Fun Family Outing!

We had our first official outing as a family of four today. When we woke up to amazing fall temperatures, we just had to get out and enjoy it. (Plus, Emma did a 6 hour stretch last night - I nursed her at 1:20 am and then had to wake her up to nurse her at 7:15 am... yay for sleep!!) We successfully got everyone ready in an hour... I was impressed with ourselves. :) We headed to Cedar Rapids and met Grammy, Auntie Jorie, Silas, and Joshua (Joel was at his first day of kindergarten so we missed out on seeing him) at Old McDonald's Farm. Claire loved seeing all of the animals and Emma loved snoozing in her car seat.

After a fun morning, we were all hungry, so we went to a CR favorite - The Flying Weinie - for some Chicago-style hot dogs... yum!! Then we went back to Grammy's house, where Claire took a nap, Emma and Grammy got some snuggle time, I got to relax on the screened porch, and Justin relaxed in the hot tub.... it was perfect!!

On our way home, we stopped in at the hospital because we needed to get Emma's bilirubin level checked out. When we left the hospital on Saturday, her level was slightly elevated to around 9. The hospital sends a nurse to your home a few days after leaving the hospital to check baby's weight, bilirubin level, and to make sure everything at home is going okay. It's such a nice service! When our nurse came yesterday, Emma's bilirubin level had increased even more to 17.8. She said they begin to get concerned when the level is over 18, so she didn't think we should get too worried, since the level peaks on day 5 of life - where Emma was yesterday. I wasn't totally convinced though, because Claire's jaundice took almost two months to finally go down. When I told the nurse this, she agreed that with a family history of that, we should bring her in the following day to get another reading. Thankfully, she was down to 14.2 today... yay!! So, no need to call the doctor... the level is heading in the right direction!!

Anyway, we had a full, fun day together!! I am LOVING spending this week together and am so glad I'm feeling well enough to be getting out and doing things together.