Friday, December 24, 2010

24 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

- 24 -
(please, do not copy or re-publish or re-send this picture in the e-mails. Copyright © Adele Enersen 2010)

Hyvää joulua, Merry Christmas, God Jul, Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo, Joyeux Noel, Froehliche Weihnachten, Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova, Buone Feste Natalizie, Shinnen omedeto. Merii Kurisumasu, Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan, Sarbatori vesele, Feliz Navidad, Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie, Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom, Buorrit Juovllat, Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun! (I seriously hope they went right! And merry christmas to all other language speakers too.)
With love,
Adele, Lasse and Mila.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

23 - Christmas tree and +6 days

 - 23 -
We had to improvise, since we are suddenly going to spend christmas in Finland. There has been teeny tiny difficulties with the air traffic, so our flight is next wednesday... 

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

22 - Book News, Good News!

- 22 -

This has been too busy day to take any photos, but I've got some good news instead:

Daydream illustrated "When my baby dreams" -book is going to be published in 2012 in all english speaking countries, and also in Italy, German, Brazil and Israel! Yay! 

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

21 - Packing packing and packing

 - 21 -
Well, I think I have all I need. 

Monday, December 20, 2010

20 - Gray bureaucracy day

- 20 -
I ran trough the park after I "enjoyed" poor customer service at the bank. Bureaucracy-crazy people.

17, 18, 19 -2nd Anniversary ♡

 - 19 -
Our wedding picture, drawn by my mother-in-law, Liisa.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

16 - First christmas gifts

- 16 -
I love these wrappings! Fabric strings and stripey paper by Marimekko.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

15 - Love

- 15 -
*sniff*

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

14 - Kung Fu LIVE posing with dad

- 14 -
IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTICE: do not use baby as a weapon while playing. Posing to cam as cute as a button is all they can do in this game ;)
We don't play that much with PS3, but since Lasse had a change to compose music for this unique game called "Kung Fu LIVE", we tried this game at home, and it's really funny. You are actually in the game via webcam and you control the game with your body motion. I like playing with Wii, but this is more intense, and I was totally exhausted after 10 minutes fight in this comic Kung Fu world. And of course there's great music to enjoy too!

Monday, December 13, 2010

13 - Playtime

- 13 -
She is learning to crawl, or fly. Maybe both. 

Sunday, December 12, 2010

12 - Mila's first blueberry & beetroot painting

 -12- 
I'm raising this next (female)Jackson Pollock here, and she prefers to think outside the box. 

Saturday, December 11, 2010

11 - Winter Wonderland?

 -11-
"Honey, was it yesterday when you dug our car free from the snow with the tiny showel, and it took like a 40 minutes?", "Yes..", "Ok, just checking, please, don't look out from the front window..."

Friday, December 10, 2010

10 - The Ugly Gingerbread Boy and other weird cookies

- 10 -
The Ugly Gingerbread Boy burnt his fingers in love matters.
 It's no good to fall in love with the oven if you are made of dough.

I didn't have a cute mold, but I had fun with the frosting.
PS, if you dip the clean brush in to hot water, you can "paint" with the frosting. 

Thursday, December 9, 2010

9 - We are all made of books.

   - 9 -

The Self-portrait, which actually looks like my Mother-In-Law.

I love reading. Especially paperback books while traveling or when we have vacations. You don't even need to travel to visit in other countries and cultures if your read the books from there. I believe that studying in school is not that important but reading is. Everybody should have an opportunity learn to read. You can be a self-made genious and teach yourself from the books and internet. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what you read. My mother-in-law used to be a really poor and when she didn't have afford to books, she read the phone book! Here is her true story, finally in English. Enjoy!

One quote from the story: 
"I stayed over in Helsinki at Lasse's place and went to sleep on the floor on a blow-up mattress that didn't have any air in it."
- Well, I have to make a note that Lasse was not married by then. ;) When nowadays my dear mother-in-law visit us, at least we pump some air in the mattress. Haha. 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

8 - Sweet Dreams

-8-
She still sleeps like a champion...in her sweet baby trap grib. 

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

7 - just another dead houseplant

-7-
 I think I'm a houseplant serial killer. This one supposed to be those "easy ones." It's a lie! I think they are the worst.



More suffering plants, mourning their fate in the candlelight...

"Help! Anyone? Is all the water in the world frozen? We haven't seen any lately...Ouch, those little fire-things burn!" 

UPDATE:  17.49 Rescue mission. The Curmudgeon gave us excellent advice in comments, so we decided to give a change:
"Trim it down, distribute across maybe three pots, and in a few weeks they'll be gorgeous again!" Sounds great. 

Yes, it's definitely "wandering jew", we call it "juoru" in Finland, and that means "Gossip"
It should spread like one. Yeah... this one doesn't wander or spread so much. 

"Mom, are you sure you can save it?" My little assistant asks.

There's nothing green or moist left....maybe we should just give up? I just have a feeling that even few weeks intensive care wouldn't make this one gorgeous. 

Monday, December 6, 2010

6 - Finlandia

-6-


We are celebrating Finland's Independence Day today. Instead of taking photo I found this nice video from Youtube. 
Music: Jean Sibelius - Finlandia. 

Sunday, December 5, 2010

5 - Blueberry Lipstick

-5-
Mila loves berries. Blueberry, strawberry & lingonberry sauce without added sugar .


Saturday, December 4, 2010

4 - New friend

-4-
There's a new bunny in Daydream-town

Friday, December 3, 2010

3 - Morning

-3-
 I'm cooking worms oatmeal for my early bird, while the town still sleeps.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

2 - Daddy's Little Viking Princess

-2-
Lo and behold...she's awake!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Christmas Countdown Calendar: 1 - Introduction

This year we are not going to spend X-mas in the traditional way. Well, I've to confess, we nearly never do, especially this year, since we are going to travel to Venice Beach on Christmast Eve.

I like some of the traditions and when you have a child it's more interesting have them, although Mila is far too young to understand all that fuss... so I decided to build my own photo - countdown calendar in to my blog.

I'm going to snap a photo every day until we leave. Let's remember that I'm not educated photographer and just learning how to use my new camera. 

-1-
Journey Begins From Home
PS It would be fun if you like to copy this idea and have your own christmast calendar in your blog! Make it by photos, thoughts, art&craft works or bakings, either way it would be fun to see. Maybe you've done that already?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Greetings from the Darkness

This is the most darkest time in finnish climate. There's only a few hours of daylight per day, and that daylight is dim. There's wet and cold out and slush ruins your shoes. Don't get me wrong, I love Finland since this is nice and safe country to live and we have plenty of cool things* coming from our tiny, dark and weird country, but I still would like to ask from my ancesters that what the heck they thought when they settled to live in this country with the cruel climate... they had to arrive during to summer, and in the autumn time they were too lazy to move again. Or too depressed. (Yeah, yeah, we are taking our D-vitamins with Mila and using light therapy lamps to avoid seasonal affective disorder symptoms...)

But, the photographing is quite impossible for me, when I don't know nothing about lightning, and I just love natural light. I just bought a better camera so I could get even some memories saved in this pitch black winter. Finnish winter feels like never ending. I miss the sun. We miss the sun.
Finnish winter feels like...

Few weeks ago I was just wondering...why exactly we should stay in Finland since I still have my maternity leave until it's spring and our baby is healthy? SO we got this crazy, once-in-a-lifetime idea... Let's spend this winter where there is sun at least sometimes, California! So in the end of next month we are going to start our ultimate few months holiday in Los Angeles. Yay! 

Send me your suggestions what to do or try on that trip, and we might give a try and blog about that. ;)



*Angry Birds -game. Sauna. Santa Claus. Rare exports -movie. Marimekko. Salmiakki (Salty liquorice). Esa-Pekka Salonen. Sibelius. Tove Jansson and Moomins. Vampira. Designers. Computer nerds. Artists. Composers. Musicians. Filmmakers. you name it. (List of Finns)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Scandinavian Spice Cake


Scandinavian food is usually mild and spiceless, but not this cake. The aroma of this cake is intoxicating. This traditional spice cake is great treat with the coffee and it's so easy to make. You need only one bowl to mix.

Dry ingredients: 

2 dl Dark Farin sugar (Brown sugar)
0.5 dl White sugar
(Or just 1.5 dl white sugar with 1 dl brown syrup. Mix syrup with liquids)
4.5 dl Flour 
1 ts baking soda
1 ts baking powder
(ground spices into a fine powder)
2 ts Cardamom
2 ts Cinnamom
2 ts Ginger
2 ts Clove
1 ts Allspice (Pimenta dioica)
1 ts Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans)
2 tbls Dark cacao powder
1/2 ts salt
                              (*ts = teaspoon, tbls. dl = deciliter)

Liquids: 

2 dl Buttermilk or yoghurt 
2 eggs
1 dl Coconut Oil (Good quality.)

 Other veggie oils are ok too, and definitely more "scandinavian style", but I love cold pressed coconut oil. Even if you hate coconut smell and taste, from these flavors it won't pop up. 

Mix all dry ingredients well in big bowl with the wooden fork or spoon. And then, add all room temperature "liquids" once, and mix them well with the dry ingredients, but don't whip them too much. You just need to get smooth dough. Room temperature is really important with the coconut oil. If the dough is too cold, it solidifies. If that happen, don't worry. This cake is pretty much impossible to ruin. Just place your bowl over hot water bath and mix even. 
Pour into oiled cake mold and bake in the oven 175° (celsius, it's about 350° in fahrenheit) 45 minutes.

And here comes the hardest part: Turn mold over and let the cake settle . I know, I know, you would love to eat it right away, but it's better when it's cooled down. 


The plate is lovely Finnish design:
Iittala - Taika



Tip for measure conversions: 

American
1 cup = 8 fl oz = 2.4 dl = 24 cl = 240 ml

British
1 cup = 10 fl oz = 2.8 dl = 280 ml

dl 
1 deciliter = 6 (scant) tablespoons


I hope you steal this recipe and enjoy! :)


Thursday, November 4, 2010

Lullaby for Mila


I'm often singing lullaby's to Mila. One night I just started to hum a little melody in my head. When Mila fell asleep I went to ask my hubby if he had heard that melody before, and where it might be from, or did I just made that up. He said it sounds like I made that. "Can we make a lullaby for her from that?" I asked. "Yes, sure. Or we could make a Broadway musical?" He replied. "Well...let's try that lullaby first." I laughed. 

So I made the melody for the verse, lyrics and singing, and my hubby did everything else and made my singing sound ok.  The song is called: "Tuulen tuutulaulu" (Wind's lullaby) you can listen it from here: Tuulen tuutulaulu            


The lyrics are in finnish AND loosely translated in to english. (click photo below). Lyrics are naive and quite daydream-like. I just found how hard it is to make, not just a translation but more like a transcreation, if you have made "creative" text like lyrics in another language. I'm not that satisfied with the english text, and don't even know if it's singable. But you get the picture from that. 


My husband is ridiculously talented composer and I'm just a educated music listener, who's still suffering from childhood trauma's from studying piano and flute for 10 years and sucking in that every minute. But with him I've started to enjoy about music more than in years. I'm still at my best in listening, but now I get it that joy of making music. My old music teachers would be very surprised to hear that. I love singing, even when I'm not that good in that. Luckily babies don't care. (And autotune is invented.)

I love to hear music in our home. Sometimes when he's composing film music, it's like we are living in movie. When Mila is going to be older, I'd be happy if she would like to play some instrument. Then I really have to face my own traumas. How to encourage child to do something and not to force to fill our own expectations? How to keep a joy in everything so they don't lose their natural interest and love for learning. I hope we know the right answers when it's time. 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Maternity moments: Baby-led weaning

The poor thing, formerly known as broccoli.
After our first meal experience so many of you suggested Baby-led weaning. It sounds really good and logical method, so I decided to give a try... 

The broccoli was never even near Mila's mouth. She picked it up into her little fist and just squeezed the life and fluids out of it like it was a sponge. She snarled to it. Then she decided to throw me with it. 

Well, we'll try this thing later again. She is now definitely ready to crab food, but the putting in the mouth -part needs some serious developing. 


Sunday, October 31, 2010

How to make an unique family tree

Families fit rarely into ready sablons, so when I tried to fill our family tree for Mila's baby book I noticed it would be better to make our own tree. Then you can make it as wide as you like, or just choose those closest relatives. 


You need: 
- blanket or other fabric to be a tree trunk and grass
- 3-4 colored paper napkins for leaves.
- Paper plates, as many as close relatives. Tip: if you like ornaments a lot, use white paper lace! 
+ what ever you like to decorate your tree. Is your family tree full of paper hearts, real fruits, candles, or personal items to symbol your family members. 

The building tree is easier if you make a first draft to paper. Use just names and list them in a form of tree. Start from to top of tree and put there the baby, then parents, grandparents etc. Add siblings.  Just like you would draw a mind map.

When you are building an actual tree, notice that you can use the bigger plates for close relatives and smaller ones for the siblings. If you have a huge family, aunts and cousins don't need a plate, you can use smaller symbols, or cut smaller round circles from light colored paper/ paper napkins. Make tree leaves from napkins. Just twofold them and cut from the fold half of leaf, so you get multiple leaves from one cut when you separate the layers of napkin. 





Photo example with teddy bears
After taking your photo, you may adjust color & lighting and add names or photographs in the picture by photoshop. If you use elliptical marquee-tool, you can get round headshot cut out from pictures. In my version those bigger plates are good for about 85x85pixels photos and smaller ones 60x60pixels. Pictures don't have to be perfectly round. You can also print photo out and add relatives by hand writing.


Example with photoshop names. 


And voilà, personal and unique Family Tree is ready!
PS you can also add ancestors in the "roots" if you like.  Just make a rocks or little signs there to make a space for the info.
In our family tree there would be  many Viking kings from Norway, King Gustav I of Sweden, Jaakko Ilkka, Finnish leader of the Peasant Rebellion and from my side there's just a big bunch of simple farmers from North Karelia. Well, maybe few of my greatgreatgreat uncles and distant cousins have been artist and painters, but that's it. And probably there has been some finnish pagans before northern crusade. So I began to feel that this great offspring of noble savages has stolen this simple Karelian maid, and history still repeats itself...haha.






Thursday, October 28, 2010

Maternity moments: The very first meal.

Copyright ©Adele Enersen

We have started the solid foods... Mila enjoys them, at least externally... 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Hush, Little Baby...

First of all, thank you SO much for all your nice comments, support and lovely e-mails. We feel truly loved. Thank you!

I'd like to thank you by giving you something, it's maybe usefull and definitely free. While teething we have faced the sleeping problems with our sleeper champion, but we also found something to help that. 

*drumming* 


The magical solution for those situations when your baby is over-tired but unable to fall asleep. I believe you parents know what I mean. Baby is first fussing, soon whining, then crying before screaming. Your little darling becomes very glingy. They may want to be held constantly but eventually they cry even while being held. And when you put them down, they cry louder. When you try to put her/him to sleep they might be seeking comfort from feeding or sucking, but that won't do the trick and they cry more, and you feel totally helpless. Sometimes singing lullabies help, but sometimes even that is too much. Regular music and mother's voice may have too much stimulation for over-tired baby.  They need their space in the same time when they need some kind of comforting. What to do?

You can hum. You can hiss, or you may put the radio silently between stations to get that hissing noice to comfort. Or you can download this 10 minutes hissing song my husband "composed". We play it from our iPhone or iPod and leave it near to Mila. (Make sure that volume is not too high and no-one is going to call...) Works like a charm!

Feel free to download it here.


Thursday, October 21, 2010

I'm just a Daydreamer...



Daydream-land is still missing Mila, who is more anxious to chew toys with her brand new pearl teeths than sleep, but that's not the reason why this blog is changing.

I love you people,

When I started this blog I didn't expect this to happen. This was my funny little hobby with my constantly sleeping newborn and this blog was for my family and friends, especially for those who lived in long distance.

One night, literally one night, this blog was all over the world web news. Now in few months almost 3 million visitors have seen my little blog and I have received so beautiful, heart warming and touching e-mails and comments from daydream-fans, mothers & fathers all over the world. Thank you. I still can't reply to all of your e-mails and comments, but we try to read all. (And I've long list for my this year special christmas e-card)

...well, there are people who ain't that lovable...

Everything hasn't been a pure bliss, because I have found so many copyright violations and the last drop was that point when I found my own baby animated in banner ads. 

As an advertising professional I have to ask from designers: if you don't have a brain, don't you have at least some heart?

I really really hope that none of the parents have to find their own child pictures used without their permission. Maybe I'm just a daydreamer myself when I've been in a good faith with people in the internet. I love how people can connect through it. I've found help, friends and maybe real future friends too from it. But of course there's also bad guys here, like in the real world too.

Help me to protect my photos

Keep e-mailing me if you suspect that some one is using my photos without my permission.
I will do everything to protect my child pictures as I protecting my child too. I can tell you right away that there is never ever going to be "Mila's Daydreams" -advertising campaigns for any kind of products or baby brands. Advertising agencies all over the world have been asking these pictures and I've said no to all requests. So if you find ads, sponsor calendars, competitions, banners what so ever with my pics, it is copyright infringement. Just let me know and of course boycott that kind of advertisers. If they can cheat a photographing mother, they sure will cheat their customers too.


Here's thumbnails of Mila's Daydream pictures. All pictures Copyright ©Adele Enersen 2010

If private person has blogged about my photos before and used couple (1-4) of pictures (with my watermarks) to illustrate that with copyright marks and link back to my blog, that's ok. Of course it would be nice to remove those too, but at least, don't re-publish and spread them anymore. Please. 

Then there are all those people who have uploaded more than 10 or all content of my blog photos to their own galleries, blogs or webpages. Some have even removed my copyright mark or put their own in there, claiming that they have rights for my photos. That's another serious copyright infringement. They should be removed immediately or otherwise I will take all the necessary legal actions.

Report misusage or contact me trough e-mail from my blogger profile.

There will still be more Daydreams

So, no more Mila's Daydream pictures in the blog. I wanted to keep that first one there, because it means everything to me. The flowers she is picking are from that bouquet I got in hospital after giving birth. Well, I knew this was going to end some day anyway. I will continue taking photos every now and then, while Mila is still a baby, but this time I won't publish them at my blog, just to avoid misusage and violation. But this ain't the end of this blog either. I still want to be in touch with you people and share something from my maternity leave with you. So maybe this blog is going to be more like "While my baby is taking her nap, I try to blog about something." And sure there's going to be some creative things in the future too, let's see what we can come up. Maybe Mila is going to take pictures of me, or maybe I'll write some haiku's about her first words, or maybe there's going to be some other creative outbursts from my not-so-desperate housewife life. Mila is a great muse for sure.

Mila doing her favourite thing

The Good News:  The Book!

So many of you lovely human beings have been asking me to make a book of Daydreams. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I believe you people have made my deepest dreams come true, because I'm happy to tell you that my first daydream-illustrated book is going to be published in all the english speaking countries in 2012 by Balzer+Bray. The working title is: "When My Baby Dreams". There is always a story behind these pictures I've been taking and I'm more a storyteller than a photographer. I would be so happy if people would read these books to their kids as a bedtime or naptime stories and kids could see nice dreams when they sleep. In the future I will definitely tell more book news in the blog. Yay!


Never forget, everything is possible in the dreams. Keep daydreaming!


With Love,
Adele&Mila
xoxoxo

Thursday, June 17, 2010

"She Loves Me, She Loves Me Lots."




Copyright ©Adele Enersen.