Yo' Drops and Ecomom Review & Giveaway!!

A couple weeks ago I was sent Yo'Drops by Revolution Foods to review from Ecomom. Mommy and Cooper both love them! Cooper loves them because they taste so good! (Yep, I tried them, too!) They are tangy like yogurt but crunchy like crackers! Sounds weird but it really is a great combo. I love them because they are relatively mess-free and super convenient. Also? They are made with REAL ingredients! I can pronounce everything on the ingredient list! If you've looked at the ingredients in any of your child's snacks recently you know how rare that is.

At night, Cooper gets to watch cartoons before bed, and Mommy gets some computer time. He usually asks for a snack around this time. Most of the time he eats his snack before we head to the bed but the other night he asked while we were already in bed.

The Yo'Drops had just come that day so I thought why not try them. He can't make a terrible mess with these, right? Wrong. Within 5 minutes they were poured out on my bed. Really it wasn't heard to clean up though, and he loved them. I'm sold :)

Want to try some yourself? They retail at Ecomom for $3.99 or...

You could win a $15 gift certificate to ecomom.com right here!!

Mandatory Entry

*Follow Cooper's Mommy on GFC and then go visit ecomom.com and let me know what you'd like to try!

Extra Entries

*Like Ecomom on Facebook and thank them for the giveaway

*Follow Ecomom on Twitter

*Follow me on Twitter

*Tweet about this giveaway including a link back to this post

*Sign up for the Ecomom Daily Deal Newletter

*Blog about this giveaway (3 entries)

Please leave a separate comment for each entry! This giveaway will end at midnight EST on July 18th and I will announce the winner the next day! Please leave your email address in your mandatory entry so I can contact you if you win!

I was not compensated to do this review. I received product to form my opinion and only product. These opinions are my own and honest.

And Baby Number 2 is....

...a baby GIRL!!

And this baby girl is a very uncooperative little girl already! She let us see that she is a girl, but wouldn't be still long enough to actually get the picture of her lady parts. Maybe this is a good thing though.... ;)

She also wouldn't let us get any of the cute profile shots. Only these creepy, alien-baby face shots. She sure is a cute little alien though!

But since she was so uncooperative, we get to go back in a few weeks for another ultrasound! The sonographer got all the pictures she needed expect some of her mouth and nose (to check for cleft lip and palate). So we go back in a few weeks to check that. And we get to see her again. Maybe this baby girl is smarter than I thought! :)

Making a Black & White Photo with a Little Color in Photoshop Elements

This tutorial is for @theleakysippy, but maybe others will find it useful too!
As a disclaimer, I don't claim to be an expert and there is probably a better way to do this, but this is fairly easy for me :)

First, here is my picture open in Photoshop Elements 8. I do any cropping, color, and lighting adjustments now.

Then I select the part I want to keep colored with the quick selection tool. (see the red arrow) It helps me to use the Refine Edges tool at the top right above the picture. It helps you see exactly what you have selected and smooth out the edges.

After you are happy with your selection, click Select (at the red arrow) and then Inverse (sorry it wouldn't let me do a screen shot with the menu open) This selects everything you don't have selected, or the part that will be black & white.

After you have the inverse selected, click Enhance (red arrow) and then Convert to Black & White

After that just push Ctrl + D to deselect everything and you're done!

The Post Where I Talk about Breastfeeding (Again)

I don't think I've mentioned here since my long hiatus a while ago that Cooper was still a nursling. Yes, I breastfed a 2 year old. I could give you links to research and quotes from experts that back this up, but I won't. We'll just leave it at it was what was best for our family. Ideally I had wanted him to self-wean, for him to decide himself when he was ready to let go of that. However, since I've been pregnant I've noticed a steady decline in my milk supply. To the point where a couple weeks ago I noticed I couldn't even express one tiny drop. I don't know if any of you moms have ever tried nursing when the milk has dried up, but it hurts. Alot. Coupled with the breast tenderness from pregnancy and I almost wanted to scream when he nursed. He has been down to about 2 nursings a day for a while now, in the morning as he wakes up and at night to go to sleep. Sometimes he has a 2 minute snack or 2 during the day if he gets hurt or something. Several times the past few weeks he has fallen asleep with out nursing or woken up and just wanted to get up without nursing. I knew he was headed for weaning, but since it hurt so bad, I knew for my sanity I needed to encourage him a little. So we had a talk about how Momma's boobas (that's what he calls them & nursing) had to stop making milk since he was a big boy now. I was careful not to mention this was because of his baby brother or sister, because I don't want to make him mad at the baby. Thursday night was the last time he nursed. He has handled it quite well! I didn't expect it to be this easy at all. The first day or so he asked for it and when I said there is no milk he whined a little, but there hasn't been any all out screaming like I expected. 2 mornings ago he woke up and said "Momma I need bo- I need a drink." He caught himself. I thought it was precious. It has taken him longer to fall asleep without nursing but he does fall asleep and that is comforting. I am confident since it has gone so smoothly he really was ready and I didn't force him into it. He just needed a little encouragement! When we discussed that fact that there was no milk we also discussed having a small party for him when he stopped getting booba and call it a "big boy party." He seems quite excited for it and it will probably be this weekend. I will post pictures sometime next week!