Charles Kuralt

"The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege."

HaNdJieS kLaP, KoEkiEs bAk…

Yes, no Woodhill mommy will ever be able to outdo the famous White House Kiddies Party… And I think this is maybe because the average mommy doesn’t have a Mich, Myke, Zel and Woo… Having kids that are older makes it easier to delegate party arrangements, adding that we are so trained by now that little delegation is needed… Thursday, the evening before the big day turned into what was almost an all nighter with preparations… Mich and Myke spent half the day painting each kid attending the Baking party an apron. Not just any apron, personalized with their name and the words “Little Chef” on the front and each letter being a different color, finished of with the 1st letter of your name wearing its own little chef hat complete with wiggling eyes, smile and all…

Friday was the big day and everyone was up early, bunny and bear shaped cupcakes needed baking, balloons needed helium, and rainbow colored icing needed to be made. At 10am Puppet’s school phones “You need to come pick up your daughter, she fell and hurt her arm”. Of all days… The drama. Everyone was up in “arms” and worrying about it being broken. In the middle of helium-ing the balloons Myke abandons Mich and rushes to go pick up our little drama queen birthday girl, thinking to herself how Puppet will be icing her bunny with her left hand… So we pick up Mich and cram my car so full of helium balloons that I thought we were going to end up flying home. As we walk through the door the excitement overwhelms Puppet and she forgets all about the almost broken arm and excitedly starts jumping about wanting to help with the decorations… She got a serious talk from Myke and Mich threatening to take her back to school and down comes the tears, now who could be mad at a teary eyed little 6 year old that’s only a little over-eager when it comes to getting her way . So one anti-inflammatory plaster and a thick white bandage later the running around continues.

At 2 the little chefs start making their entrance, luckily there were only 12 of them, well supposed to be, it turned out to be 10 due to peoples lack of etiquette. So of we all go to our flour sprinkled table rolling dough, sprinkling cheese and giving decorating the dining room a whole new meaning. Poor Linah, but she didn’t complain as she knew there would be a peace of the pie, or should I say a blue bunny rabbit, at the other side of the looking glass. May I add we had to make several sample pizzas before we perfected the time needed in the oven for them to be cooked yet not burnt. The boys were the lucky winners of half-burn, half-raw pizza for lunch. Triiingggg, pizza’s ready!!! Like all kids are I think out of 10 pizzas there were 8 left at the end of the day, the making them part is much more fun then the eating part when there are games to be played.

After a round of musical chairs and a quick clean up, friends gathered around for the second half of the event, decorating your bunny or bear shaped cupcake with anything you can think of, blue, pink, brown, and green creatures with coats of hundreds and thousands, jelly bean smiles, and sparkling silver balls for twinkling eyes emerged while licking of spoons full of icing at every available opportunity. Even the 4 helpers couldn’t resist the temptation of embracing being 6 years old again and creating their own little masterpiece with pink ears. Next thing you know it is 5pm and mommy’s arrive to pick up their little flour sprinkled icing mustached kids complete with cupcakes for take-away that really looked liked bunnies and bears when we started this morning..

You look like a monkey, and you act like one too!!!!

If you have the pleasure of sharing your happy birthday with the White’s you will realize that it’s not only the birthday boy or girl acting like a monkey but in fact the entire family. Being part of the White’s means you are part of a long and ongoing birthday tradition which entails being woken up as early as Buddy has to go to work that day, and also includes the honor of sharing a table, that is usually not big enough for everyone, at Spur for your Birthday dinner.

When its your birthday in the White house you get woken up by a horribly off-tone version of Happy birthday, luckily you also still have sleep in you eyes so you miss the 1st half of us trying to be musicians. If you are not one of the live-in residents you can be sure to receive a phone call at the same early hour where everyone in the Brady bunch sings the tune over the phone to you from the bottom of their hearts before going about their own daily tasks again. But I love our “Happy birthday to you” ritual; I wouldn’t want to wake up on my birthday to anything else. Luckily for me my birthday is in December, but to the dismay of fellow camper’s staying next to us as they will also be woken up by the singing as nothing keeps us from our tradition.

But the singing is the least of your worries on your special day; you should rather ponder the fact of how many people will be coming to your birthday dinner. This is always held at Spur as they are so accommodating to their little spur tribe boys and girls who can jump and play while the rest of the grown ups go about their “lovely” dinner. Keep in mind that on a normal day our family consists of about 8 or so odd people, but with these events the extended family will usually join in, which entails our friends that have come to be part of our crazy family as well as boyfriends.

So when we arrive at Spur with 4 cars on a Sunday evening and ask for a table for 14 (which later ended up being 18) we just sigh when we see our waiter’s nametag “Africa”. Poor guy, as we all know – there is no time in Africa, and this demanding group will by offset (obviously to us) be too much for him to cope with. First it takes half an hour of debate to determine if we will sit in smoking or non-smoking, in the end we did smoking because we could all fit in on one table in that section. When I say one table I am not referring the tables normal restraints have for 14 people. No the White’s make a plan and we literally rearranged the smoking section in spur to accommodate all of us, to poor Africa, the horror. He just stood by as we moved tables and benches and rearranged half the place. We sure know how to take over!

So after having to ask for the wine list, straws for our drinks, side plates that were sent back because they were wet and what not, we tried to better the disaster. Africa wasn’t keeping up so we got them to give us another waiter which was also a futile exercise, at the end of the day the manager ended up serving us, high maintenance we really are!

Apart from these traditions you must remember that there are the 2 little ones, and little ones means kiddie’s parties, now here I have to give it to Moekie and Mich when it comes to creativity, no Woodhill mommies idea will be repeated at one of our parties!! We have done archeological diggings and boot camps for the boys, Winnie the Pooh parties, tea parties and this year a baking party for the girls… Recipe for Fun: White house kitchen, come prepared, we will provide you with a personalized potato printed apron (with your name). Method: mix together family and good friends, you might not have to walk the tight rope but act like a monkey in the end we guarantee you will.

Maurice Sendak

"There must be more to life than having everything."

ThE OpRaTiNg RoOm..

If there is one thing I have come to learn from being part of a big family it is that there is always someone there!!

I was randomly thinking yesterday of the day when I don't wake up in the White House every morning… Don't get me wrong I love living in the White House, I just don't think Moekie will love it if I live there until I am 30. Then I started thinking of the things I am going to miss when I am not there….

The average weekend day starts with Puppet coming down the stairs with a bang, or more like a "clack-clack", having the fashion sense of any normal 6 year old she loves those cheap plastic high-heel shoes that "Brats" market to little kids so well, and do they make a noise… Luckily for me my bedroom is right next to the stairs so no sleeping in for me… But I am going to miss that "clack-clack" when it doesn't wake me up at 7 on a Sunday morning… Most guests who have been lucky enough to spend a night at our bed and breakfast will also share with certainty that this is not the kind place where you will be lucky enough to sleep till 9am, it just doesn't happen, someone is bound to make a noise early in the morning and if its not a big one consider yourself lucky!

Whenever you walk into the White house there is always someone there, always someone ready to make tea, well maybe not ready, we might fight about who is going to make the tea or you might end up making it yourself (regardless - if you a resident or guest) but there is always tea at the end.. The best spot in the White house is definitely the kitchen – or as I like to call it the operating room, almost everything happens in and from the kitchen, apart from the obvious this is Moekie's favorite location for assigning tasks, but it is also where all the catching up, smiles tears and gossip happens… Bear in mind all this discussion takes place with the kids having lunch or someone cooking or baking or making a phone call in the background.. It is most importantly also the place where hugs are given and best of all where a good cup of tea makes everything better. It is amazing always coming home to someone willing to make tea, listen and share their own story.

The best time spent in the kitchen is probably when one of the non-resident family members comes to visit. These turn into late night gossip sessions that easily last until 3am… Anyone that has visited will tell you that our White House is like a buzzing farm house in the middle of the city, maybe we talk more than we bake but the hospitality is one and the same… The operating room will be the most missed part, who is going to make tea and listen in a house that lacks our legend kitchen..

"The Tale of the three naughty dogs" - by Big Man White

This is the story Big Man wrote for his creative writing project at school: "Once upon a time there were 3 dogs Bella, Cabousi and Snooky. Cobous was very hairy like an owl and Snooky as well. Bella was not that hairy at all. They were best friends and they were very naughty. They dug holes in other peoples gardens and they dug out peoples flowers and ate them. Bella's party is coming up, she was turning 2 this year. It was in February the 12th. Snookys birthday was on February the 11th and she was also turning 2. They got lots of presents they are having so much fun that day. when they went to sleep people took their presents for themselves to play with because they remembered their gardens and they wanted to get them back. As soon as they woke up and they never got hurt and they lived happily ever after..."

The one with the nuts..

In our funny little family we have had many memorable misunderstandings and embarrassing moments when it comes to the things most households don’t discuss around the dinner table. But we are not your average conventional family. Let me explain...

I will start by sharing the absolutely hilarious story of the morning glory with you. No don’t blush, a morning glory is an innocent creeper that makes pretty little purple flowers in spring, didn’t you know that? Buddy evidently didn’t, when Moekie and Buddy started dating way back when, this topic “crept” into the conversation. Buddy didn’t seem to really get what they were taking about. Later that evening on the way home Moekie asked Buddy what a morning glory was, and Buddy innocently replied “it’s a creeper with pretty purple flowers.”

So while Buddy has a gap in his knowledge of morning glories, 10 year old Big Man on the other end of the scale is well on his way to getting educated about these things way too early. His nick name at school is Hugh Hefner; luckily he doesn’t know who that is!!! His friends started referring to him as Hugh Hefner because of his name. So my brother comes home one day and asks Moekie who Hugh Hefner is. Immediately she sees red lights flashing and diplomatically answers “It’s a very rich man that lives in America.” Pimp it out Hef…

Rykie also set of Moekie’s red lights when she was roughly the same age, she came to Moekie with the question “mommy what is a poncho?” “It is a place where dirty men go to look at naked ladies dancing” she replied. I didn’t understand, “but in my favorite song the lady sings about putting on her poncho to go outside.” Maybe Moekie should ask me to spell the word to her next time before she covers up so quickly.

Then there is Puppet, one morning when Mich was getting dressed she innocently entered the room, puzzled she asked “why doesn’t your pantie have bums?” I trust she will still discover the j-string herself later in life.

Big man was also part of an embarrassing little incident when the tour guide on holiday in Phuket asked “who can tell me what they make with the rubber that comes from these trees.” With all the shy adults around him not wanting to answer Big Man’s hand was up in the air 1^st with the proud answer, “condoms”. Okay, now how does this little boy know that I wonder…?

It seems that 6 year old Puppet is also discovering the other side of life, when Mich picked her up from school yesterday she pointed to her black friend Moglanga and exclaimed in front of all the moms picking up their kids, “that’s my new boyfriend”. Mich asked her why Boykanja (last weeks flavor) isn’t her boyfriend anymore, “because his bum sticks out when he does hand stands” Puppet replied. Look on the bright side at least our little sister is proud to be part of our rainbow nation.

I will leave you with Big man’s favorite joke. “2 chocolates are walking down the street, how do you know which one is the male? The one with the nuts.”