February

We had a very fun, very busy February!  Most importantly, our Mel turned 7!  We had lots of visitors that week, which made it even more exciting.  While Grandma and cousins were here, we went to BYU, Provo temple open house, Crystal Hot springs, and Midway Ice Castles.  We keep you busy around here.  Maddie wrote her name on her drawing pad, and both Meg and Mel competed in the Science Fair at school.  Melanie won first place out of the first grade.  Mel's project was how much water is in snow and Meg did "Do cats like sugar?".  We tried to do rock candy for Mel's, but we never could get crystals to grow.

January

January was great.  We experimented with foam rollers, which the girls loved.  Molly tried snow, solid food and the big bath tub for the first time.  She was indifferent to the snow, loves the food, and hates the bath.  We also went to Hardware Ranch, where we saw a ton of elk.

Scouting

I (Russ) have been called as the assistant Bear Den Mother in the Cub Scouts, so I'm basically the bear den doula. I have to certify that I completed child molestation training. I was watching the training video online this morning and Megan was watching it over my shoulder. The video has shot after shot of some scout master trying to lure young boys off into the woods. The video would always have another leader rush over and intervene, but the guy does it like 5 times. I'm wondering why they keep letting this guy come back.
After the "how to stop a creepy guy from taking children off to the woods" section, they had a bit on grooming behavior. It showed some guy start rubbing a kids arm, then hugging the kid, then he starts massaging the kids neck and shoulders. At that point I was really grossed out and paused it because Megan was sitting there watching it too. I asked her why she didn't go off and play instead of watching this video. She said, "Scouts looks interesting!" So, I guess she thinks I spend my time luring children off into the bushes to give them massages.

We also sold some chocolate this weekend for the girls' school fundraiser. We did it on the street corner. Maddie was our best salesman. She would hold a handful of chocolate bars and waive them back and forth as she smiled and stared through peoples' car windows. When someone was stopped at the light, she would just stare at them waiving the chocolate until they finally broke down and gave her $1 for a bar.