My life began in my home state of Michigan, known as the Great Lakes state. My faith, the home I grew up in, my neighborhood, and the love of my family and friends truly had a big part in who I am today. All of it helped me to face my challenges and get me through some really tough times so that I could experience better times.
I’m Amy Roloff. I’m a little person, or more specifically, an achondroplasia dwarf. My family, parents, and siblings are all average height. There is no history of anyone else being a little person in my family. I have never felt different or less than because I was a dwarf. I was just me, like anyone else. I didn’t see myself as a little person, even when I looked at myself in the mirror. However, life reminded me all the time that I was different when I stepped outside of my house each day. I chose to be someone that saw life bigger than I was so that I could take in and appreciate life’s many little moments as a gift to be experienced.
Some of the challenges I faced were being a little person, a dwarf. I had low self esteem and confidence, I wondered about the what if’s all of the time, I overcame a childhood illness I had for six years, and I paid more attention to what others thought about me than what I thought about myself. The things that kept me pushing forward were my faith, the belief that I can do it somehow, and the love and support of my family and friends.
I graduated from college with a BS in BA in Human Resources and Hospitality.
Then one day, I met someone at the Annual Little People of America National Conference. He was from California and I from Michigan. After seeing each other just four times, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I wasn’t going to let distance get in the way of my relationship. We got married three months later. I moved from my home, family, friends, and home state to west to California where he lived. After a few years, we started planning for a family, and I became pregnant with twin boys. A job opportunity came up and we decided to move to Oregon. We bought a twenty-acre farm. Our family became bigger, and I had two more kids, a daughter and another son. We bought more property to add an additional 12 acres to our farm. Years later we bought a seventy-five acre farm property right next door to make a total of 108 acres.
The farm was a wonderful place to raise my kids. There was always something to do and something new being built. We decided to plant pumpkins and have a pumpkin patch, and we turned it into a u-pick pumpkin patch that grew to be a big, successful patch and destination for people to come and visit in October for the Fall Harvest event.
A number of years after we moved to Oregon and our kids were growing up, we said yes to do a reality show called Little People BIG World. Never would I have imagined that it would last more than a couple of seasons. After fifteen years of filming, we just finished up filming season 14.
As time went on, a big personal changed happened in my life. After twenty-six years of marriage, my marriage ended. I was separated and then divorced from Matt in 2016. My life had forever changed. Both my twin boys got married, and my daughter and my youngest son will be married in September 2019. Both of my twin boys had a child, my grandson and granddaughter, and I was so very happy to become a grandma.
I started up my own charity foundation in 2009 to raise monies to help kids that were facing tough life challenges. In those years, we raised over 1 million in funds and in kind donations. A year ago, I started up Amy Roloff’s Little Kitchen, an online business that is about gathering around the table and sharing a meal and conversations together, recipes, cooking, and other unique items to get back to the love of being in the kitchen and making a meal.
I’m an empty nester and in a new relationship.I love cooking and aprons, the adventure of going on motorcycle rides and road trips, traveling, playing games, hikes and walking, gathering with my family and friends around my table, and spending time with my grandkids.
My thought and belief in life is this: We all matter and have value and a purpose. The journey of my life, in all it’s up and downs, is still a wonderful life. I couldn’t live it without faith.
Amy Roloff’s Little Kitchen Website --- amyroloffslitt...
Instagram ------------- / amyjroloff
Facebook -------------- / amyroloffofficalpage
Twitter ------------------- / amyroloffcf
RU-vid--------- / @amyroloffslittlekitchen
#amyroloff #amyroloffbio #littlepeoplebigworld
30 июн 2020
