Brittany. Brianna. Bethanny. Joshua. Joseph. Julia. Carl. Cadence. Cecilia. Scott. Savanna. Kim. Lizzie. Dylan.

Fourteen stockings hang from the mantle. Gifts pop from under the tree. But what’s under the tree isn’t as important as what gathers around it: a forever family.

The 14 stockings are for 14 children sharing the same last name by blood or by ink. It doesn’t matter how they came together, who their parents were before or how hard it gets.

All are Bochelens.

Melodee and Luis Bochelen have added 10 adopted children to their four biological kids.

It isn’t cheap and everyone sacrifices to make it work.

Hot water is a luxury. Privacy is scarce in the seven-bedroom Black Forest home. And silence? Forget about it.

“We can get annoying,” says adopted son Scott, 11.

But that’s part of being a family, says Melodee, who homeschools the clan.

She is trying to teach the adopted kids a lesson not in any book: That the Bochelens are a “forever family.”

“Foster kids see families as disposable,” Melodee says. “In a forever family, you hang in there and stay loyal. We’re here forever, through thick and thin.”

The couple became foster parents after moving here in 1995 from California.

“We weren’t planning to adopt,” says Melodee, 47.

But, a trio of siblings needed a “forever” home.

“We thought we had a big family with seven,” she says.

Next came Julia. Then a sister duo.

“I said ‘OK, we’ll take them.’ We bought more furniture,” says Luis, 58, a salesman who often came home from work trips to find a new kid sleeping in his bed.

Finally came Julia’s four siblings, whose prior adoptions didn’t work out.

In all, the Bochelens adopted three sibling groups.

“I think we are done,” says Melodee, designated driver of the family’s 12-passenger van.

Not all 14 live at home. Two biological kids are grown, including Carl, 28, stationed in Iraq. Oldest adoptee, Kim, 23, just came back from Afghanistan.

That leaves just 11 kids, ages 5 to 18. As in any group, there are a variety of issues that caused problems for some of the kids in previous homes.

“They had some heavy diagnoses: bipolar, paranoid, delusional, drug exposed in the womb. Some had learning disabilities,” Melodee says.

Being in a forever home has helped the kids thrive.

“I know I have parents who love me, and I don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Cecilia, 12, says.

“I couldn’t have done it without them,” adds Lizzie, 16.

Luis doesn’t see it that way.

“Without them,” he says of the kids, “there is no way we could have done it.”

—Got a story?Go to gazettedev.gazette.com/yourspace

Luis and Melodee Bochelen with 12 of their 14 children Photo by Photo by Andrea Brown

Luis and Melodee Bochelen with 12 of their 14 children Photo by Photo by Andrea Brown

Andrea Brown, Your Space columnist Photo by