Memorial Day Weekend Project

We've been extremely busy here at the Lutz household this weekend! I decided to take advantage of this three day weekend and tackle painting the upstairs bathroom. I knew I wanted to do as much as possible on Saturday and Sunday so that we could relax on Monday. It's a good thing... we now have plans to go to GG and Papa's house for a fish fry tomorrow! Glad I planned my project out properly!

Jonathan has been doing a lot of housework for me the past two days and watching Caleb. There's no way I could have gotten so much done without his help! I do miss Caleb though, I haven't been able to spend much time with him for the past two days. I'll still be looking for the proper "decor" for the bathroom, but the main part of the job is done! It's such a nice feeling to have that behind me!

Caleb is now Mobile!

Caleb can crawl! YAY!!! Here are a few videos from today of his new adventures! Hooray for Caleb! : )






PS - He's not using the basket behind him to balance... that's all him!

Baby Dedication

This past Sunday we gathered with our friends and family to dedicate Caleb to the Lord. Traditionally most churches set aside a Sunday to bring all babies up and do a dedication in front of the whole church. Our church prefers to "do" baby dedications within smaller groups so that we can invite people in our life that are helping to raise our children for God. Within our small group we have three young children and decided we would like to have a dedication together.

We held the dedication at our house and had originally planned to be outside for the afternoon. We had all somehow forgotten how hot Texas is at the end of May though! So we decided that morning to spend most of our time in the house and only go outside for the actual dedication. Greg Poore, one of the pastors at our church, came and spoke about our roles as parents. He was very inspiring and good natured as the other two kids (who are toddlers) decided they really didn't want to be held! It was entertaining to watch them run around and Caleb really wished he could get down and play with them too!

We loved having our family and friends together to celebrate the fact that Caleb belongs to the Lord and hear them agree to help him follow whatever the Lord has planned for him. We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

Yummy Puffs

Caleb has been doing a great job eating solids! He now eats sweet potato, squash, carrots, green beans, peas, pears, prunes, applesauce, bananas and yogurt. We just started yogurt for breakfast and he's still not really sure about it, but mixed with fruit he does ok. This week we also started offering him puffs. Wednesday was the first day we offered Caleb the snack and he needed them put in his mouth for him one at a time. Thursday and Friday he could put them in his mouth if I first put them in his hand one at a time. Yesterday he was suddenly capable of picking them up off the tray and feeding himself! In 5 days he went from needing me to do it all for him to not really needing me at all! Of course, I still stay nearby just in case, but he hasn't needed me lately!

Still working on the crawling. He's SO close.. just can't quite coordinate the hands and legs together yet! I have no doubt that he'll get it soon, he's already scooting all over the living room, soon it will be crawling all over the house!

Here's a video of him eating his puffs! So cute!

Amazing Friends

For several weeks I've been slowly working on cleaning out our overgrown flowerbeds. I've spent hours out in the backyard and bagged around ten bags of weeds, dead limbs and growth, but barely made a dent in all the work that we've been needing to do. Last Wednesday at our bible study, I mentioned the stress I have been feeling and that I needed prayer for time and energy to get all the work done. During that conversation our amazing group decided to jump in and help.

Last night 7 of our friends came over with tools and gloves ready to work. There are truly no words to express how grateful I am that these men and women took time (after working all day Monday) to come work on our yard! They spent an hour and a half cutting back bushes, cleaning up dead stuff, cutting the dead fronds off the palm trees, and plenty more. It seemed that every time I looked up from the project I was working on people had finished where they were at and moved on to the next job. I lost count of the bags, but there are 15-20 trash bags waiting to go out on trash day plus piles of palm fronds. It would have taken me weeks to get to everything they did and there's no way I could have cut back the palm trees on my own! After we finished the work, we came inside to cool off with ice cream before everyone went home.

My church talks about having 2 am friends, the ones you can call at any time of night with any problem. It might not have been 2 am and it wasn't a life threatening situation, but you have no idea the stress and tension it's taken away knowing that the job is done. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful, giving people in our lives!

I wish we had taken before and after pictures, but here are a few of us relaxing after we finished and the HUGE pile of trash that goes out on trash day!






And of course I had to add one of Caleb... he was so great every time I went to work outside! He could spend all day out there and be perfectly happy! : )

Extra Note: The Perrys posted a few "during" pictures on their blog too!