December 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas from Idaho! We hope you are enjoying this holiday season as we celebrate our Savior’s birth. Our family has had a great year and we finally feel like Idaho is home. The highlight of our year was the birth of our beautiful baby girl. Keeli was born on February 27, and has been a great addition to our family. Lindi is thrilled to have a sister and Albert and the boys are disappointed that they no longer have the majority vote in the house.

Our summer was filled with fun times jumping on our new trampoline, playing in the water, playing baseball and soccer, and working in our garden. We also got in a few camping trips. We especially enjoyed our visit to Boulder Mountain. Albert must have been feeling lucky when he planned our mini-vacations to Reno & Las Vegas. It’s a good thing Nicole remembered the monkey backpack with a leash to hold him back from the blackjack tables. The kids loved the lights, shows, dolphins, sharks, lions, swimming, and the Adventure Dome. It was a neat experience going to the small Reno temple.

Lindi’s big news is that she is now a kindergartener. She loves school! She is surprising her parents with how quickly she is picking up reading. However, Nicole and Albert can no longer rely on spelling words out loud as a means of secret communication. This year she has survived pneumonia, swine flu, and strep throat.

Weston is our enthusiastic and fun to be around preschooler. He loves preschool and is learning quickly. He loves to color pictures and takes his time to do a good job. He loves his fat bat and ball and frequently drags our family into the back yard for a game. He loves to run, play in the mud, and still likes to play with cars and horses.

Everyone loves Carson with his bright eyes and adorable smile. We call him Tum-Tum because his tummy is always hungry. He is a very good talker and is always making us laugh. He is great at entertaining himself, but often leaves a trail of messes behind. Most of all, he loves to jump on the trampoline.

Keeli is our little sweetheart with adorable chubby legs and pretty blue eyes. She loves to sit on the floor and play with cords or strings to practice her hair pulling skills. She is an impatient eater and likes everything we’ve given her so far. She is quite a Mama’s girl. Keeli has a happy disposition and we’re so glad she’s part of our family.

Nicole loves being a stay-at-home mom. She enjoys playing with her kids, trying new recipes, playing her new piano, and going on walks. Nicole continues to be the Jr. Primary chorister in addition to her new trial of being the ward choir director. She will be overjoyed on December 13, after her ward choir sings at Stake Conference.

Albert is still serving in the Elder’s Quorum Presidency and enjoys his calling. He likes his job at the Naval Reactors Facility and got a promotion this year. He loves working on our yard, making up bedtime stories for our kids, and looks forward to a winter full of shoveling snow and ice fishing. He will be having knee surgery in December.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love – The Wilcox Family

Our Little Bundle of Joy

Our little Keeli was born on February 27th. She is a wonderful addition to our family. Her cute smile just melts our hearts. It has been a few crazy months trying to keep up with four kids. Lindi, Weston, and Carson all adore Keeli and are very happy to have a new little sister. We feel so blessed in our lives right now.

It's been a year

December 2008

Dear Friends & Family,

Holiday greetings from Idaho! We hope this letter finds you happy, healthy, and enjoying the season. It doesn’t feel like we should be decorating our house for Christmas yet because our pansies are still in bloom and there’s no snow on our green grass. However, Christmas will probably sneak up on us before we’re quite ready.

We’re enjoying living in Idaho Falls and have had a great year. We spent a lot of hours playing in the snow last winter and are hoping for another good snow year. In late spring, when the snow finally melted, we went to work on our yard and garden. We learned that planting more than one zucchini plant is a bad idea. We spent a lot of time as a family on our first real garden. It was fun to grow some of our own food. We bought a new camp trailer and put it to good use this summer. We enjoyed being in the woods with our families. As the leaves started to fall, we harvested a dozen pumpkins from our garden and decorated for Halloween. The kids really got into it; even Carson was holding his bag out excitedly during trick-or-treating. It’s nice to be close to our families and we love spending time in Star Valley and Winnemucca, NV with our parents. Our family is excitedly awaiting the arrival of a new baby girl in March.

Carson is our handsome little man; Mommy loves his brown eyes. He’s quite the talker and we love to hear what’s on his mind. He’s also a climber. Every time we turn our backs he is on top of something he shouldn’t be. He recently turned 18 months old gets to go to the nursery at church. He’s glad Weston is there to play with him.

Our three year old, Weston, is in Joy School this year and loving it. He recently acquired an interest in coloring and can spend hours each day filling the pages of his coloring book. He still loves horses and cars and his old black cowboy hat got worn out and had to be replaced. He can get most anything he wants by flashing his dimples.

Our little strawberry blonde seems to be growing up too fast. It’s hard to believe that we have a five year old. Lindi loves preschool and can’t wait to go to kindergarten in the fall. Her favorite thing is playing with her friends. She also likes to spend time playing games and doing activities on the internet and cooking with her Easy Bake Oven. She learned how to ride her bike this summer and looks cute cruising around the neighborhood.

Nicole stays busy trying to keep up with our three kids and all of their activities. She had to slow down for a little while after breaking her foot in April. Fortunately, she was blessed to recover quickly. Her creativity is being stretched as she tries to fulfill her calling as primary chorister. As crazy as it sounds, she misses being a sunbeam teacher.

Albert is getting used to the bus ride to work and the strange world of government accounting. It’s nice to have him home before dinner every night. The kids enjoy Albert’s Fridays off because he fixes cool shaped pancakes for breakfast while they watch cartoons. He spends his free time working on projects around the house and serving in the Elder’s Quorum Presidency.

We have been very blessed this year and hope that you have been too.

Love,



The Wilcox Family

PLAYING IN THE SNOW IN OUR FRONT YARD

The Annual Christmas Letter

Dear Family & Friends,

Merry Christmas! We hope this letter finds you enjoying the holiday season. Our family has had another fun and exciting year. Carson Steven Wilcox was born in April and our lives will never be the same. We are now officially outnumbered by our children, and Lindi and Weston have figured out how to use that to their advantage. When it is quiet, we know the kids are either asleep or carrying out mischievous plans. Despite the obstacles of a pregnant Mommy and young children, we had a fabulous time on our trip to Orlando in February. Lindi’s favorite was Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World and the highlight for Weston was riding a horse at the petting farm. Albert liked feeding hotdogs to the alligators and the racecars at Daytona Beach and Nicole loved the beautiful gardens. In July Albert had knee surgery and in August we put our house up for sale and prepared to move to Idaho. We lived in the Shilo Inn in Idaho Falls for a couple of months while waiting to close on our new house. We really appreciate that we are now settling into our new home, however, Nicole misses the maid service and the kids miss the pool. We were sad to leave Gillette, but are excited to be closer to family and learn new ways to cook potatoes.

Albert likes his new job at Idaho National Laboratory; and the rest of us like seeing Daddy more often. Nicole is enjoying being a Mommy and organizing and decorating her new home. Lindi really loves gymnastics, playing school, being a sunbeam, and learning new songs. Weston thinks he’s a cowboy and loves to play with cars; he’s always wearing his little black cowboy hat and has Lightning McQueen in his pocket everywhere he goes. Carson has a great smile, bright eyes, and he loves to play peek-a-boo; we’re so glad he joined our family.

Have a great year and keep in touch.

Love,

Albert, Nicole, Lindi, Weston, and Carson

Always stayin busy

It has been a while since I have written. A lot has happened. Weston started walking and had his 1^st birthday and we closed on our house and started the renovation process. My Mom and Dad came up from SLC to give some much appreciated help with the house. As you can see from the picture below, I have a lot of work to do. Nicole, Lindi and Weston are in Star Valley right now while I get the house ready for new carpet. I am very excited for them to come back home. My job is still going good. I have a lot to learn, but am enjoying the work. I got to go to a couple of surface coal mines last week. It was a fun experience to see the magnitude of the operation. The mines have haul trucks that are bigger than our house. It is amazing to see what it takes to get the coal out of the ground and shipped out. Nicole and I have callings now. She is the CTR 5-6 teacher and I am the ward financial clerk. I am sure that we will both enjoy serving. We are getting to know the members of our ward better and are really enjoying it here.

Update on us

I have been working two weeks at Kennecott Energy now. I really like the work that I am doing; I learn a lot every day. For the past two months we have been house hunting and we finally found one. It is a three bedroom twin home with a nice yard and garage. The best part is the price tag; we will have a 15 year mortgage. We are excited to be home owners again. We are looking forward to a lot of renovations to make the house just the way we like it. Lindi and Weston are growing like weeds. Lindi always says funny things and makes me laugh. Weston shakes his head "no", points at things he wants, and cruises along the couch. Nicole is busy coming up with a "honey-do list" for projects she wants done on the new house. She has had fun picking out carpet, paint colors, laminate flooring, tile, and about anything else you could imagine. She is excited to get a brand new kitchen, when I find the time to make it new. We really have enjoyed living in Gillette; it is a nice community. We like our ward a lot and are already getting to know some people. We look forward to visiting our new temple in Billings.