I know what you mean, we took in a mamma cat and her two girls. she lived on the streets (even though she really "belonged" to the neighbor across the street who never fed her or her Brother) and she had kittens. she kept coming into our back yard at evening time and going back across in the day time.
we finally let her into our garage (i put my car out) for nights and let her out in the day. then we started feeding her inside and her girls finally came in too. But the neighborhood boyfriend visited her before we got her to stay inside! thought she was gaining weight due to being fed well. not!!! six more kittens in our closet.
they were so cute. slept in my lap after playing all over me. We found homes for three and i took the other three to a lady's shelter who found homes for them. $300.00 each for the two kittens to be fixed and later for mamma too.
we still have them. mamma is in my Avatar. one of the girls is still a bit feral. she loves to be loved on but not picked up. although i do that daily to keep her used to it.