As one of the original members of the world conquering children’s entertainment group, Hi-5, Kathleen de Leon Jones is known by millions of children and their parents worldwide.
During her eight year tenure, Hi-5 won five ARIA Awards for Best Children’s Album, three Logie Awards for Best Children’s Program and a Helpmann Award.
She has often been the face of the Hi-5 merchandise and is one of the few members to have her own doll, three times over!
These days Kathleen is happy being a wife (to Daniel Jones, record producer and one half of the hugely successful duo, Savage Garden) and mum to 2½ year old Mikayla.
C4K: What have you been up to since Mikayla was born and you left Hi-5?
KdLJ: I’ve really just spent the last couple of years being a mum and a wife and absolutely loving it! Hi-5 was an amazing experience, and I really loved it, but it was quite a punishing schedule, where we were often travelling for up to 8 months of the year, so I’ve enjoyed being in one place and just living a normal life with much less travel!
C4K: Have you worked since you had Mikayla?
KdLJ: I’ve done bits and pieces when a nice opportunity has come up, but I’ve really just enjoyed being at home, doing normal things like swimming lessons, Gymabaroo and meeting up with my amazing mothers’ group. I’ve just done The Singing Bee which was fantastic, and have a few interesting TV projects in the pipeline, but I’ve been so happy just spending time with my husband, daughter, friends and family.
C4K: When you do work projects, who looks after Mikayla?
KdLJ: We moved back to Sydney when I was expecting because my family are here and I have the most amazing mum and two sisters who help out a lot. But Daniel has been great! We’re very fortunate that he’s around a lot and lucky he’s had the kind of great career that means he can stay at home when I need him to, so it’s been really easy for me to do projects of my own and yoga classes and Daniel looks after Mikayla.
C4K: Would you look at child care for Mikayla now?
KdLJ : Absolutely…We do a lot of play dates and she has a lot of interaction with other children, but I think it’s really important for them once they get to around this age to start socialising more and experience things without me being there. She’s definitely very independent so I think she’d thrive at child care or pre-school. I’d definitely look to CareforKids to help me find child care or a good pre-school as well!!
C4K: What does 2009 hold for you and your family?
KdLJ: Well, we’re about to move out of our house and have six months travelling about a bit. Mikayla’s at a great age to do that now and will get so much out of the experience, so we’ll spend some time in Sydney, where I’m about to do a yoga teacher training course for a week (away from Daniel and Mikayla, which will be quite hard!) and then we’ll spend some time in Brisbane with Daniel’s family. We’ll also be back and forth to LA where Daniel has a few work opportunities and so do I. I’ve got a few interesting projects in Australia too, so all in all I think it’s going to be a great year!
You can catch Kathleen de Leon Jones on the new The Singing Bee (Channel Nine)
CareforKids.com.au®
Care For Kids Internet Services Pty Ltd
ABN 55 104 145 735
Level 2, 2 Bligh St Sydney NSW 2000
privacy policy contact us