Meet the Gang

When you tell people that you are having your fifth baby their first reaction is a very nervous laugh, followed by an unconscious wiping of invisible sweat from their brow. You can tell they are thinking better them than me… and that’s pretty much how it goes. I must admit if you had told me I was going to have 5 kids, that too, would have been my reaction - but the reality is we have been blessed with 5 beautiful, noisy, funny, sometimes annoying and very spirited kids, ranging in ages from 14 years to 2.5 years, a mix of boys and girls. There is Coco, Freddie, Daisy, Johnny and Beauregard but we just call him Beau. When we first bought our house we had 4 kids with no 5th in sight, but having another baby and teens mixed with tweens means that it is time to re-configure this house to cope!

Balancing a big family is lot of fun, but very chaotic at times, and I find that the kids need to have their own spaces around the house to have time out, as do Tom and I . This is a big consideration with our plans. I know houses are not always perfect, our house can be immaculate one minute, and then be standing room only the next. Floors are covered in toys, and sporting equipment, and this is the juggle. Creating a space where there is carefully thought out options to store the many daily items, like school bags, runners, footy boots, tennis racquets etc is the challenge. I want to come back to a space that is really lived in, a home and that is loved and inspiring, this is how I want my family to live.

The pics are taken by the fabulous Lissie Sue Photograph @lissiesuephotography. She has a gift for capturing the essence of people.

Images: lissiesuephotography