The New Quests of The Turetzky Family

Darren and I have a new hobby. Learning how to use his dad's Nikon D60. We had some fun trying to learn how to take a good natural light picture with it, and these are a few pics from our first attempts. The photos from the "real" photo shoot will come later this week, and let me assure you that they are much better than these! The bottom three pics I took, and you can tell that Darren is the better photographer (and I'm the better stylist!).

I can't believe I have neglected my blog for so long! Well, on second thought, maybe I can believe it. Although I got to play the role of full time stay at home mom over the summer, I found that did not equate to extra free time for blogging. And honestly, the summer just wasn't that interesting! Most days were the same: play with Lila, change Lila's diapers, feed Lila, take Lila for a walk (or 3!), bake bread, and make and plan the meals for my highly allergic husband. I do have some more pics from the summer to post here, but I first have to find them...My laptop crashed right after I got home from Arkansas, so I have to see if Darren can somehow retrieve them for me. Here's a quick update on the last month: - We arrived back in Utah just in time for the start of fall semester at BYU. Darren is taking 16 units, I'm taking 10 units, and Lila is spending several hours a week hanging out with her grandma. - We are in the process of purchasing a town home! We probably...

Lila is 8 months old today!! The time sure is flying by! Lila is not crawling yet, but she loves to roll around and scoot a little. She says "mama" and "dada", clicks her tongue, blows bubbles, and does lip trills (my future vocalist!). She loves the swimming pool and the bath tub, as well as going for rides in the stroller to the library. She is a mama's girl, which should come as no surprise since the two of us are practically inseparable! I love my beautiful baby girl! On Sunday we gave Lila her first taste of rice cereal. I know 8 months old may seem late to start her on food, but I gave it a lot of thought and felt it was best (I will perhaps elaborate in a future post). We took some video and I will post it soon! Also, I didn't post pictures at 6 or 7 months, so here pics from the last couple of months. She pretty much looks the same at 6, 7, and 8 months. 8 months 7 months 6 months

After 3 long years of putting up with my crummy Samsung phone, Darren convinced me to get the new iPhone. It has only been about a week since I picked it up, and I am already in love! The first day I had it I was already using it in the car as a GPS. And of course I was downloading apps by day two! I downloaded the scriptures (as well as the R.S. manual and hymns), Pandora, and the All Recipes app. I having been using the notepad to make my to do lists and shopping lists, so basically pen and paper are a thing of the past! Of course it also works beautifully as a phone and an iPod, and today I finally used it to record some videos of Lila!! The videos are especially for Lila's grandparents and aunties and uncles who don't get to see this little girl very often. Sorry if they are a little boring, but hopefully you'll get the picture from the videos that this baby is one cute girl :o)

As Darren and I held each other in an embrace just after midnight this morning, we wished ourselves a happy anniversary. Today marks five years of marriage for us. Five years!! I would say that it feels like just yesterday we were newlyweds living in San Diego, but it actually feels like that was ages ago. We have now lived outside of San Diego longer than we lived there, we have welcomed a daughter into our family, and Darren is approaching graduation from BYU in less than a year (...I will graduate eventually). As Darren and I held each other in the wee small hours we shared our gratitude for one another and our complete happiness in marriage. I am so thankful that Darren married me. To this day I still wonder how I was able to snag my husband! He is such a smart, logical, skilled man while I feel like when we met I was an average, illogical, unskilled woman! Not long after we first met, I remember Darren calling me while he was on his way to my house and asking me which direction I ...

Ok, this is just going to be easier than texting or calling all you Apx wives about this. For those of you who are interested in making ice cream or sorbet on Saturday afternoon, here's a list of the ingredients and supplies that will be needed: (The pic is nectarine-plum sorbet I made on Sunday) Ice Cream half-and-half cream heavy cream sugar vanilla extract and any additional fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc. that you would like to add in Sorbet fruit sugar electric beaters 2-quart shallow baking dish (2-3 of these depending on how much we're making) I have all the ingredients to make a non-dairy ice cream, and that is what I plan on making. Since it is non-dairy, I'm making it especially for Darren and not planning on sharing much of it...sorry! I thought it would be fun to play some games while we wait for the ice cream and/or sorbet to freeze. Kasaundra mentioned that she has The Office board gam...

Exactly one month after my last post, I am finally back to blogging! I thought once the semester was finished that I would be blogging immediately and all the time. Well, finals came and went, and then there was a week of packing, and then a week of settling in, and I am finally taking some time to catch up. This post is mostly going to be pictures, and of course mostly of Lila. She's growing so fast! I can hardly believe that she will be 6 months this week. Time really does fly! Here is Lila in her excersaucer in the living room of our apartment. If you notice the balcony in the back, you can kind of see our view of the woods. It's very pretty here and I have been enjoying bird watching from the balcony. I have made 4 beautiful loaves of bread since arriving here. I was so impressed at how well they rose since my last 3 loaves of bread back in Utah were not so pretty! Last week I took Lila to the pool for the first time. Here is she is on the couch getting ready to go outside....