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college for their kids, but it was almost laughable to us with eight children, who would all be attending at the same time. It’s definitely a daunting dream to send them all to college, but every time we could, we put a little away. Even though we didn’t have a lot of money, we were not in debt. So when we signed on to do the series (one season at that time), our primary goal was to put the money toward providing for the future of our children, even though we knew that the amount wouldn’t make a dent in eight college funds. I know there’s nothing wrong with working your way through college—that’s what I did even though I still needed financial assistance from my grandparents. But we wanted to be sure they had the opportunity to go to college, and we didn’t want money to be what kept them from going. If we had an only child, we’d pay for her college, so why couldn’t we do it for eight?

There was more to filming than viewers got to see. Filming was flexible and the crew worked around our family schedule. We filmed anywhere from two hours to six hours a day, and from one to three days a week. The majority of the interviews at the end of the episodes were taped at night after the kids were in bed, since that was the only time the house was quiet. Those interviews were fun times where Jon and I would laugh and hang out with the crew. We drank coffee and ate jelly beans and often continued hanging out long after our interviews were completed. This was our way of spending time with co-workers, and we enjoyed our working relationship with them.

Leah helps by “clapping” the marker during a television shoot.

We worked hard to keep a steady, familiar crew to create a personal intimate environment. We made it a point to meet and get to know each person before they became a part of our film crew so they weren’t bodies behind cameras; they were people with a friendship and familiarity with our family.

When the cameras were off, the crew and the kids played together. They would give piggy back rides, play games, stack blocks, and watch skits Mady and Cara put on for them. The kids even had nicknames for each of them—Stinky, Meatball, Wave, and Jen Little. When they would arrive for filming, the kids would run and greet them with hugs. Then they would start in on the stories they had saved up to tell crew.

Mike, the sound guy, used his furry boom mic as a toy for them, and Collin once used a long weed as his own boom mic.

In addition our kids had a rare opportunity to be a part of something that provided financial benefits, enjoyable life experiences, and family memories. We were amazed at how well it all worked!

6

A MIRACLE A DAY

Our family experienced firsthand God’s provision for us more times than we can count—groceries came exactly when we needed them, we had a “shoe angel” who got us through numerous seasons by providing eight pairs of shoes, we received clothing and even Christmas presents from viewers of our show. Everything was always taken care of.

During our first Christmas on Andrew Avenue, we were getting by but didn’t have enough to do anything extra. JoAnn from Georgia sent boxes and boxes of Christmas gifts that she had hand-wrapped for our kids. All I had to do was take them out of the boxes and put them under the tree. JoAnn has sent our kids something each Christmas since—and has since moved on to also helping a quintuplet family. She has never forgotten us and has brought us so much joy as well as relieved so much guilt.

After seeing our first one-hour special, Connie from Ohio emailed me and said she wanted to send our kids each a pair of shoes! She has no idea how much this helped and what her thoughtfulness meant to me. She was our shoe angel. Each season she would email me to find out the kids’ shoe sizes. She would then ask me to pick out shoes from online or would copy and paste a few options on email and ask me to pick them. And then she would send us shoes. She even started a shoe club at her church, where a group of women would have coffee and then go pick out shoes for the Gosselin kids.