Weekenders | Sun, Sea, Sand & Stellar ♥

This weekend was a fab one for me - the sun was shining and Jacek was off work all weekend which meant that we got some much needed family time and also spent some quality time together too, yay! Thank God the summer finally decided to arrive her in Cork, everyone is so much happier when the sun is shining, don't you think? I know I was smiling a lot this weekend, and that wasn't just because of the three glasses of prosecco I was sipping on Saturday night either! Time with my boys is the best and when we get out and about it's even better.

This weekend I took Tyler Lee to a little fairyland in the woods right next to my parents house. It was the sweetest thing ever and I read somewhere that it was all started by a little girl who lives in the area too and who wanted to encourage others to believe in the magic of fairies. I'm all for believing in fairies, magic and anything that helps my boy use his imagination so I just had to take him there. There were fabrics and strings hanging off the trees, lots of handmade fairy doors and windows - which were coloured in my children, fairy drawings and lots of other fairy themed things. We didn't bring a door this trip but I'm going to definitely bring one next time we go to the woods and maybe some more little decorations too to add to the fairy-tastic magic. It's great to have something like this on our island to give the kids a bit of excitement and even better that it's free and outdoors too.

We took a trip to one of our favourite haunts - Fota House & Gardens, a place I've featured on the blog lots of times before. It's literally five minutes from our house in the car and I love going there to see all the gorgeous flowers in bloom. I took so many pictures of the flowers in the walled garden, they were just stunning, especially all the pink ones. The flowers above were some of my favourites, I love how they were bowing on the stem and the shape of the petals reminded me of little fairy dresses, so pretty! I think after people, flowers are my favourite thing to photograph. We had a fab time walking around the gardens and Tyler Lee was practising his stunts again jumping off grass banks and walls - I swear the child is trying to being a hobby in parkour!

On Sunday morning we headed to Inch beach which is a gorgeous spot down in East Cork. We were surprised that the beach was actually really quiet when we got there - maybe people thought it'd start raining again. As usual Tyler Lee jumped into the tide before we even had a chance to get him in his wetsuit, that boy loves the water and when we eventually did get him in the wetsuit he looked like a right little surfer dude - I think it's the hair! I was paddling in the tide trying to teach my boy how to swim, least to say I was soaked but that Atlantic wasn't as cold as usual, I'm normally leaping out of the water due to the shock of the cold but I survived this time! We had a picnic on the beach and when the boys went down to the water again I lay in the sun reading my Stellar magazine and hoping that the sun would sort my hair out - once again I've experienced a hairdressing fail, why don't hairdressers like me?!

Saturday night called for a glass of prosecco... or three. Jacek and I were sipping away as we were watching Orange Is the New Black - I swear he's obsessed, he's been watching it morning, noon and night. On Saturday night I also went out with a friend of mine for a long overdue catchup. We went for a spin and got takeaway (oh how I love potato pies!) which we ate whilst sitting in the car, listening to some crappy 90's dance music while it poured with rain outside - we're simple people, as you can tell! For our picnic at the beach on Sunday, I brought everything along in my new hot pink, satchel cool bag*, which is just gorgeous as you can see. It kept all our drinks nice and cool and our food fresh and safe from the heat. It also made a fab photo opp with my hot pink Stellar magazine, although people at the beach were looking at me like I was a crazy women whilst snapping my photos - it's a hard life being a blogger sometimes! I was taking a break from the book reading this weekend (although I was flicking through the pages of Fleur de Force's Glam Guide) and was reading Stellar instead which is an Irish glossy. I was loving the 30 Days of Hot Hair piece, daring to try some of these in the coming weeks. Also, it was great to see some 'grown up' issues in there too for people in their mid-twenties like myself and who are mothers, the Conception Deception article was a great read.

As I mentioned above, I was flicking through the pages of Fleur de Force's Glam Guide and was getting some hair inspo from her book. I was sporting a triple plait or 'mermaid plait' all weekend. I love how it looks and it's actually super simple to do too, I just wish my hair was longer. You can kind of see it in the above pic - why is the front (or selfie camera) on my phone so terrible?! It was great to mix up my usual - messy and I just got out of bed - hair look. It was great to spend the weekend with my boys and Tyler Lee was far happier, no crying thank God. I think my theory of him needing a lot of attention was correct and it's great to see him being so happy and content in himself now.

Overall it was a fab weekend, made all the better with the sun shining. I'm really looking forward to this coming weekend now as we'll be in Jersey and spending even more time together.

My Weekenders post is now a weekly thing to inspire me to make the most of our weekends as a family and I've also decided to make it a weekly link up too so please do feel free to pop by the blog every Monday to link up any posts you have about your weekend. Thank you so much to the lovely Kellie from My Little Babóg for linking up last week, you can read Kellie's post about her family's trip to the beautiful lookiing lavender farm in Wexford here. I shall be commented on each post linked up over the coming days and can't wait to read about everyone's weekend adventures!