Jump for Heart Week, Trying, and Family Fitness Night

Victoria's school had some cool stuff going on this week. It was Jump for Heart week. The kids collected money for the American Heart Association. We aren't so into having our kids ask people for money, so don't really go all out for fundraisers. It is a good cause though.

The most exciting part for me was, I got to go to P.E. with Victoria on Thursday! Thank you V for being excited about me coming! Thank you, Mom, for watching the boys so I could participate. There were all kinds of jumping stations set up- steps, springboards, hula hoops, hopscotch, pogo balls, low hurdles, jump ropes, skip-its (a homemade version), jump ropes for "Blue bells", a jump rope for "snakes," jump ropes to jump over, and probably another 1-2 stations. It was neat and I was glad to join V in the fun. She and her classmates are so cute!

V has been practicing jump roping quite a bit this week. I told Victoria a joy school story after I taught the other day. It was about a girl named Sally who wanted to jump rope with the other kids at recess, but was afraid to try.

Basically, Sally told her mom that she really wanted to jump rope and her mom told her that she needed to try. She got in line to try the next day, but when it was her turn she was afraid and got out of line. She came home and laid on her bed and cried and cried. Then she noticed a little spider hanging from her ceiling on a silver thread. She saw the spider trying to climb up to his web, but he kept falling back down. He tried several times but kept falling. Sally cheered for the spider and told him he could do it. Finally, he made it! Sally thought that if the little spider could try so hard and do it, she could too. So, the next day at recess she tried again. She missed the rope a few times, but no one laughed at her. It was fun and she was glad she tried!

It was a cute story and the kids liked it because we put a spider web on the ceiling with a spider on some yarn hanging from it and we could move him up and down on the string. So, after the story Victoria asked,"Was that story about me?" I told her that it wasn't. "It was about Sally. It was from the lesson." "Oh, OK"

Well, the timing of the story must have been perfect for her because when we went outside to play that afternoon, she brought out her jump rope. She said, "Jump for Heart day is on Thursday and I want to be ready." When we were there a couple of her friends told me that they had tried jump rope at recess too. I'll add in a picture of V with one of her jump ropes here after I take some.

I love it when my kids try. A few other things we have tried lately:

Grant-sitting!

He's tried rice cereal a couple times too. That is not what makes him so chunky though.

We are hoping that he will try sleeping through the night soon too.

Green eggs and ham! Yum! Making PBJs(Christian)

Peeling carrots

Christian is the one who has been learning about the "joy of trust and confidence." A huge part of the confidence part is trying. I love to see that the "joys" that we are trying to teach are sticking! I have heard him say "I want to try" so many times in the past two weeks! He has tried pouring his own milk, folding laundry with me, and making and flying a kite just to name a few. Yea! "It's fun! It's fun to try!"

And, back to the prior subject... To culminate the Jump for Heart week Victoria's school had a really cool activity for families! I wish we brought our camera. Last night, we all got into our sneakers and workout clothes and went to the school for a family fitness night. We put Grant in a back pack carrier, which he likes and didn't mind sleeping in. There were stations and we rotated through with a lot of the other kindergartners and their families. The stations were gym(a lot like the other day), Aerobics(which included Zumba-yea!), Aikido, hallway fitness(walking the halls), tae bo in the library, and heart health(coloring our favorite healthy foods and writing why we liked exercise on a heart.) Afterwards, there was a drawing for door prizes and Christian won a t-shirt. Very exciting for him, but not so much for V. She actually handled it very well though and I was proud of her. Afterwards. I told them they could take turns wearing it because it was actually my ticket.

So, Danny and I were talking last night after the fitness night, which we all loved, and we talked about how we want to always do fun active things together. Not to be a judgemental jerk, but honestly, there were a lot of really overweight people there and it is not good! (Ignore my many run on sentences please.) We don't want to turn into that and we want our kids to value health and fitness as well. I am not back to thin yet, by any means, but I am working on getting back into my pre-baby shape. It's tough since I have gained so much with each pregnancy! Uggh! But, I know I can do it and am having fun and feeling good about myself for making the time and trying. Danny is in great shape and works out regularly and I am proud of him for it. I think he's going to look like Abinidi when he's 70!(or at least the painting of him)

We have fun when we play sports or work out together. In fact, that was something that really helped Danny and I fall in love with each other. When we were dating we did a lot of active things together. In fact, he proposed to me at before 6:00 in the morning because he knew that I would be up and ready for my morning jog with my friend, Jen H. When we were first married we used to throw and catch baseballs and footballs, and practice kicking field goals together. We used to ride our bikes a lot too. We talked about how we always wanted to be active and in shape.

Well, I let us down a bit. Since becoming a mom, I haven't really stayed in shape. I got back into shape after a lot of effort after V, but not after Christian. Unfortunately we haven't done as much together in the way of physical activity as we should have, but we had fun talking about some of our fitness goals for the future.

This isn't a new idea, but we talked about running the Race for the Cure together this year. One of Danny's friends from work had breast cancer and so a huge group from his school is participating on her behalf again this year. We talked about how it will be fun to support our kids in their sports and activities and about how fun it will be to go hiking and camping when they grow older too. We have talked about hiking portions of the Appalachian trail for vacations and how awesome it would be to keep track and eventually hike the whole trail. This would be a long way off, but was fun to think about. Yea for trying and yea for family fitness!