Ruins

One of my favourite things about being back in Ireland is being able to show my boys the beautiful sights in our lovely little country. They are particularly interested in "really old stuff" and love going to see old ruins. We usually combine these outings with a hike and a stop off for lunch afterwards.

A few weeks ago we were staying over at my parents' house and my Dad and I brought them to Monasterboice, the ruins of an early Christian settlement in County Louth. There is a really old graveyard, a round tower, some beautiful high crosses and the ruins of an old church, plenty for little people to explore. Of course, they quickly turned things competitive trying to see who could find the oldest grave.

Naturally all the mischief and questions worked up an appetite and we went to a nice Irish pub for a hearty lunch afterwards before going to meet up with their cousins for more mischief. 

On the way back we passed by Newgrange, an ancient passage tomb originally constructed over 5,000 years ago. I'm looking forward to bringing the boys to see it another time, hopefully in the Summer.

A couple of weeks ago after a very windy rainy January we decided to dust off the cobwebs and take advantage of a nice sunny day to hike up to the Hellfire Club in the Dublin Mountains not far from where we live.

The boys had great fun exploring the spooky ruins, there are many urban myths and tales of paranormal activity associated with the Hellfire Club, the most popular one when I was little was that "if you walk around the hellfire club at midnight in an anti-clockwise direction the devil will appear!!!" 

It didn't look too scary on this nice sunny day though.

There are beautiful views all over Dublin from the top of Montpelier Hill where the ruins are located.

Rather than walking the main track back down I would recommend losing yourself in the beautiful woods, we even saw some moo cows!

We stopped off at The Merry Ploughboy for lunch, I highly recommend it, the food was yummy and they have a really nice kids menu :-)

Magic Rainbow Clouds

Whilst packing the kids into the car for the school run this morning my middle son let out an almighty screech of excitement and pointed up at the sky. Expecting the usual moon/bird/airplane/helicopter I was stunned to look up and see these beautiful rainbow clouds...

These camera phone photos don't do them any justice, they were absolutely stunning!! I have never seen anything like this before and when we got back home I looked them up on the internet, of course there was a scientific explanation involving crystals and high winds, but we are sticking with calling them "magic rainbow clouds" :-)

Powerscourt House and Gardens

Happy New Year!!! It's hard to believe it's 2016 already!

It's been a rainy, stormy week here in Ireland and with one of my boys having a bad tummy bug we've been stuck indoors a lot more than I'd like. Thankfully there was a dry day before the bug hit and we rugged up and went out for a drive. Often when we go for drives we have no set plan on where we're going, we just like to see where we end up.

This time it was at the beautiful Powerscourt House and Gardens in County Wicklow...

The only word I can use to describe this place is stunning! I was blown away by the beauty of the gardens and if they look this amazing on an overcast Winter's Day I can only imagine what they look like in late Spring and Summer!

The gardens are vast and there are so many beautiful spots and nooks and crannies for kids to explore.

The boys had a great time exploring and running all over the place.

And for when you're all walked out and have worked up an appetite there's the Avoca cafe and for a little retail therapy various lovely little shops and a gorgeous garden centre.

I have a feeling this will be a place we visit over and over. The gardens are listed as the "Number 3 Garden in the World" by National Geographic and the house is listed as one of the "Top 10 Houses in the World" by Lonely Planet. I can see why!

Christmas

I can't believe how quickly Christmas has come and gone this year! We've had a lovely time, the preps started weeks ago with cake baking, pudding steaming, gift wrapping, visiting the Christmas markets, seeing the boys perform in their various concerts and shows and everything else that pops up at this time of year.

Here are my baking efforts for this year...

I got cookie-cutter happy with my Christmas cake this year and some lovely blue icing and was really happy with how it looked, cake decorating is not a strength of mine so by my standards this was fabulous :-) Another 6 hours of my life were spent steaming the pudding, personally I hate Christmas pudding but it means a lot to my hubby to have a homemade one so I persevered!

Last year we went with very traditional colours for our Christmas tree, red, gold and silver so this year I decided to go with a lot more colour...

The boys helped me decorate as always and everyone was very happy with how it looked.

Can you spot the cute little Disney ornament from our trip to Paris?

Elsewhere around the house were a varied assortment of baubles, ornaments, fairy lights and candles...

We spent Christmas day with my husband's side of the family at his brother's house, 9 adults and 7 kids in total! They have just had an extension put on their house so it was a fabulous space for so many people, eating, drinking and dancing the night away. Everyone took on a cooking job for the day so it was pretty easy going and everything was delicious. We all slept over and the boys were so excited with it all and got to stay up will 11pm! In fairness the adults were all a bit tipsy or we may have remembered to put them to bed earlier ;-)

Feeling a bit delicate on Boxing Day morning we managed to recover in time for another big meal at our house with my parents and little sis. It was another great day, the boys love having family over and were spoilt all over again with presents and treats and we had a lovely evening relaxing and playing board games.

I was pretty spoilt myself this Christmas with really lovely presents from my hubby and boys, tickets to see Adele (I LOVE her!!!!!!!!!), a fab new smartphone, goodies from L'Occitane, a manicure station and some new books! I'm like a big kid opening my presents at Christmas and I was thrilled with these :-)

I have loved every Christmas our little family has had but I have to say these last 2 Christmases we have had back in Ireland have been my favourite, it's just so special for the boys to be surrounded by all their family and we all love being back :-)

Three in a row

My "baby boy" turned 8 a couple of weeks ago!!! The perfect excuse to bake some cupcakes...

My boys are now aged 8, 9 and 10. A lot of people think we were insane to have our kids so close together but I am so glad we did. Yes there are crazy days where I think "what were we thinking???" but then I look at them playing together, enjoying the same toys, movies and games and just know how blessed we are :-) Other days when they're all wrestling and being totally feral I think maybe we should have spaced them out by about 10 years each :-D!!!