Our Resurrection Cross - A New Easter Tradition

A few days ago I started showing you some of the changes that we have made in our home for the Easter season. Today I'd like to share one more with you.

This year my husband made a large wooden cross with the boys during the season of Lent.

On Good Friday he talked to them about how Jesus was nailed to the cross and about His immense love for us. He took out 3 nails, let the boys look at them and hold them, and gave them a little poke on each of their hands and feet (don't worry...it was just a small poke) so that they would understand that it HURT Jesus. Then, they nailed 3 nails into the cross.

On Holy Saturday, we placed a cloth on the cross.

And on Easter Sunday, we began to decorate the cross with beautiful signs of life (i.e. paper flowers, butterflies, ladybugs, bees, etc) to celebrate Jesus' Resurrection.

It is now our Resurrection Cross and we have placed it in a prominent place in our living room, to remind us of Christ's love for us, and His victory over sin and death.

It is such a joy to listen to the boys as they tell everyone who comes to visit about their "Easter/Resurrection cross". They'll say things like,"Jesus is not dead anymore","Jesus got on the cross because He loves us so, so much", and "Jesus is risen and His boo boos don't hurt Him anymore". Precious.

Here are a few pictures...

Good Friday Cross

Holy Saturday Cross

Easter Sunday!!! - Resurrection Cross

 

Note: I have to give partial credit to Kimberlee and Dana for the inspiration behind this project (...the rest was Divinely inspired). Thank you for your beautiful ideas!

Lift High The Cross

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Led on their way by this triumphant sign,
The hosts of God in conquering ranks combine.

Each newborn servant of the Crucified
Bears on the brow the seal of Him Who died.

O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree,
As Thou hast promised, draw the world to Thee.

So shall our song of triumph ever be:
Praise to the Crucified for victory.

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Words: George W. Kitch­in; mod­i­fied by Mi­chael R. New­bolt in 1916.

Music: Crucifer, Syd­ney H. Ni­chol­son, 1916

What We Were Up To This Weekend...

This weekend I got to spend a whole lot of time with my Mr (read: handsome hubby) working on this:

 

Isn't she a beauty?!

It all started last Christmas when my Mr and I had been shopping for the perfect wooden kitchen for the littles with three things in mind: affordability (read: It's gotta be cheep!), design, and durability. We really liked these (among others)...

Reto Kitchen  (158.00) from KidsKraft

Retro Complete Kitchen ($249) from Company Kids 

...however we weren't too crazy about the price-tags that came with the ready made kitchens that we liked and I was pretty attached to having some counter space (you know for things like mixing, chopping, and preparing food...etc) ...so we decided to make our own! How EXCITING!



We were completely inspired/blown away by some of these homemade kitchens...

Erin over at Ink Tree Press made this beauty. See how she did it here.

This big guy was made by Amy over at Giggleberry Creations from an old entertainment center! See how here.

And I just can't get over this little ditty made by Becca over at Bug Bites Play Food from a little footed nightstand! See how she did it here. I just think this is beyond ADORABLE! (I think I would have done something like this if I wasn't so darned attached to having counter space)

After pouring over hundreds of pictures of play-kitchens we began designing exactly what we wanted. We formatted our dream play kitchen on a program called Google SketchUp which we just plugged our measurements right into. Download it for FREE here.

With our design and measurements in hand we took a trip to home depot to purchase our wood. We spent about $35.00 and got one huge sheet of plywood (4'x8'), two 4''x1'' planks, two 2"x1" planks, and one 2"x2" plank.

We also bought all of the little accessories (knobs, oven handle, and dowel rod) as well as paint, sandpaper, bolts, screws, hinges, nails, etc...

I didn't know I'd be blogging about this later so I didn't take all of the step by step pics : ( Sorry to let you down folks.

This is what the kitchen has looked like since Christmas and we hadn't worked on it since until this weekend (we haven't been busy or anything).

(I promise I'll add these pics tonight soon!)

So this weekend we painted it and made and hung curtains! Now the only thing left to finish are the burners and knobs for the stove! We're almost there!


It was such a gift to create this project with my Mr and I had such a great time putting it all together. It was almost like a date (well...with the littles...so not quite...). I think the reason it was so special and unifying to build this toy together (besides the absolutely exhilarating feeling of using power-tools side-by-side) was because it is the first "handy" project that we have been completely united in and have created/worked on together from thought/design/dream to completion (well almost completion). So...maybe we will be able to build our dream-home together someday...you never know.


....I know you're all dying to know how much this pretty little plaything cost us...so I'll tell you. Our total cost for this project was right around $75.00!!!  That is approximately HALF the cost of anything we found while shopping!

So go grab your hubby and take a trip to Home Depot...where dreams can come true.

Oh! And do you want to see some of the kitchen accessories that we thrifted? Well I can't wait to show you!...But you'll have to wait for another day for all of that.