New Date for Airing of NBC News Interview

Well, this post is mainly to let followers know that the airing of the interview our family had with NBC news about the Golf for Babies KC has changed in case you tried to watch it today or looked online.  We were told that it would now air next Wednesday, May 23rd.  It will still be during the 11:00am newscast. 

While I'm writing I'll let you know that we had eye dr. appointments with both girls yesterday and it was nothing but great news.  The doctor said that around this time in the girls' lives you can consider yourself out of the woods for anything eye related caused by prematurity if nothing has shown up at this point.  And nothing has so we can't be happier about that!!  Then we had a vent clinic appointment with Ava after that and it was basically just a check-in appointment.  We are continuing to wean off the vent during her sleeping hours at night which is the only time she is on the ventilator.  Every couple days were are turning the vent on 30 minutes later, so tonight she won't get vent support until 2:00am.  She has been doing great so we will continue to stick with that routine.  She is also spending most of her waking hours on the pasi muir valve which is the valve that goes on the end of her trach, only allowing air in but closing when she exhales.  This means she has to exhale through her mouth or nose and the air has to go through her vocal chords, making things a little noisier around our house!  It's great to hear her more and more.  She is tolerating the valve extremely well so we are praying that it continues!

Here are some pictures and a video from the last week.  We are trying to allow the girls to do a little more of the feeding themselves with the spoon.  We try to give them plenty of food prior to this because they probably wouldn't gain any weight with their performance...they get more on their faces than in their mouths!  On the video, make sure you have your volume on.  The laughing will make you laugh!

Happenings with the McNeils

Things have been good around here lately.  At the end of last week the four of us taped an interview for NBC 41 Action News about the Golf for Babies KC event.  It is supposed to air during the 11:00am news next Tuesday (May 15).  It was only a couple minutes and it sounded like it would either be played around 11:15 or 11:45 of that newscast.  I'm sure it will also be available on their website.  The girls did pretty well.  Ava got wiggly about half way through and the girls decided to pat each other's arms.  Girls!  After the taping that was at noon, we knew it would be best to feed the girls before the 35-45 minute drive home since they would fall asleep and begin their nap before having lunch.  So, the girls got to have their first meal out at daddy's favorite lunch place...Panera!  It was a pretty uneventful lunch and the girls once again did great.  After wiping the table top and highchairs with Clorox wipes, the girls enjoyed chicken off of mommy's salad, cheese off of daddy's sandwich, and delicious Panera bread.  We didn't get too much on the floor either! 

Saturday night we had our friends the Barstows over for dinner.  Since Erik has started work in Boulder, CO and Keri will heading out sometime in possibly May or June with Riley, that time was great to spend with them.  They are wonderful friends and will be missed when they make the complete move further west.  However, in the meantime we will continue to see Keri and Riley while they are here and will look forward to visits to Colorado in the future!

Sweet Riley...look at that adorable face!

Sunday was the March for Babies event.  Unfortunately it rained cats and dogs.  The walk started at 10am and we got down there a little before 9am.  The rain started about 9:30 so we had a little time to see some friends from Overland Park Regional Medical Center NICU at their tent before getting too wet.  Since there was lighning and thunder, many people did not stick around for it.  Ava and Reese thought the rain was pretty fun, holding their hands out to feel it from under the tent/overhang.  However, we didn't end up walking so we look forward to trying the event again next year. 

Other than that, we've just been hanging out at home and doing our normal stuff.  I've included some cute pictures of Ava and Reese with their May baskets and then swinging with Nana and Grammy a couple weeks ago when they were here.  Think the girls liked it?!