Maya's rendition of 'Old McDonald'

My Red Table

I like to eat, color and climb on top of my red table!

I wore my sunglasses and took daddy's newspapers to daycare to show pictures of the lions and horses.

I run quickly on the Scenic Hills golf green so mama can't keep up when I pull the golf flags on the holes when the sun sets and the golfers have gone!

I ate three helpings of Chinese Food with all my family

Hats, Printers, Bowls and Saxaphones!

I have all kinds of hats I wear when it is sunny.

I am smily both morning and night and like to play with my daddy's printer.

I like to help my mother cook and take out all her pans from the pantry!

I am blowing my horn - it has been a long time since mommy and daddy added pictures here. I'm doing great and love music, dancing to daddy's internet streaming stations, and the neighbors’ dogs, Chloe and Abby. I loves the puppies so much that I call them in my sleep: "Chloooeeee, Abbbeee!". I'm a true nature girl and love animals and plants and picking blackberries. I enjoy it when we go to plant nurseries and love the moon at night and am always ready to pick the most beautiful flowery plants or have them picked for me when I'm taken for walks in my stroller. I always want to help to take the groceries in the house and the garbage out at night to see the stars. I love to blow bubbles and play magician. I will show you something, hide it, then look at my little hands and say,

"GONE!"

We really enjoy you Maya, and hope that you keep doing your magic and looking every night for the moon and stars!

A Small Sample of Maya's Dancing Prowess

December 2007, Gulf of Mexico

More Lights @ Bellingrath Gardens

Bellingrath Gardens - Alabama

Maya @ 16 Months

Outside of Mobile's Art Museum

St. Augustine Revisited

Blue Skies and walking mothers in Saint Augustine

Spanish saints, Sitting Sinners and Babies
The Baby almost Goes Swimming

Baby waving from her future Alma mater, Flagler College Hotel

Canonballs, baby carriers and Melissa

Maya Walking around in the Museum

Maya @13 months old - pics taken in South Florida

Maya having some of Her Birthday Cake

Maya Sophia Uzwyshyn's 1st Birthday

Happy First Birthday Maya!

Well, its been exactly a year since our daughter was born. A year since I drove night highways from Pensacola to Miami. A year since Melissa left her parents with contractions and new life to Baptist Hospital. A year that has literally flown by.

Maya now easily laughs, smiles, cries, crawls, almost walks and in general wonders with happiness and peace in our world.

Maya's first official word that she uses often is "WOW!" and its more like "Wouuuuuuuw!" - with a smile - general wonder and amazement with the world. Please stay this way Maya! Today, we will take her to the beach, eat cake with her name on it, plant a rose bush we bought for her (her rose bush, our little growing rose!).

Maya now also has a new college savings fund and in general is a widely loved baby. Her grandmother Elizabeth and aunt Nydia also sent her beautiful elegant dresses for her birthday so she looks like a little elegant Parisian Model.

Here's a birthday greeting that my aunt Halia (Maya's great aunt) wrote her on her birthday: (Chocha Halia is the oldest member (75) of one side of Maya's family:

Hi....big big big number "1" ......uno......ohden......guess who....is one year old.......July 8th.....yes, yes ...hip hip hooray......for Maya and her very first birthday cake........your right...it is......MAYA....she will attack that uhmmmmm delicious icing on the cake with two hands and will finger paint the icing on her mouth and nose and all over her new birthday dress.......uhmmmmi it will taste soooooo good and maya will just love her first birthday cake......take a picture of the artist at work.........,pablo picasso????????? who dat??????? no...... it is MAYA UZWYSHYN......happy birthday......MHOhAYEEE LITA MAYA...love chocha halia

Here's my reply:

Thanks Chocha Halia, Maya is growing - more cute, beautiful and 'mischievous' each day - not too mischievous yet. Can't believe myself she's already one - seems days ago I was sitting in a South Miami Baptist hospital chair holding a tiny sleeping wrapped up bundle - I can hardly carry her when she lifts little arms up to us now! Here's some more pictures and now 'videos' of her - I like the ones of her and myself and Melissa in New Orleans best - we took her there to see the Mardi Gras Museum.

Last night, we loaded Maya up for a night drive to get ice cream cones from McDonalds - Maya really enjoyed her Vanilla. For Maya's birthday we will take her to the beach later in the day (she still thinks the water is cold and puts her legs into an L shape but she loves sand, running sea birds and wide open spaces.

I will buy her a rose bush for her and Mama Melissa to water for her birthday.

One of our neighbors, Selva, who is from Paraguay, and is one of Melissa's friends in our townhouse complex has beautiful rosebushes. Her husband is in the military and is frequently away in Iraq but when he comes home we see them at night out watering the rose bushes. His last name is Vukelich and Selva does not speak a lot of English. Vukelich is from Minnesota and he speaks English and Spanish! Selva taught him in Paraguay where he was stationed for two years when he was 17! Ahhh, life.

I think it will be flowers and a rose bush to plant for Maya's birthday.

Heres a story that's been on my mind coming up to Maya's birthday. After several years of exile, when the filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko returned to Kiev, on his first day back he gathered up the entire studio staff and planted an apple tree outside. A symbolic gesture.

Mark Suprun told me that when I was in New York in graduate school. We had not seen each other for ten years - he had gone back to Ukraine after independence. I'm buying a rose bush for Maya and Melissa to water and watch grow.

Well, we're all very much growing here - Maya older and up and myself older and sideways but I suppose that's life! Well, wishing you all the best

Lots of love,


Ray, Melissa andMaya Sophia Uzwyshyn