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A California mother who has 13 children living under one roof has opened up about her life with her large family, from her daily trips to the grocery store to preparing catering-size meals in her commercial kitchen.
Sarah Wolfgramm, 47, from Mentone, California, grew up with eight siblings and always knew that she wanted to have a big family. In high school, she was named ‘Most Likely to Have 20 Kids’ — a yearbook superlative that wasn’t far off.
The singer-songwriter was signed with RCA Records when she fell in love with her husband, Haini Wolfgramm, while touring with his family’s band, The Jets. The bass guitarist is one of 17 children, and she felt an immediate connection with his parents.
‘I had this sense that, “Wow, this family feels like home to me. I feel like I’m going to know them for a long time,”‘ she told DailyMail.com.
Sarah Wolfgramm, 47, from Mentone, California, had 14 children in 21 years with her husband Haini Wolfgramm. She told DailyMail.com that she always wanted a big family
Haini, who is the bass guitarist for his family’s pop band The Jets, is one of 17 children, while Sarah has eight siblings of her own
Sarah, a singer and songwriter, was signed with RCA Records when she fell in love with Haini while touring with The Jets
Sarah was still under contract with RCA when they got married in 1994, and they used protection for their first year of marriage. She was 20 years old when they welcomed their first child, Eve, in 1996.
The couple would go on to have a total of 14 children in 21 years. The oldest, Eve, is 26, and the youngest, Joy, is five.
Sarah noted that she never had a ‘gotta have more’ attitude when it came to her children. They just kept conceiving one child after another.
She explained that she breastfed all of her babies for about a year, and whenever she stopped nursing, she would get pregnant again.
‘I felt like every time I got a positive pregnancy test it was like this huge excitement,’ she recalled. ‘Like another one is coming. How are they going to be? What is their personality? What are they going to add to our family? How are they going to look?’
Sarah spent the early part of her marriage living with her parents, where her family could help care for her children while Haini was on tour with The Jets.
Sarah was still under contract with RCA when they got married in 1994, and they used protection for their first year of marriage. They welcomed their first child in 1996
Sarah spent the early part of her marriage living with her parents, where her family could help care for her children while Haini was on tour
Sarah said the only time she questioned having more children was after the loss of her 12th child, Sariah. The three-month-old died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 2014
!['I had to do some deep soul-searching and turning to God and asking for strength and it just felt right,' she said. 'So I took a leap of faith, and we left it in God's hands. And sure enough, I did [get pregnant]'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/18/00/68796731-11869885-image-m-11_1679100095131.jpg)
‘I had to do some deep soul-searching and turning to God and asking for strength and it just felt right,’ she said. ‘So I took a leap of faith, and we left it in God’s hands. And sure enough, I did [get pregnant]’
When they moved into their own home in another state, her younger sisters came with them. Not only did she always have family support, but her husband’s schedule allowed him to stay home with their kids during the week.
Sarah said the only time she questioned having more children was after the death of her 12th child, Sariah. The three-month-old died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) after being put to sleep in 2014.
The thought of having another baby terrified the grieving mother, who knew she couldn’t handle another devastating loss.
But then she asked herself, ‘Is this the way we want to leave things? Is this the final say?’
‘I had to do some deep soul-searching and turning to God and asking for strength and it just felt right,’ she explained. ‘So I took a leap of faith, and we left it in God’s hands. And sure enough, I did [get pregnant]. I was pregnant very shortly after that.’
The couple welcomed their daughter Lynnae in 2015, a year after they lost Sariah.
‘She came along and was just such a bright sunshine,’ the mom said of her rainbow baby. ‘She was darling and all my kids showered her with love.’
By the time Sarah was 42, she thought she was done having children and was using protection when she got pregnant with her 14th child.
‘I call her the bonus baby,’ she said of her daughter Joy, who was born in 2017.
There is never a dull moment in the Wolfgramm home, where all 13 kids still reside with their parents and maternal grandparents.
The couple welcomed their daughter Lynnae in 2015, a year after Sariah’s death. They were using protection when Sarah got pregnant with their 14th child, Joy, who was born in 2017
The oldest Wolfgramm children can’t help but dote on their adorable younger siblings
Haini still performs with The Jets, and his children often attend their concerts
All of the couple’s children play musical instruments and have their own bands
Sarah and Haini chose to homeschool all of their children, who have followed in their footsteps and started their own bands.
The seven oldest siblings — Eve, 26, Heinrich, 25, Isabella, 23, Tihane, 22, Abraham, 20, Maikeli, 19, and Nora May, 17 — make up the band 13 Crowns.
Sarah noted that music is not a hobby for her kids, saying they have been practicing daily since they were young children. She recalled the process of them learning their instruments to be a ‘very long’ and ‘arduous.’
She shared that even though they loved music, ‘someone would quit the band on a daily basis’ because it was ‘too hard’ or their ‘fingers hurt,’ which they laugh about now.
Sarah found out she was pregnant with her 14th child right after they trademarked the name 13 Crowns, but they kept the name.
‘We have 13 crowns and then a halo because Sariah is no longer with us,’ she said.
The seven oldest siblings – Eve, 26, Heinrich, 25, Isabella, 23, Tihane, 22, Abraham, 20, Maikeli, 19, and Nora May, 17 – make up the band 13 Crowns
Sarah noted that music is not a hobby for her kids, saying they have been practicing daily since they were young children. They have daily rehearsals inside their home
Sarah and Haini opted to homeschool all of their children, which allows them to make band practice a part of their daily routine
As a mom, Sarah is tasked with juggling her children’s schedules and appointments with her catering business and feeding more than a dozen people three times a day
The Wolfgramms wake up every morning and do some form of physical activity before they gather for a morning devotional and prayer to start their day.
Depending on their ages, the kids have to balance their homeschooling or jobs with their daily band practice. The youngest kids have their own group, although they may join 13 Crowns when they get older.
All of the kids share rooms and sleep in bunk beds, and to get around, they have to drive a 15-passenger van. While the adult kids still live at home, they have their own credit cards, bank accounts, and car payments.
‘When your kid’s 16, you get them their driver’s license, and you got to hold their hand through it, but if you want them to be a functioning adult in life, you have to give them the resources,’ Sarah said.
As a mom, she is tasked with juggling her children’s schedules and appointments with her catering business and feeding more than a dozen people three times a day.
‘I always say my life is like a daily episode of Chopped,’ she joked, saying she gets creative with meals, using whatever she can find in her refrigerator and cupboards.
Sarah explained that she comes from a third-generation family of caterers and ‘doesn’t know how to prepare for anything less than 25 or 30 people’
She has a commercial kitchen and commercial pans that she uses for both her catering business and her family meals
She estimates she spends about $400 to $500 a week on food, which is not a lot considering how many mouths she feeds
Sarah frequents the grocery store at least once a day because she doesn’t have enough space in her house to buy her groceries in bulk
One of the joys of having such a large family is that her children have built-in friends, but she also has to rely on her mother’s intuition to ensure their emotional needs are being met
The other night, she cooked ground turkey and ground beef with Lipton onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup. She added some frozen vegetables and served the mixture over rice.
‘Everyone one of my kids was like, “Mom, this is my favorite meal. This is so good,”‘ she said. ‘Lipton onion soup mix saves the day, always.’
Sarah explained that she comes from a third-generation family of caterers and ‘doesn’t know how to prepare for anything less than 25 or 30 people.’
She has a commercial kitchen and commercial pans that she uses for both her catering business and her family meals. She estimates she spends about $400 to $500 a week on food, which is not a lot considering how many mouths she feeds.
‘I am a huge bargain hunter. I have a bargain bin store where they just have pallets of stuff, and maybe the cans are dinged or maybe the boxes are smashed, but that doesn’t matter as a family,’ she said. ‘If I can get a box of cereal for $1 over $5 at the grocery store, that’s what we are getting.
‘We do Costco or Sam’s for the basics, but I find myself with a huge bill when I leave those big warehouse stores. So I kind of avoid them. I have my couple little outlets that I go to.’
The Wolfgramms have been documenting their lives on the 13 Crowns TikTok page, where they have more than 340,000 followers
The family often shares day-in-the-life videos, including tours of their home, where all 13 kids still live. The entryway is filled with shoes that are stacked on shelves and piled on the floor
All of the kids share rooms and sleep in bunk beds, and to get around, they have to drive a 15-passenger van
The bathroom is filled with different shampoos, conditioners, and body washes because everyone in the family likes to use their own products
Sarah’s parents also live with them, and they can easily go through 60 eggs a week
Sarah is a bargain hunter and shops at various discount stores in her area. ‘If I can get a box of cereal for $1 over $5 at the grocery store, that’s what we are getting,’ she said
Sarah frequents the grocery store at least once a day because she doesn’t have enough space in her house to buy her groceries in bulk.
‘We could easily go through 60 eggs in a week,’ she explained.
One of the joys of having such a large family is that her children have built-in friends, but she also has to rely on her mother’s intuition to ensure their emotional needs are being met.
‘I have to be completely in tune with my maternal gut instinct,’ she said. ‘You just know when there’s a kid that needs a little extra.’
If she senses something is off with one of her kids, she will take them to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal or ask them to come and talk to her, saying it ‘always opens the door.’
‘Am I perfect at it? No, but I think for the most part our kids’ emotional needs get met because I am acutely aware of each of them and how they are feeling,’ she said. ‘If it seems like one of them is a little withdrawn, I’ll make an effort to say, “Hey, are you feeling okay?”‘
The Wolfgramms have been documenting their lives on the 13 Crowns TikTok page, where they have more than 340,000 followers.
The Wolfgramm family went viral late last year after sharing a 42-second video of Sarah hugging each of her children
‘We definitely have our hurdles to overcome,’ Sarah explained, saying they had to overcome financial difficulties, addiction, and gender-identity issues in addition to the loss of Sariah
‘We’re just your typical normal family living in 2023,’ the mom said
A 42-second video of Sarah hugging each of her children has been viewed more than 21 million times on the platform since it was posted late last year.
The family’s dynamic will undergo its first major change next month when Tihane — Sarah and Haini’s fourth child and the lead singer of 13 Crowns — gets married and moves out.
However, Tihane and her husband-to-be will live close by, and she is still fully committed to continuing to make music with her family’s band.
‘We definitely have our hurdles to overcome,’ Sarah explained. ‘We’ve gone through the depths of financial difficulties. We’ve gone through addiction with some of our children [and gender-identity issues]. Those trials that come with families are always going to be there.’
She believes the key to having a successful family is having compassion and unconditional love.
‘You will see that everybody doesn’t fit into a round hole. Sometimes you get square pegs,’ she said. ‘You just have to love the square pegs as much as the round hold.’
‘We’re just your typical normal family living in 2023,’ she added.
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