Hi Everyone!

As many of you know, Jason and I have five kids.  With our family size, we often get questions from people that can be personal and a bit intrusive.  We usually don’t mind though, so we thought we’d make a blog post to answer the questions we are asked most often.

 

“Don’t you have cable?”

This is the question people ask Jason the most when he tells them he has five kids.  In short, no, we don’t.  But we do have Netflix, and Amazon Prime.  I watch Hulu every night while editing photos if that counts.  Honestly I wonder what shows people are watching on cable that they think are THAT good!

 

“You do know what causes that, right?”

We get that people are trying to be funny when they ask this, so we don’t take offense.  Jason just tells people that by now it is pretty obvious that we know and think it is a lot of fun!

 

“Are they all yours?”

Whenever I go out with all the kids, I hear this at least once.  I’m not running a day care; they are actually all mine!  I wonder what people would say if I said I had stolen a few of them, but Jason is much better at giving the snappy comebacks than I am.

 

“Were they all planned?”

Were yours?  This is the question that irks me because it insinuates that we wouldn’t have chosen to have this many kids, or that some were unwanted.  And it is often asked right in front of our kids!  Yes, we actually did want to have a big family.  We are grateful to God for the blessing of every one of our kids.  When we feel “done” then we’ll be done, but that’s personal.  We won’t be making some grand announcement to random strangers who ask.

 

“You sure have your hands full!”

I never know if this is meant to be supportive or judgmental, though when it is followed by, “I could never handle that many kids!” it becomes more obvious.  Yes, it is challenging, and believe it or not, I’m not a very patient person (I’m working on that though!)  But I love my family and the loud chaos that goes along with them.  We may have our hands full, but our hearts are full too!  I remember one week in church, Jason had gone to an earlier Mass because he had a wedding so I took the kids on my own.  This particular day the kids weren’t behaving as well as they usually do.  I was getting frustrated with them, and embarrassed about what the people around us must be thinking about me as a mother.  Then, during the Sign of Peace, an elderly woman held my hand and told me what a beautiful family I had.  I immediately apologized for their behavior but she shook her head and smiled.  She said that she was enjoying them being there as they reminded her of when she had her own kids with her at Mass.  They were grown and out of the house and she did not see them as often.  I know that one day my hands and house won’t be as full and I will miss these times.  The years when the kids are young pass by entirely too quickly and I do my best to cherish every moment with them, even the tantrum days and sleepless nights.

 

“Are you trying for your own TV show?”

We don’t see our family as large enough or interesting enough for this question to come up, but it does.  The saying, “Cleaning the house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the sidewalk while it is still snowing” describes our house perfectly.  It takes me almost a full day to clean up when company is coming over; there is no way I could do that every day for a TV crew!

 

“How do you afford it?”

Okay, to be honest, we’re still trying to figure this one out.  I know some big families who say that it isn’t really that expensive, but our 2 foot long grocery bill every other week says otherwise.  We’re not really sure how it works, but we do make it work!  Our kids wear hand-me-downs and aren’t involved in every activity that they ask to do.  Jason tells people that we save money by keeping the kids in a shed in our backyard :).  We trust in God to provide and we are SO grateful to all of the loyal Jason Angelini Photography clients who use us again and again as years go on, and those who refer us to their friends!  Really, our couples and families are such a blessing so THANK YOU to all of them!

 

I think the best way to hear what it is like for our big family is to ask the kids themselves!  They all have such family pride, so we thought we’d make a video asking the kids what they thought of being in a large family.  Enjoy!

(sorry, we can’t figure out how to turn off the auto loop feature)

(If the video above won’t play for you, click this link to watch:  https://www.jasonangeliniphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/07-44676-post/My-Movie-Small.mov and check out the picture below!)