It didn't take long for the girls to learn how to do cartwheels, somersaults, and backward rolls. It seemed the girls started walking and standing on their hands more than their feet at home. They have just loved doing gymnastics.
One thing that Makayla picked up pretty quickly was climbing the rope. The gym had four different ropes hanging from the rafters and the girls had to climb up each one and ring a bell. For some kids, this took a long time to learn because either you have to figure out how to use your arms and legs at the same time or you had to have a lot of arm strength to pull yourself up. You should have seen the huge smile on Makayla's face the first time she rang the bell.
Kelli picked up a lot of things very quickly. Doing the warm-ups was always easy for her (bear crawl, frog hops, lunges, etc). She also has good balance on the beam so she enjoys working out on it. Kelli has a very athletic build and she is quite petite so that is a good benefit for her. It took her longer to figure out the rope because she is one who would just pull herself with her arm strenght alone. 
In July we signed Laney up for a tumbling class at the gym. So glad we did. Although she only took one month of classes, it made such a huge difference in her. It's like she suddenly grew into her body better and was coordinated. She could actually look athletic when she ran and she too was always doing cartwheels, forward rolls, and handstands. We decided we would let Laney take classes again once she cared enough to ask for them. She just recently started asking, so as soon as soccer is over we will sign her up again. She doesn't play soccer now, but the gymnastics classes she would be in are during Kayla and Kelli's soccer practice times in a different town....won't work right now.
Soccer season started in August. I hate that you have to sign up for soccer like 6 months before you play. By the time soccer season started, the girls would have rather done gymnastics, but since we already paid....We didn't want to do both sports as we feel like it's just too much going on. Well, when we tried to stop gymnastics they begged me not to let Kelli quit. They said she was such a natural and was learning quicker than most everyone and they were really looking forward to having her on the team in the future. They said Makayla was good too, but she's 8, whereas Kelli was barely 5. They said if I would keep her in gymnastics they would even lower the monthly fee for her. I figured she really must have potential as hard as they tried to keep her!
Now Kelli has soccer practice once a week, a soccer game once a week, and gymnastics once a week. She has moved from Level One to Level Two. This is considered "pre-team" and once you reach level two you get to be on the team and compete at competitions. Her class is 6, 7, 8, and 9 year olds (level two) but they warm up with the Team. This means they do conditioning with the team and then break off into groups to work on bars, beam, or tumbling. So here is little 5 year old Kelli, running and doing her best to keep up with girls who are as old as 15. In her eyes she thinks she should be able to keep up with them so she pushes herself so hard. This part of practice really wears her out, but then she gets to do the fun part. Kelli loves the bars and balance beam. In tumbling she has started working on walkovers and back handsprings. She is so much fun to watch!
Gymnastics has been such a wonderful addition for our girls. We always thought they were monkeys before, but now they are even worse. They love testing out their strength and agility and I just love seeing them do it!
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