1 TOP, 4 LOOKS

I picked up this light little top in Penney’s today. I just loved the bright colours and thought it would be perfect for summer (if we ever get one!) It has so many different colours that it could work well with, pastel pink, denim, brown and of course white! I decided to have a little root in the wardrobe and see what different outfits I could come up with! Scroll down to have a look! 

First off,  these dusty pink trousers I got last year from new look and nude heels. I think this would be fab going to a confirmation or communion party. I love this bag, I got it in the DKNY shop in Kildare Villagw for an absolute steal last year! Such a nice colour bag for springtime 🌸

I wasn’t sure if this look would work but I actually really like it. There’s a small bit of the brown/tan colour in the top that matches well with the skirt, I got the skirt in Villa (Feb ‘18) and the white blazer is Penney’s (March ‘18) The shoes are crazy old...so old they’re coming back into fashion 🙈

This is just such a basic, casual, easy look, just through the top on with jeans and trainers and you’re good to go! I got the top in size 10 so it’s nice and floaty. 

I adore my pink puma trainers...Annabel has a matching pair! 💕 

I live in white jeans during the summer! I generally buy a few pairs in Penney’s at the start of the summer. I’ve a pair of old strapped rose gold sandals and a dusty pink jacket I got in Zara last year. I always maintain you need a good selection of coats in Ireland for over outfits because of our weather! 

The earrings are also Penney’s, I got them a while ago too. So you can really see how one top can fit in nicely with so much already in my wardrobe :) 

The last picture you can spot Annabel lying on the bed watching her tablet and chatting away to me! :) 

TJ's 4th Birthday Party- New Holland Tractor Theme!

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all enjoying the bit of nice weather. We were so lucky with the weather for TJ's birthday party. It's so difficult in Ireland to plan outdoor parties as we literally had to wait until the morning of the party to know what the weather would be like. Even if the forecast said it was going to be sunny its difficult to know how windy it would be! I had planned the party for indoors but knew if it was nice enough it could be moved outdoors - which thankfully happened (and my house stayed a lot cleaner which is a big bonus to outdoors parties!)

TJ's 4th Birthday

TJ was very specific about the theme of his party this year, his favourite tractor at the moment is a New Holland, because his Grandad has a one, so that's the party he wanted! Last year he had a general 'farm/cow/tractor party' you can see here.

Basically when I plan a party this is how I break it down:

1. Decorations

So I went with a mainly blue and yellow theme as a New Holland is blue.

I got the balloons in Woodies DIY, they are €3.49 per bundle of 3. I also got the yellow roll of table cloth in Woodies DIY, it was about €10 but I have loads left over.

I got the blue plastic plates, cups and straws in Tescos Ireland. Cards by Eilish printed off New Holland labels that I stuck to the cups, plates and straws.

The yellow sunflowers are from Aldi.

New Holland Tractor Birthday Party Theme

2. Food

As it was TJ's 4th birthday its not quite a 'drop the kids and go' party yet, so there were a good few adults to cater for too. For the adults I just made 2 trays of lasagne that morning and baked potatoes. I had some coleslaw, potato salad, leafy salad and brown bread to go along with it. The lasagne went down a treat for the adults and the older kids.

For the smaller ones I actually just did some sandwiches. I would normally cook nuggets and wedges but I just find so much gets thrown out and its quite time consuming to be watching them and dishing the out during the party where as the trays of sandwiches could be prepared before the party.

I also had fruit cups, I love these, just clear plastic cups filled with a variety of fruit (I used melon, grapes, apples, kiwis, blueberries and strawberries).

And, of course there were lots and lots of sweets and crisps and nibbles...oh and an Irish party would not be complete without an abundance of Rice Krispie buns! 

Also in the food section are the drinks. For the children I bought Fruit Shoots just because they are handy. (tip: if there are small children remove the plastic tops before the party so nobody chokes on them.) We ran out of fruit shoots because it was such a warm day so I had jugs of cordial as back up. For the adults there were minerals, water and of course plenty of tea and coffee!

Food and drinks table

3. Cake

Every year I swear I'm going to buy a cake but most years I end up making one. I know the cakes you can buy these days are amazing but I just can't justify spending 50or 60 euros on one. So this year I really cheated! I made a chocolate biscuit cake, covered it with green roll out icing and bought a small New Holland tractor to put on top of it...ta-da...a New Holland tractor cake, and, he had a new tractor as a bonus!

Cake and personalised t-shirt

4. T-Shirt

I designed the personalised t-shirt in Microsoft word and you print it off on iron transfer paper. When your printing it off though it must be backwards so that when you iron it onto the tshirt it is the right way around. Credit though to my mother and brother and sister, one of them usually take care of this for me!

That's everything covered I think.

The most important thing was that TJ really enjoyed his day, he and his friends played with his new tractor and trailer all afternoon.

If you have any questions left leave a comment and I'll get back to you :)

Westmeath Fashion Week Fashion Show

On Thursday night I attended a fashion show as part of Westmeath's first ever Fashion Week. The event was in aid of LARCC in Westmeath which is a very worthy cause. The evening took place in Miller&Cook in Mullingar, it has a gorgeous coffee shop downstairs and a restaurant upstairs- well worth a visit if your ever in Mullingar. Caroline McElroy talked us through the fashion for the night, she really did a great job, she was so full of energy and fun!

To read more about my outfit check out this blog post.

There were lots of local boutiques involed on the night with a great selection of clothes for all ages, shapes and sizes. The even had a bridal section. The hair and makeup was by Gloss Hair and Beauty and all the models looked stunning! 

Almost Famous...Mullingar

Our 3 course meal (I may have been half way through my

main course before I remembered to take a picture!

Kadee Bridal Shop, Athlone

Montgomery Millinery, Mullingar

Lovely Goodie Bags from Whelans Pharmacy, Mullingar

Easy baking with kids

This evening I was wrecked, I had played as much 'farming' with TJ as I could take..,which was all of about 10 minutes, I'm just not very good at playing farming! TJ would have happily sat glued to the iPad, but I always feel guilty if he spends too long on it. I remembered I had gotten a jar of Bake it Easy cookie oat mix in my goodie bag from the Irish bloggers conference last weekend so I decided this evening would be the perfect evening to try it out. 

It was so easy and didn't make an absolute mess! All I needed along with the jar was butter, honey and an egg...which thankfully I had! 

Tj did all the mixing and stirring and spooned the mixture out onto the baking tray. Ok,,, there was no weighing or measuring ingredients, but to me it was time better spent than on the iPad! I wasn't sure if I had to flatten out the blob when I put it on the tray so I left them fairly big but, they didn't really spread so next time I would flatten them a bit more. 

After 12 minutes in the oven they were done! All of us liked the taste of the cookies...except TJ 😂 I'm not surprised, I'd say it was the oat texture he didn't like as oppose to the taste. 

I see on their Instagram page they are selling 2 jars for €10. I would definitely buy these again,,,they really do what they say on the tin and I love that they are an Irish company. 

This is my own honest opinion. 

What I Wore... 21/05/2016

Hi everyone, just a short post about what I wore to the Bloggers Conference in the Marker Hotel last Saturday. As you've probably spotted, bomber jackets are in all the shops at the moment. I picked mine up in Vera Moda last week, you can shop it here . I know you can't really see the trousers in the picture but, they are leather look ones, also from Vera Moda, I got mine a while back but they are still in stock, you can shop them here. 

Bomber jacket from Vera Moda

I also picked up a pair of jeans in a kind of pinky/peachy colour that I think will match the jacket quite well..... shop here.

Jeans to match from Vera Moda

What do you think of bomber jackets?? Yay or Nay? :)

Dubai!!!!

Anyone who follows me on Instagram will know I was in Dubai recently for a few days. This was a bit of a spur of the moment trip that came about after I caught up with a good friend at a wedding recently and had the usual "oh I'd love to visit....oh your always welcome,,," chat. This usually ends up in nothing happening, but, when I went home and googled flights and sorted out logistics (ie three kids!) it actually happened!! And boy was it worth it! We had such a great time. Everything ran smoothly, the kids were happy, the flights ran on time and our holiday was amazing! ....it would encourage me to go away again 😂 

Desert Tour with Arabian Tours

I ended up booking our flights with Turkish airlines and having a stop over in Istanbul. The longer journey was worth it though financially as the flights were literally half the price of the direct flights. Turkish airlines were good to fly with, everything ran smoothly, the aeroplane food was your usual standard food, there was a good selection of movies to watch and the flight attendants were nice and friendly. I'd happily fly with them again. 

Dubai Mall & The Atlantis

On our first day there we did the city sightseeing tour. I love bus tours as they give such a good over sight of the city. I booked a 24 hour ticket with a desert tour package. The bus ticket is worth the money as there are lots of routes. We just did the 'modern route' but I think if you had the 48hpur ticket it would give you plenty of time to take in the other routes also. 

The Burj Khalifa & dinner at The Social

The highlight of the trip I thought was the desert your with Arabian Nights Tours. We had a lovely, friendly, informative tour guide. They collect you at your hotel in a 4x4 jeep and drop you back there. You drive about  an hour out to the desert where they begin with driving over the sand dunes (like lunatics!) but it's great fun. Next you stop for a falcon show,  I didn't think I'd find that interesting but I actually did. More crazy sand dune driving and we stop to take in the sunset of the desert,,,this was amazing,,,just one of those pinch me moments. Then we're off to our final destination, the campsite, for food drinks and entertainment. 

The second day was our lazy day. We had a big sleep in and caught up with my friend. That evening we went to dinner in a restaurant, Social House, that a view of the fountains beeside the Burj Khalifa. Every half hour there is a water fountain display where the water 'dances' to music, it really is beautiful to watch.

On our last day we visited the Burj Khalifa in the morning. We had booked the tickets online and collected them there. It was easy and straight forward. We went at 11:30 and there wasn't too much queing or waiting around. By the time we were leaving you could notice it had gotten a lot busier. We had a great view of the city and it was definitely worth doing. After some browsing in the biggest mall in the world we headed over to the Atlantis for lunch. Again, this was lovely to see as it is pretty breath taking.....and if you watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or Melbourne, this is the hotel they stay in!! :) On our final night we went to a gorgeous restaurant 'The Social Room.' The food here was out of this world and there was a gorgeous view over The Marina.

Overall, Dubai as a city is amazing, its so friendly, clean and safe. Yes the weather is hot but everywhere is air conditioned....unless your lying out on the beach or by the pool! Everything about Dubai is bigger and better, the cars, the buildings, the lifestyle. Dubai is definitely worth a visit. 

Relaunch of Pichet Restaurant

On Tuesday night we attended the re launch party for Pichet Restaurant in Dublin.It has been completely transformed with a new layout and fabulous new décor. From the amazing new bar, to the quirky tiles, to the bare concrete walls and exposed pipes this really is bang on trend style wise.

Tastiest of cocktails!

On hand for the night was the gorgeous Roz Purcell who did a wonderful job of talking us through the starters, main course and dessert. The food was without a doubt delicious, my favourite was the risotto with shortrib that we sampled as our main course. It would definitely entice me to return to the restaurant in the near future! Oh and if you think that cocktail on the left looked good, it tasted even better!! (Even if it was non alcoholic).

Roz Purcell talked us through the dishes

The three dishes we sampled.