Angelina Jolie: Mommy Her Brood

Cute smiles! Fun playtimes! See how the actress mom grew her family from across the continents. By Brian Orloff and Suzy Byrne

Angelina Jolie debuted her baby bump in late February, but long before the newest Jolie-Pitts stole headlines, mommyhood was Jolie’s top priority. With four kids at home, “Caring for them is the most important thing for me at the moment,” Jolie (pictured with daughter Zahara) told PEOPLE. “I am very happy to be their mother.”

Where it all began: After the filming of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider brought Jolie to Cambodia, the actress – then married to Billy Bob Thornton – returned in 2002 to adopt 10-month-old Maddox (pictured together at a Los Angeles area hotel). Though her marriage soon ended, her life as a single mother began.

Before meeting Maddox, Jolie (with him at a Santa Monica, Calif., park in 2002) had never held a baby. “I changed my life overnight to make our life better,” she told Reader’s Digest. “It’s the greatest thing that ever happened in my life, my son.” Three years later, she gave him a sister, adopting baby Zahara from Ethiopia.

Another change in Jolie’s life: Brad Pitt. The two met on the set of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith and by 2006 he had not only adopted her two children, but Pitt and Jolie also welcomed their first child together, baby girl Shiloh (here with mom in New York City in 2007).

In March 2007, the fourth addition to the Jolie-Pitt clan – a Vietnamese boy named Pax – officially joined the family. “It will take him a while to realize he has a family,” Jolie told PEOPLE, “and that his new life is permanent and that it won’t keep changing.” In May, Pax enjoyed a day out with his new siblings at Marineland in Antibes, France.

Jolie keeps things low-key and kid-centric as she descends the slopes with Pitt at California’s Mammoth Mountain ski resort this past February. Earlier in the month, after returning home from a humanitarian mission in Iraq, she said, “I love being a mom, and I think that’s my big passion: my family.”