June & July Favorites

Hello, August!

These past two months have been a whirlwind. We had SO much going on.

June kicked off with Kieran finishing up first grade! I am SO proud of him. With all the craziness of the past year and a half of his school experience, things changing every couple weeks, to remote learning to hybrid learning to in-person…and back again here and there…he did amazingly well. He is such a cool kid. Just rolls with the punches and generally stays unfazed by all the crazy. I am so proud of him I could burst.

We also finished up baseball in June, which was bittersweet. Kieran seriously fell IN LOVE with baseball this spring, and we wanted it to go on forever for him, but it was nice to have some time in our already-busy schedule back. He tried out and made a fall travel team, though, so it looks like we’ll be in baseball mode for months to come!

In addition to Father’s Day, we have a smattering of family and friend birthdays in June and even more in July. There were lots of celebrations these past two months! More than we’ve had in, well, many months.

Kieran started a sports-focused summer camp a few days a week (spoiler alert: he LOVES it). I pick him up in the afternoons and he is completely drenched in sweat and has a big grin on his little pink face. So cute.

AND Finn had two big events happen in June. Frist up, his first big boy haircut. I’m still recovering. He looks adorable, but I will forever love his long curly locks.

We also decided to start him in a toddler preschool program a couple days a week. With Covid pretty much taking over as soon as he turned one, the kid has had VERY limited social interaction. He’s more like me than his brother – shy, a little bit anxious, and introverted – so we wanted to get him in some social situations with other kiddos his age to get him more comfortable in social settings. We both cried a lot in the beginning, but he’s really starting to love it. No more tears at drop off!

In July, we did a family vacation to the Outer Banks. My sisters and I grew up vacationing there, and as a young adult, I would go on trips there with my friends. We’re no strangers to that part of the coast. They are my favorite beaches, hands down.

The trip was amazing. Exhausting in all the best ways (as traveling with kids always tends to be), but so fun! My sister and her husband joined us and they are the best aunt and uncle ever to my kids. My kids are obsessed with them, and so it was a very special time for everyone involved. Lots of family time with very little distractions.

It was a great reset for me and Dan, too, who have both been working like crazies for months and months now. It was the first week where I TRULY unplugged from everything. No blog posts were written. No Instagram posts were made. I just turned off. And it was perfection.

I can’t believe we’re into August now! Summer is ending as fast as it arrived, and it’s throwing me for a serious loop. I’ll be doing my best to soak up all these great moments while they are here.

Here’s some stuff that we have been loving these past couple months!

1. First up, my newest favorite bathing suit top. I got this one in two colors (black and a cool blue patterned one) and it is CRAZY flattering. Since having kids, I love a tankini, and this one doesn’t make me feel frumpy or hot at all. It has a sexy neckline with an actual bra built in. I LOVE it. It’s really the first bathing suit that I have felt amazing in since having my babies. LOVE.
2. I added some things to my skincare regimen these past few months. I always switch things up a bit as the seasons change, and in the summer, my skin still craves moisture but nowhere near what it needs in the winter. As I move into my late 30s, my summer skin needs move away from my younger years where I focued on acne and oil control. Now I focus more on overall brightening and toning. I tried this Sunday Riley Juno oil and LOVE it. For years and years, I swore by Murad’s multivitamin oil, but it has retinol in it that has started to irritate my skin in spots. I still use it sparingly, but this oil has basically taken its place. I love the Juno oil because it’s a good all-purpose base for moisture, and it doesn’t have any retinol (I prefer to use retinol at night anyway). It goes on wonderfully and absorbs quickly without leaving a slick of grease on my face. It plumps up my fine lines and definitely gives my skin a healthy glow. I will keep using this into the fall and will report back if I’m still loving it. So far, it’s my new fave!
3. I also started using this lash serum from Grande Cosmetics. I LOVE IT. So, I’ve always had decent lashes. But again, as I move into my late 30s and after having kids and wearing mascara for years, my lashes started to thin out a bit. I’ve been using this lash serum for a month or so, and not even every day – maybe a few times a week? And I’ve seen a huge difference. My lashes are thicker and stronger and just feel more lush. It really works!
4. I have mentioned this before, but ever since having my kids (especially Finn), I’ve developed pretty substantial melasma on my face. Primarily on my forehead, but I also have some on my cheeks. It has really been difficult to find foundation that actually covers it without feeling like I have tons of make up caked on my face. I basically went from wearing no foundation at all (just concealer here and there) to having to wear it every day. It’s been hard. I just started using this CC cream, and it is wonderful! Not only does it actually cover my dark areas, but it is the most natural looking foundation I’ve found yet. It looks like my skin! It’s been a godsend, as my melasma naturally flares up in the summer because of the sun. I’m religious about avoiding the sun on my face, but it really only takes a minute or two in sunlight for my melasma to flare. This foundation is truly the best yet.
5. Speaking about avoiding the sun, I recently bought this sun visor for our beach trip and days by the pool and I love it. It provides a wide brim of coverage, feels good on, and actually looks kind of cute! I love that I can still put my hair up in a high bun and it doesn’t interfere with the visor at all. It also folds up easily for packing into a bag. I’ve tried a bunch of sunhat and visors, and this one is my new fave.
6. Our newest snack discovery: these extra-dark pretzels! So, these are from Dan’s childhood. We LOVE pretzels as a snack in our house, and lately, we’ve been really into the extra toasty varieties. Dan’s father used to eat these, and Dan recently rediscovered them. The whole family is obsessed. They have an awesome crunch, extra toasted flavor, and excellent saltiness.
7. I have been slacking on my reading for months now. During Covid, it wasn’t something that I was able to prioritize. I was spread so thin, so at the end of the day (when I usually do my leisure reading), I didn’t have the capacity to pick up a book. It was trash TV and that was it. Hah. But! I’ve been making a big effort to prioritize reading again. I blew through The Idea of You a couple weeks ago. It was addictively good, albeit perhaps a touch cheesy? But still a good read! Now, I am FINALLY reading The School of Essential Ingredients, which I basically have had on my Kindle for two years now. Eye roll. So far, it’s really good! I’ll share more as I make my way through it.
8. With the kids both in organized activities this summer (daycare and camp), I needed an easy way to label all of their belongings like water thermoses and lunchboxes. I got this label maker and I am obsessed! Not only is it so cute, but it is a cinch to use. It syncs to an app on my phone and I just create the label in the app and send it to the label maker. So easy to use and now all the kids’ things are neatly labeled. I’ll probably get into super-organizer mode soon and start labeling all the things in my house.
9. I have been trying to stay on top of my supplement game, and one recent addition that I’m really liking is this Omega 3 fish oil supplement. It came recommended to me by an RD, and I take it for overall help with inflammation, as well as brain and heart health. As with everything like this, it’s good to ask your doctor first. For me, they’ve been great addition to my regimen. They have NO fishy aftertaste, too, which is a dealbreaker for me with other fish oil capsules I’ve taken.
10. I am a hoarder of Burt’s Bees chapsticks. Unintentionally, though! I have them in every bag I own, in my car, and in my random kitchen junk drawer. I keep buying them even when I don’t need them. It’s a problem. Recently, I bought the watermelon flavor for the first time, and I’ve been loving it all summer! First, it smells like a watermelon jolly rancher. It also goes on SO SMOOTH. No waxy feel at all. Love it!
11. We’ve been trying to stay on top of Kieran’s reading this summer, and I had heard so many great things about the Dog Man series for boys his age. I bought him the box set, and he went to town on them! Some of the books are definitely a level above his current reading level, but he still loves them. He read through all of the books in a week! I bought him the next few for our long drive down to the Outer Banks, and he read them all in the car. I love that he loves to read!
12. Along those same lines, Kieran has been super into word searches at the moment. Whenever we go to a restaurant with a kids’ menu that has activities on it, he gets SO excited if there is a word search to do. I bought him this book of word searches, as well as this Where’s Waldo one, and he loves them both. We keep them in the car, and he does them whenever we drive anywhere, even if we’re only in the car for a short ride.
13. I had a couple random Target finds this past month. First, these t-shirts. I have the hardest time finding t shirts. I HATE fitted, tight t-shirts. Always have. I want my t-shirts to be comfy and soft and not tight at all, and these have done the trick! They’re comfy but not frumpy. I bought them in every color, too.
14. I also got this awesome sports bra at Target this past month. I’m big chested, and it’s always a challenge to find a good bra, sports or otherwise. This one is SUPER supportive (like, I can actually run in it with no bouncing) and very comfortable as far as sports bras go. I love that it comes in a variety of cute colors AND real-woman sizes. Target’s athleisure section is really trying to stay relevant, and I love it.

And that’s about it! Lots of fun finds this summer so far. More to come, I’m sure! Xoxo.

[This post is not sponsored but contains affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link and purchase the product, I receive a small kickback from the seller – at no extra cost to you! It is a small way I can earn a living doing what I love. Thank you for supporting this blog! I will always disclose this to you.]