a second generation growing up right behind it.
Season 18 Puts the Grandparents in the Middle of It All
Season 18, premiering Tuesday, November 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TLC, follows Liz’s second pregnancy on screen, which means viewers will watch the road to Coleman even though he is already here. The show films behind real life, so this season is a strange, sweet kind of time travel: Lolli and Boppa waiting for a baby the audience already knows by name.
They will not be waiting quietly. Trent turns 50 this season and is marking it by trying 50 new things, while Amber navigates a chapter of her own. And the last time the whole family gathered, for Liz and Brice’s wedding on November 8, 2025, Leighton was the flower girl in a ceremony that was joyful and bittersweet at once, coming just weeks after Trent lost his own mother, Nana.
When Season 18 premieres on November 17, which grandparent moment are you watching for first, another Boppa Thursday with Leighton, or Lolli holding newborn Coleman on camera? And be honest: after eleven years of Johnston chaos, have Trent and Amber quietly become the real stars of this show?
