The last time I posted was just a few days before our little Jasmin Yvonne arrived. She has been the most perfect baby, making eye contact and smiling at us those real baby smiles at day four. A week before she turned two months, she rolled over on her belly and now is trying hard […]
Author: Laila Uljas
I've just turned 40 the other year, and to tell you the truth, I like being forty. I'm a mother to nine beautiful children (including one set of twins). Previously I have done product and concept development for coffee shops and bakeries. At the moment, I have been focusing on the wellbeing of our communities. I graduated from the University of Helsinki with a Master's in political science. The welfare of our society and community we live in is something I have always been concerned about ever since I was young. But life sometimes takes you into unplanned and exciting places. Soon we will be returning to our home city of 17 years, Kouvola, Finland after spending nine months on a dairy farm in northern Finland. It has been an experience of a lifetime. I have been telling the story of life on the dairy farm on my youtube channel Jenkkimutsi maalla interspersed with issues that affect our society. Most videos are in Finnish, but a few are in English. Welcome along.
Cabana de Empanadas
These past few months have been busy. And there is exciting news to be told regarding many different areas of life. I have been working hard with a couple of colleagues to open a new coffee shop concept right in the heart of Helsinki. Cabana de Empanadas will bring a ray of sunshine and color […]
March, the best days of winter
The kids are on ski break this week and the weather has been treating us great! The best days of winter have arrived. This week we have taken the kitchen outside and on Monday the whole family went on a skiing and sledding trek to a laavu, or a classic Finnish lean-to that can be […]
Snow castle hot chocolate
Valentine’s day always surprises a bit in Finland as it is not such a commercial happening here and so I all of a sudden realize that it is the middle of February and the day has arrived. The children do remember it though, and usually wish for a little something special. This past week it […]
Runeberg day and tarts
Yesterday was a day when flags were flown here in Finland. It was the day when Johan Ludvig Runeberg(1804-1877), a national renowned poet and writer, is remembered. He is seen as someone who helped shape and build the Finnish identity along with Elias Lönnrot who is known for his work collecting the epic poetry of […]
Sun dogs and squeaky cheese
The real winter has arrived. None of this sort-of-cold-weather, but a cold front had arrived from Siberia making our eyelashes all frosty white after being outside. It has been just beautiful and the sun has been almost blinding. In spite of the cold, the kids have been skiing in the yard, even the two-year old. […]
The day Christmas left
Today Christmas left the house. Well, not quite all of the way. The Christmas stars are still in the windows bringing light into the dark evenings and the Christmas decorations that the children made are still on the wall. But the Christmas tree, which was quite large, nearly 4 meters(13 feet) in height was carried […]
The sparkle in the eyes of children
Can’t you just feel the anticipation in the faces of the children in the photo above? It was finally the day that they had been waiting for months and a mark that spring would arrive after the darkness as the Winter Solstice, which was on December 22nd this year had been passed. I’m not sure […]
Christmas is coming in my Kitchen
On top of our wood buring oven is a pile of chocolate advent calendars and each morning the children open another window in the calendar and savor their piece of chocolate. Our two-year old had shaken his calendar at the store with so much vigor that most of his chocolates have dropped out of their […]
November Light
The day before yesterday, the kitchen was full of little people. Everyone wanted to participate in some way and I was needing to use my imagination in creating cake-making jobs of equal importance. Equality was the theme of the day. One of the kids remembered who had made most of the Mother’s day cake and […]
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