Things I’m Loving Friday #598

Earlier this week, we realized that our family has less than a month left of summer break before all three boys are back in school. Summer is flying by and we are certainly making the most of it over here! We spent the past week swimming, playing backyard soccer, fishing, watching the World Cup, hanging out with friends, playing board games and eating daily popsicles.

Our weekend plans include a visit to a new-to-our-area slime museum, a kid birthday party and our own World Cup watch party! It should be a good one. As for today, I’m stopping by the blog to share this week’s roundup of favorites. Please keep on scrolling if you’d like to check them out! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Things I’m Loving Friday

• Active Skin Repair

Summer is the season of scratches, scrapes and bug bites in our house. At any given time, it feels like each kid has a handful of battle wounds from playing hard. This Active Skin Repair works overtime to cleanse wounds and speed up healing in a non-toxic, no-sting, pain-free way. Our kids don’t flinch when I break a bottle of this stuff out to spray on a scrape or skin irritation. It relies on Hypochlorous Acid (the same stuff in my fav Tower 28 spray I use to keep my skin in check when I’m super sweaty but can’t shower right away) and Hyaluronic Acid, both naturally produced by the body to help support healing and promote skin barrier function. We’ve loved it!

• Collaborative Board Games

Last weekend, after I went through all of our games and puzzles, I realized something: Leaving a new (but old) game or puzzle out on the kitchen counter in the morning has a 100% success rate in prompting our kids to reach for them. What’s old is new again! Our kids have always loved games and puzzles but having them out and easily accessible undoubtedly inspires more play with some of their forgotten gems. I shared this sentiment on Instagram earlier in the week along with a handful of the collaborative games our boys love and a bunch of you reached out appreciating the recommendations so I wanted to highlight them here, too.

These cooperative/collaborative games are games where kids work together toward a common goal versus competing. They’ve been hugely helpful for eliminating sibling battles and intensely competitive emotions over the years. Here are some of our favorites:

Outfoxed: A fun and exciting game where kids work togehter to catch a thief. This is the one that has the most longevity as even our oldest son (almost 11) still enjoys it! Plus, it’s enjoyable for adults, too!

Hoot Owl Hoot: An adorable game where kids work to get little owls back into their nest before the sun rises.

Snug as a Bug in a Rug: A seriously cute game where kids spin a wheel and try to get all the bugs under the rug before stink bugs arrive! This one is extra awesome because you can actually alter the rules and make it easier or more advanced based on your kids’ ages and skills. It was fun in the younger years but has grown well with the boys.

Count Your Chickens: Kids work together to gather up a bunch of baby chicks and bring them back to their coop. This is especially a hit with our 5-year-old right now.

Dinosaur Escape: For kids who love the game memory, Dinosaur Escape is a fun game that combines memory, matching and speed. The goal is to find each dinosaur’s hidden match so they can make it to safety before a 3D volcano puzzle is completed.

• The Academy by T.Z. Layton (Soccer-Themed Series for 7- to 13-year-olds)

No, no, not The Academy book I just mentioned I loved in last week’s TILF post! This one is Chase’s new book series obsession! He’s been all-in on The Academy series recommended to him by Jack, his fellow soccer-loving best friend. (Jack’s mom is a teacher and knows her book recs so she deserves the credit for bringing this one into their lives.) Soccer has always been Chase’s favorite sport. Couple Chase’s innate interest in soccer with World Cup madness, and his interest in soccer is sky-high. This soccer-themed series captivated him from the first couple of pages and he begins and ends every single day by reading a few chapters. I asked Chase to tell me what he likes about this series so I could share it with kids who might be interested and this is what he said: “It’s really entertaining and fun to read. The soccer games in the book are easy to picture in your head and exciting.” So there ya have it!

• America’s Sweethearts (Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Show on Netflix)

Anyone else remember Making the Team, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show that first debuted in the early 2000s? I remember watching that show with friends in college and we all LOVED it. (Apparently it ran for years!? Somehow it fell off my radar after college though.) Anyway, fast forward a decade and a half or so and America’s Sweethearts on Netflix is every bit as captivating. I love watching the dancer’s talent and the drama that unfolds as the new season’s rookies compete for a spot on a crazy-competitive team. It’s also the kind of show I don’t really have to focus on to follow along, making it the perfect show to play in the background during my workouts. I’m not quite through the latest season but knowing I having this show to stream on the backburner makes me look forward to my workouts a little more!

• Here’s to Us by Elin Hilderbrand

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Romance / My rating: B+

Something about summer has me craving easy, breezy books and Elin Hilderbrand’s novels are the definition of a good beach read. While I’ve liked a handful of her other novels more than this one, if you’re an Elin Hilderbrand fan, you’ll like Here’s to Us, too. It takes place on Nantucket (a shocker to no one if you are an avid Hilderbrand reader) when the three women who were all at one time married to recently deceased celebrity chef Deacon Thorpe come together with their adult children to honor his final wish of saying goodbye to Deacon in the house he loved most. Lots of past and present hurts are unveiled in a way that kept me engaged in this novel from start to finish.

• Weekend Sales

Canopy‘s Black Friday in July 25% Off with code JULYBF (thorough today only!): We love our Canopy air purifier and I just used this sale to order their compact bedside humidifier for the dry winter months (and to hopefully help with Chase’s winter bloody noses — finger’s crossed!). While I was sold on all the sciency stuff behind a humidifer what really pushed me over the edge to this one was that the parts are dishwasher safe. Canopy, you get me! They have a “secret” sale going on where the code JULYBF saves 25% off sitewide on orders $75+ through the end of today.

Nordstrom Anniversary Sale: I can’t shop until tomorrow but I did some browsing and found a couple items worth adding to my cart. I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t as impressed by this year’s sale as I have been in the past but I do still like it for kid shoes/core staples.

20% off Koala Eco with code PBFINGERS: This one isn’t technically a weekend-only sale but I’m so excited about it that I had to highight it here! We have a Koala Eco code, friends!! I love this non-toxic brand of home cleaning products and think their hand soap and dish soap are especially lovely. (I love their glass apothecary bottle for hand soap and just refill it with the large refill.) I’m sensitive to scents but still want a little something in my cleaning products and Koala Eco does it right! The use essential oils which sometimes I find fade into the background too much in non-toxic products but THESE you can actually smell in the most subtle, lovely, clean way. (Note: Unfortunately my code doesn’t work on collections or subscriptions.)

• Friday Flashbacks

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins (The muffins that are carrying us through summer snacktime right now!)

Chicken Sausage and Sweet Potato Bake (Forever one of our favorite easy weeknight dinners.)