The boys like to keep DeAnna on her toes. Jonah’s birthday always falls during branch meetings (that’s our annual meetings where everyone comes together for one week – think church business meeting for 8 hours a day). It’s not possible to have a party on his birthday, so we celebrate it before. Friday, March 27^th was the first day of Spring Break from school, so Jonah’s party was held on that afternoon. When DeAnna asked him what theme he wanted, he said America’s Got Talent theme. The boys just saw for the first time America’s Got Talent 2014 and loved it. DeAnna didn’t know how she would pull off an America’s Got Talent party for kids from Canada, Switzerland and the USA.

The party began by watching a few auditions so all the kids knew what was going on. Secondly, open mic time when the kids could share any talent they wanted to share, however, the others were judges and could only share positive feedback. Thirdly, they were separated into groups of three and given a tune plus four objects in a bag. They had five minutes to create a song to the tune listed about the four objects. It was amazing what the kids came up with – so creative! After cake, snacks, opening presents, we had a dance off using our Wii Dance game and ended the celebration with a ping pong ball game of who has the best touch for the game. It was a successful party and we think all who came had a great time. Jonah was happy about the party, but still wished he had a buzzer like the judges.

Something that excites us are the presents shared here among friends at birthdays. It’s great to see how excited kids get from receiving small bottles of soda, a can of Pringles, a few pieces of imported candy and we smile at all the homemade cards. We’ll miss it!