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Wow, two months in a row writing this Little Loves post that I have been so bad at writing just for joy lately. Life in lockdown is much the same as last month. It's really busy trying to juggle everything with home school too but we have a good little routine going that we are used to. In Wales are are still restricted to travel within 5 miles still but schools are opening next week, which is going to take some getting used to! I'm quite anxious as to what school will be like for the little ones, Little Boy is starting a new school with his sister so that brings an extra worry too.
Last month I mentioned that I have been reading a lot in lockdown. I've slowed down a bit this last month, because of time issues but I have still read a couple of books. I read The Eve Illusion, the sequel to the Eve of Man book by Giovanna and Tom Fletcher. It's a trilogy so there's one more book to come. I'll be honest, I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the first book but it was good and I'll definitely be reading the last instalment to find out what happens to the characters.
I also read The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Set in 1617 on a remote Norwegian Island this book completely fascinated me. Weaving stories of witchcraft, religion, feminism and forbidden love together it spoke to me in many ways. I would definitely recommend it and I plan to search out more books by the author.
I bought my middle daughter a great book last week - Times Fables. I had been struggling to get her to learn her times tables and she was becoming increasingly frustrated so I turned to Amazon for help and found this book. It is a series of stories and rhymes which help them to learn their tables. This method worked perfectly with the way her brain works and the way she thinks and believe it or not, within a day she has learnt all the difficult times tables she was struggling with! It was amazing! I'd recommend this book to everyone who has a child whose memory would work in the same way.
Since the weather has taken a little turn for the worse we have been having more movie afternoons together and I've been trying to get the children to watch some more grown up things. We recently watched Forest Gump, Independence Day and The Hunger Games and they enjoyed them all, even though Little Boy (5) is a bit young so he tends to play Minecraft whilst we watch the film.
I've also started catching up on This Is Us. I watched the first season ages ago and loved it so much. I realised that the next three seasons are included on Amazon Prime so I've been getting stuck into those, it's such a great show.
Hubby and I also finished watching Season 15 of Grey's Anatomy and I was telling him about how much I loved ER back in the day so I bought the first season on DVD from eBay and I introduced him to that. We're a few episodes in now and he's really enjoying it. It's much grittier and faster paced than Grey's Anatomy in a way and probably more realistic.
The children have recently discovered The Floor Is Lava on Netflix and whilst it is a great show, it has made my little boy start to leap from the furniture at home so I think it's not something I'm going to encourage them to watch any more of!
I'm still not managing to listen to my normal podcasts, mainly because I used to listen to them in the car and I'm not driving anywhere at the moment. If you do have time to listen though, one of my favourites is Simple Farmhouse Life by Farmhouse on Boone.
I have been cooking quite a bit still, but trying to cut down on the cakes due to the lockdown weight that I've put on! This delicious Marble Cake should be the exception to the rule though! I've also made vegan chocolate croissants, slow cooker bread and raspberry sorbet, all recipes I need to write up for my food blog this week.
I've also started getting the crafts back out. I bought a couple of embroidery hoop kit from a seller I noticed on Instagram Thimble and Fabric and I really enjoyed working on them.
Since then I bought a more complicated one from Hoop Embroidery Co on Etsy which I am enjoying working on now.
I also bought the girls some sewing kits from Etsy. These felt rainbows are really easy for them to do, and taught them some good basic sewing skills. My little boy also wants to join in the sewing action so I'm on the look out for a kit he could manage. He loves coming up to me and seeing how I'm progressing with each piece I'm working on.
I also made some cushion covers for the seating area outside. The cushions and seat pads that came with our outdoors dining set weren't washable or removable and over the last couple of years they had gotten really stained. I used some fabric we already had to make seat pad covers and cushion covers and I'm so pleased with how it turned out!
I also made some pebble alphabet stones which was a project I started last summer! We found 26 smooth smaller pebbles on the beach and painted a letter of the alphabet on each one and then covered them in varnish. They look lovely and I am sure they will be a great tool to help teach Baby N his letters when the time comes. I think maybe this summer we will search for more pebbles and make capital letter ones and number ones too.
I have bought a couple of new bits of clothing because of the half a stone of lockdown weight I'm carrying and can't seem to get rid of! It's been so frustrating going back up a dress size after I lost the baby weight and I have been exercising every day and I don't think that I eat too badly which is why I can't understand why I'm carrying this extra weight that I can't seem to lose!
Anyway, I've just embraced it for now and bought a few bits from H&M which is one of my favourite shops at the moment. It is easy to order from online and their clothes are beautiful and great value.
There's not much else to say but stay safe and good luck if you your little ones are returning to school. It's the home straight now before the summer holidays and I for one am looking forward to taking my foot off the peddle a little and having some quieter days. I'm still sharing what we are getting up to on my Instagram channel every day (@wemadethislife) and I'm still making videos over on my YouTube channel so do come and join me over there too.
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