Many pictures below.

On October 23, 2008, our daughter, Serena Rose Scheiner was born at 9:11am by c-section.  The name has no real meaning (to us, anyway).  Melanie and I were going through a book of names.  Melanie came across "Serena" and mentioned it to me.  I went nuts - just thought it was so beautiful.  Then she later also suggested Rose as a middle name, which I thought sounded great with Serena.

We had had some scares earlier in the pregnancy, so we were more than a little apprehensive.  We were so relieved to see our beautiful little girl.  And we just couldn't believe how alert she was!

This is her first bath - less than an hour after she was born.

Serena had been breech - so we had a planned c-section.  We had been told that breech babies tend to look a bit like frogs for a little while (with their legs all splayed out).  She did not disappoint in this regard.  She also had a neck tilt for a little while from her positioning in the womb.

This is the wonderful Dr. Thomas (the one standing up) with Melanie (the one in the bed).  She has been Melanie's doctor for a couple of years and we adore her.  Because of the scares earlier in the pregnancy, we did a number of ultrasounds and learned that Serena was breech (hence the PLANNED c-section).  Ordinarily, doctors at least consider trying to manually flip the baby while still in the womb, but the scares we'd had led Dr. Thomas to suggest that we not try to do this.  Good thing!  It ends up that the umbilical cord was partly wrapped around Serena's neck!

We were and are very happy.

Did I mention that we are happy!?

Someone else has - and this is a bit of a surprise - been very happy too.  We had been nervous about how our 2.5 year old son Casey would handle the introduction of a new baby.  We talked to him some about the fact that he was going to have a baby sister.  He decided that her name would be "Percy" (named after the train in the Thomas the Train series - Casey's first Thomas the Train book had only Thomas and Percy, so we assume that he thinks of Percy as the *second* most important train).  In their first meeting in the hospital, Percy gave Casey a Percy the Train (motorized!) and a train engineer hat.  He LOVED them.

But soon in the hospital, Casey also wanted to hold her and was really gentle and sweet.

Melanie has covered the heavy work with Serena and I've covered things for the most part with Casey and he and I have been bonding better than ever before (and we've always been really close).

He's actually been amazing about Serena/"Percy."  He tells people to call her "Percy," not "Serena."  It's actually been really more natural for me to call the cute little baby "Percy," rather than the pretty, older name "Serena."

Often when he's about to go somewhere or do something, Casey walks over to Percy and whispers to her what he is about to do.  Sometimes when he is about to go to school, he runs to her swing and says, "Bye Bye, Percy.  I love you."

The one that melted my heart, though, was the day we had the following exchange:

Me:  Who's the best boy ever?

KC:  Casey.

Me:  Who's the best Dada ever?

KC:  Dada.

Me:  Who's the best Mama ever?

KC:  Mama......Who's the best baby ever?

Me:  Who?

KC:  Percy.

Unfortunately and fortunately, Casey and Serena have been similar in a lot of ways.  The unfortunate part is that she seems to be becoming colicky...ugh!  Casey was very much so for 3 to 6 months...

But, also they have looked so much alike.  (That is, she looks so much like what he did when at the same age.)

The below two pictures are actually two different babies (at about 1 day old).

              Casey                                            Serena

Casey looks a bit more beat up since he was a natural birth and had to get beaten about to get through the birth canal.

About a week later, it was Halloween and, sure enough, the whole family (including Mama and Percy) made an outing of it!

Casey was a fierce looking pirate.

 What's up there?

Going up to every house, Casey would say "Trick OR treat."  And he was very good about saying "Thank you" to each candy-giver.  But then he'd get a little nervous after leaving and turn to Melanie or me and say, "Now let's go to ANOTHER house?"