I'm a New Grandma! Yes . . . Again!

Aubrey and Kyle had a beautiful baby boy named Rylan Kyle on October 15, 2010. 
Congratulations!
Baby is 20 inches long and 9 lb. 5 oz.
I think I'm the happiest woman alive!
We feel so blessed to welcome another brand new person into our family.
Welcome to the world Rylan.  Grandma Baadsgaard loves you very much and I'll be flying to CA to see you as soon as I can.

Fall Break Adventures

We went to Lehman Caves for Fall Break this year.  It was well worth a three hour drive through the deseret to get here.

I'm a New Grandma!

My brand new grandson Liam James Cope was born on September 21 2010.  Congratulations Arianne and Jared!  Liam is a beautiful newborn with lots of dark brown hair like his mother and me.  He is the fourth child of a fourth child or a fourth child.  Pretty special. 

Spending time at my daughter's home was a piece of heaven for me.  Playing tag in the front yard, going for walks around the block and rocking the newest member of the family in the same rocking chair where I rocked his mother filled me with joy. 

I have the greatest respect and love for women who have the faith and courage to bring children into the world.  Everything that matters begins and ends with family.

I love you Jared, Arianne, Sammy, Sophie, Logan and Liam.  Thank you for letting me stay at your house and soak in the wonder of your beautiful family.
Granny B.

Becoming More Childlike

One day my little girl had just finished her bath. I turned my head just in time to see her leaping gracefully down the hall in sheer ecstasy - buck naked.

“Oh, Momma! I feel just like one of those wild horses,” she said, smiling.

I stopped and wondered - when was the last time I leaped down the hall buck naked and felt like one of those wild horses? When was the last time I looked in the mirror and even smiled? When Christ told us we needed to become as a child to enter the kingdom of heaven, He was teaching us what qualities of character are important. Children have a fresh perspective that always delights.

One day my young son left for school wearing bright, rainbow-colored moon boots that were in style roughly two decades earlier - hand-me-downs from older siblings. When he got home he told me the boys at school had called him “stupid boots.”

“I’m sorry you had a bad day,” I answered.

“Oh, I didn’t have a bad day,” he said. “Just a bad ten seconds. The rest of the day was pretty great. I don’t care what those guys say. These boots are awesome.”

Children are naturally resilient and can be such great role models. Once while I knelt with my three-year-old as she said her prayers, she suddenly and without my prompting told her Heavenly Father a knock-knock joke. After her amen, I must have look a little stunned because she tried to reassure me.

"Don’t worry Mom. Heavenly Father likes to laugh sometimes, you know.”

Research shows adults laugh only a few times a day. Children laugh hundreds of times a day! When you look at that statistic it makes adulthood seem repressed and inhibited. Let’s appreciate children as the magnificent teachers they really are.

One of my children used to pray every day at the dinner table, “Dear Heavenly Father, please help us all be more huggable today.”

You know, I really tried to be more huggable after I said amen to her prayers. Children offer their affection without scrutiny. They live in the present and are curious, observant and look freshly at common things.

Children are our greatest teachers of love. My children have taught me the simple essence of a meaningful life.

Life Often Requires Us To Face What We Fear Most

There are many life experiences we’re absolutely sure we can’t face, such as the death of a love one, chronic illness, financial failure, spouse betrayal or wayward children. Yet life often requires us to face what we fear most. When we live through the very trial we hoped to avoid, we have the opportunity to learn, grow and receive God’s infinite love for us. When we feel the love of God, there is nothing left to fear.

Sometimes when we are faced with difficult times, we just need extra gripping power. Tiny green plums in my back yard taught me this lesson. One spring, I was experiencing a difficult time emotionally and physically after the death of a loved one. One morning I walked out into our back yard and noticed hundreds of miniature green plums just beginning to form on our fruit tree. That tiny, undeveloped fruit represented the harvest we hoped to reap later in the summer. My mouth watered just thinking about their tart and sweet taste.

That night there was a huge storm. I heard the wind howling, twisting and wailing all night long while I lay in bed unable to sleep. The next day when I walked outside, I noticed piles of green plums blown from the tree in the storm disappearing into the grass. They let go. I looked closely to see what remained. There were still a few tiny plums clinging tightly to the tree branches. All that spring I watched and waited. Those few tiny plums grew and ripened. The fruit that survived and drew strength from the tree throughout the growing season had one important quality - they hung on. That ability alone made the difference. Now when I’m experiencing an unexpected loss, I always pray for strength to hold on. I draw on strength beyond myself and beyond this world. I know in time my harvest will come.

When we don't give up and live through the very heartache we hoped to avoid, we discover that with time and divine help - all circumstances will work toward our good. When we are faced with loss, the ability to hang on will see us through. We can bear much more than we suppose. We never have to give up hope. Everything that happens to us deepens our understanding and enlarges the capacity of our heart.

Doing Things You Think You Can't Do

Responding positively to invitations to serve others always leads to personal growth. For example, when I was a teenager, I was often asked to play the piano at church. I desperately needed time to practice before I could play any piece well. Most of the choristers gave me the music ahead of time. One chorister never did. Needless to say, I was stressed out because I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of my peers. One day I was asked to play a hymn roughly six seconds before crunch time. I turned to the hymn and discovered it had four sharps. I immediately panicked and quickly prayed, “Heavenly Father, help! I can’t do four sharps!”


What followed was the quickest personal revelation I’ve ever received. “Just pretend it’s in three flats and I’ll help you.” Naïve and desperate I followed that impression without question. I played the hymn written in four sharps in three flats and it sounded all right! Well, that was sufficient proof of another Red Sea parting for me. It wasn’t until 35 years later that someone told me you can change the flats into sharps and the sharps into flats as long as they add up to seven.

Actually, I failed to appreciate the real miracle - God knew me. God knew me well enough to know I thought I could play that song in three flats. I was given a way to think about my challenge in a way I could survive it. The Creator of this universe who has to keep the cosmos going knows all of us that intimately. How much good could we do with our lives if we accept invitations to serve others, then let go of our fears and depend on God for our strength? God will give us a way to think about our challenges in a way that we can handle it – if we ask.

I'm a New Grandma Today!

Kate Elizabeth Baadsgaard was born today!
There is no greater miracle than a newborn child. 
She is absolutly beautiful.  I felt like I was in heaven while I held her for several hours today. Congratulations Jacob and Teresa! Emma is going to love having a baby sister.

Happy Birthday Sandy!!!

SANDY & THE MAGIC JEWEL
by
Granny B

This is a special story
written for my granddaughter Sandy
on her sixth birthday.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Sandy who lived much too far away from her grandma. One day her Grandmother came to visit because she missed Sandy’s hugs and kisses so much she couldn’t stand it any longer.

Sandy’s birthday was coming in a few weeks. Grandma didn’t know if she would see her granddaughter on her special day so she left a birthday present for Sandy hidden in her parent’s closet. Sandy tried very hard not to peek but once she sneaked into her parent’s closet and brushed aside the tissue paper in the gift bag. She saw two sweaters and shirts.

On the day of her birthday, Sandy took her sweaters and shirts from the gift bag and set them aside. Then she slipped her hand deep inside to see if anything else was hiding in there. At the bottom of the bag was a large sparkly jewel. Sandy had never seen a jewel that big and she was sure she was now the richest six-year-old in the universe.

Sandy was pretty sure the jewel had magic powers. So she took the jewel into her bedroom and closed the door. Then she rubbed the jewel in her hands three times, closed her eyes and made a wish.

“I wish my regular school was a princess school,” Sandy said just before she placed the jewel under her pillow.

The next day when she opened the door to her school, Sandy looked for people wearing crowns and tiaras but she didn’t see any. When she walked into her classroom Sandy’s teacher was wearing a long flowing gown covered in sequins.

“Students,” her teacher said, “today you will learn how to be a real prince and a princess.”

Sandy couldn’t wait. She primped her hair and waited for her teacher to bring her fancy clothes, shoes and a crown to wear.

“Follow me,” the teacher said.

First her teacher led her to the cleaning supplies closet.

“This is King Henry’s abode,” her teacher said smiling at the school janitor. “He keeps our school clean every day and nobody even knows that he is really a king.”

Sandy looked at Mr. Smith. She didn’t see a crown.

“Where’s his crown?” Sandy asked.

“He doesn’t need to wear his crown,” her teacher answered. “He knows what the best kings do.”

Sandy was confused.

Next her teacher led her to the lunch room.

“Presenting Queen Rita, Queen Rosa and Queen Lilly,” her teacher said.

Sandy looked at the lunch ladies in their hairnets and aprons. She didn’t see any tiaras with diamonds and rubies.

But they don’t have any crowns,” Sandy said.

“They don’t like to show off,” her teacher said. “But they knew what the best queens do.”

Sandy shook her heard.

“But how can you be a queen or a king if you don’t have a crown?” she asked.

“The very best kings and queens don’t wear crowns,” her teacher said. “They serve people. Some of them give children a clean place to learn and good food to eat. Most people don’t know they are royalty but they are.”

That afternoon when Sandy got home she looked at her mommy. She wondered if her mommy was a queen because she gave her children a clean place to learn and good food to eat.

Then she ran into her bedroom, took her birthday jewel out from under her pillow, rubbed it three times and made a wish.

“I wish I was a princess,” Sandy said.

Then she went into the kitchen.

“Can I help you clean up around here and get dinner ready?” Sandy asked her mother. “I am princess in training.”

“Why yes,” her mother answered a little surprised.

“By the way mommy,” Sandy said. “I know you’re really a queen but you don’t like to show off.”

Having the Courage to try New Things At Any Age

How do we keep our zest for living as we age?  Do something you've never done before!  Have the courage to be a beginner! 

When we have a new experience physically it takes us to new territory mentally. When we let go of routine and venture into the discomfort of being a beginner, it opens dormant mental power. We feel more enthusiasm, energy and excitement for other areas of our life as well.

The power of learning and experiencing new things is contagious. Learning in one area ignites learning in another. If we are always learning or experiencing something new it keeps us in touch with how it feels during the change process.

When we were children, each day presented us with something challenging. We were constantly required to change, adapt and grow. Most adults on the other hand, ease into a comfortable rut and get stuck in stability, stagnation and safety. The wonder, curiosity and sparkle left our eyes.


All of us know someone who is old in years but still retains their zest for living. They’re fun to be around. How do they do it? They have the courage to keep trying new things. How do we get this childhood liveliness back? Learn or experience something new.

It takes humility and courage to be a beginner at any age. “Oh, I could never do that,” I hear people say when I invite them to try something. I always tell them they will never know if they never try. I hear lots of excuses – money, time, ability, talents, illness and age. In fact, if we really want to do something, we’ll find a way. 

Doing Things You Think You Can't Do

While I was growing up, I always wanted to play in the school orchestra. I begged my mother, but she told me only rich kids played expensive instruments. So I sang in the choir instead. Singing didn’t cost anything. Well, I grew up, got married, and it took me thirty years to get all my children in school. I thought I’d missed my chance. Then at 52 I quit using old excuses and joined the New Horizons Orchestra. This is a unique orchestra. They welcome beginners.


When I began playing the violin, the music I produced resembled sick birds with scratchy sore throats - but I kept trying. As I practiced I felt areas of my brain wake up and form new connections. My fingers drummed note placements on my bed pillow at night. I heard the melody I was learning drifting through my mind at odd times, like when I was driving the car or doing the dishes. As the orchestra director gently guided us through our first elementary songs, there were moments when the music seemed to lift from the page and wrap around my heart. During the pauses, the moments of quiet between the notes, I felt aroused and elevated – like flying without leaving the ground. The learning process was not intimidating or humiliating; it was energizing, exhilarating and fun. After we played our first song in three parts, I jumped from my seat exclaiming, “We’re an orchestra! We make music!”

One woman had a brain tumor, resulting in the removal of large portions of her brain. She went into a deep depression that didn’t lift until her husband brought her to our orchestra. As she learned to play an instrument, her brain developed new pathways and many other abilities came back to her. An eighty-six year old woman crippled with arthritis also became a member of the orchestra. Though her fingers were gnarled, she persisted and learned to play the violin before she died.

We’re never too old, young, dumb or poor to learn something new. Studies show people rarely try anything new after the age of forty. Good grief, we have to be that old before we’re wise enough to let go of all the status symbols in our culture and start living an authentic life. It’s never time to have a midlife crisis. It’s always time to have an all-life awakening. An all-life awakening invites us to learn something new at every age.

Happiness X Two

Experiencing life
with someone you love
just makes everything
twice as sweet.

Inviting the Gift of Laughter into Your Life

Researchers have discovered that laughter can actually lower blood pressure and trigger a flood of endorphins. Endorphins are brain chemicals that bring on a feeling of well-being and even euphoria. Laughter also affects our immune system. Gamma-interferon, a disease-fighting protein, rises with laughter. So do B-cells, which produce disease-destroying antibodies and T-cells, which orchestrate our body’s immune response. Laughter can also shut off the flow of stress hormones that come into play when we feel hostility, rage or stress. Stress hormones suppress the immune system, raise blood pressure, and increase the number of platelets in the blood which can cause fatal artery blockage. Keeping a sense of humor really is serious business.

There are literally hundreds of ways to invite joy and laughter into your life without waiting until everything is going smoothly, because it never will. Finding humor can be learned, practiced, reinforced and internalized just like any other skill. Everyone has an innate sense of humor, although it may be hidden after years of neglect. Remember, those who laugh – last. Humor is an effective way to manage stress and prevent burnout. Stress is caused by our perception of events not the actual events. We can’t control what happens to us but we can control our perception of what happens to us through humor. That is power through perspective.

If we can find humor in something - we can survive it. People who are dour and gloomy exacerbate their illnesses and shorten their life spans. Laugher is as good as exercise. To stay healthy we not only have to eat right, we have to think right. Happy people treat stress as a positive challenge rather than a negative event. Being able to laugh at ourselves is mentally healthy.

By developing a sense of humor, we can increase our ability to tap creative problem-solving abilities. Humor can be an affectionate communication of insight. Using humor is one way to lobby for change without being offensive. One wife found if she clutched her heart and threw herself on the floor yelling, "Oh, you’re so right, it’s killing me!” when she and her husband started arguing, the steam suddenly left the conflict. Another woman took out a classified ad that read, “Husband for sale, cheap. Comes complete with hunting and fishing equipment, one pair of jeans, two shirts, black Lab retriever and too many pounds of venison. Pretty good guy, but not home much from October to December and from April to October. Will consider trade.” After approximately 66 telephone calls, some of them serious, the wife placed another ad: “Retraction of husband for sale cheap. Everybody wants the dog, not the husband.”

Humor is also an effective way to communicate serious messages with a light touch. For example, there was a woman who was always losing her glasses. So she decided to use humor to solve her problem. She pasted a note to her glasses case that read, “If you have these, I don’t. They are owned by a little old lady who is driving home among your loved ones. Please return.” Then she included her name and address. After she put that note on her glasses, the person who found them always quickly returned them.

Love may make the world go around, but laughter keeps us from getting so dizzy we want to get off. Humor is everywhere if we’re paying attention. Take for example the notice in the church bulletin board that read, “There will be meetings in the north and south ends of the church. Children will be baptized on both ends.” Or the sign on a hospital bulletin board that observed, “Research shows that the first five minutes of life can be the most risky.” Penciled underneath, “The last five minutes are pretty risky too.” Or the cartoon of a doctor consulting with a patient that read, “I think the problem is your gall bladder, but if you want on a second opinion, Ill say it’s your kidneys.”

There are circumstances in life we can change and circumstances we can’t. Humor helps us effectively deal with both. We don’t have to grin and bear it - we can grin and share it. We’ll discover life is so much more fun when we share more than we bear. Humor can be a wonderful way to add years to our life and life to our years – by preventing a hardening of the attitudes. Laugher is the jest medicine.

Grin and Share It

Our family slogan is: “If you keep both feet on the ground, you can’t get your pants on!” I like that slogan because it reminds me to take life lightly. To move from “grin and bear it” to “grin and share it” we need to surround ourselves with positive people and choose life-affirming activities. I’m usually way too serious, so I purposely write humorous family life newspaper columns, magazine articles and books to help me live on the bright side. If we’re naturally dour we need to practice laughing especially at ourselves by telling jokes, embarrassing stories or making up funny slogans. Laugher is a great form of exercise – like jogging on the inside.


We can get more mileage from our muff-ups and mistakes by sharing them. For example, the day I backed into my husband’s company truck with our family van in our own driveway was not a stellar moment. I instantly knew we’d have to pay for both repairs out-of-pocket. I felt so deeply dumb it leaked out my eyeballs. A man in my neighborhood dropped off his little girl to play with my daughter about an hour later. Dumbness was still leaking from my eyes when he arrived.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. When I told him, he laughed. His reaction was not what I expected. “Hey that’s nothing,” he continued. “You should have seen the look on this guy’s face when I pulled him over and forgot to put my patrol car in park. I was standing there writing him a speeding ticket when suddenly – bam! The poor guy got a speeding ticket and his new car rear-ended by the deputy sheriff in less than a minute. Not exactly a shining moment for the department.”

After hearing his story, I laughed out loud. Suddenly my driveway crash didn’t seem so bad any more. I instantly liked this deputy a lot more after he told me his story. Why? He became human to me. He was he no longer an intimidating, straight-faced officer with a gun just waiting behind the corner to catch me doing something stupid. He did dumb things just like me.

“Hey,” I answered. “Once I managed to wreck our car all by myself without even leaving our garage! It cost thousands to fix it!”

We went on trying to top each other with all the dumb things we’d done with our motor vehicles until we were both in stitches. The point here is - we both felt a lot better that day after we shared all our not-so-brilliant goof-ups. Why? Humor builds bridges, relieves stress and promotes health. The next time you do something really dumb don’t try to hide it. Blab it to everyone you see that day. Chances are you’ll learn all the goofy things everybody else has done and you’ll both feel a whole lot better.

A Great Quote

"Failure is perhaps the greatest key to success. More specifically, your response to failure is the real key. Growth in an organization only comes with stretching and risk taking. It is up to the leader to create a healthy environment where people are not afraid to fail. Mistakes should be seen as an integral part of the organizational process. They are a normal part of striving for excellence." *Andrew Harvey

Catastrophe + Time = Humor

One of the most amazing mathematical facts your algebra teacher never taught you is this - catastrophe + time = humor. The quicker we laugh about and share the embarrassing or humiliating events in our lives, the sooner we’ll relax and enjoy life. When we stop worrying about our public image, we begin living authentically. We don’t have to grit our teeth and endure life white-knuckled, afraid of looking incompetent or foolish to our friends, associates and family. Why? Because people actually relate to us better when we’re a dufus. All of us have felt inept at times. Nobody feels perfectly put-together and competent; we all have a slight inferiority complex. When we try to appear flawless, we give a false impression that intimidates others.


For example, once my family was asked to sing a musical number in church. I didn’t want to look incompetent so I made my large, unruly brood practice for several months until I was sure we were ready to perform flawlessly. Needless to say, events did not go as planned. When it came time for us to perform, I lined my little ones in front of the microphone on a stool and placed the older children behind them. My husband stood at the side holding the baby so he could make sure no one bolted for the door.

I sat down on the piano and was almost ready to begin my introduction when my young son on the front row suddenly sucked the entire microphone into his mouth and yelled, “Ahhh-OOOO-GA!!!”

I watched in horror as my husband set the baby down so he could de-suction our toddler from the microphone. Then the baby ran over to the piano and started banging on the keys. At this point the other little kids on the front row got the giggles so bad that snot foamed out their nostrils. The older children on the back row were so humiliated they were a member of our embarrassing family that they turned a deep shade of red, vowing to change their last name and move into an orphanage.

To this day, I can’t remember if we actually sang the song we’d meticulously prepared for that day. I was so embarrassed I don’t recall what actually happened after that. What I do remember is that I’ve never received so many compliments. I learned other people don’t expect our public performances to be perfect and, in fact, they are more entertaining when something goes wrong.

“That was the best musical number we’ve had in this ward for years,” was the sentiment I heard expressed from dozens of giggling ward members. The whole congregation seemed energized, happier and friendlier to each other that day. It dawned on me that my fellow church goers had not judged me as an incompetent mother saddled with uncontrollable, obnoxious children – they actually enjoyed the whole bumbling Baadsgaard performance. If we’re going to look goofy anyway, why waste so much time trying to appear like we’re not?

These days I actually enjoy showing up to any family performance to see what embarrassing or goofy things we are going to do this time. The day I quit trying to orchestrate or control what was going to happen was the day I began enjoying my life. Think about it - what do we talk about around the dinner table or when we visit with friends? We generally share the most embarrassing events in our lives. So why don’t we just laugh about them when they happen? If we had performed flawlessly that Sunday, our family musical number would have been quickly forgotten. Instead we are now recorded in the annals of church history. Everybody loved us for just trying. Why? Because we’ve all been there. We’ve all forgotten to zip up our pants, been turned down for a date, or failed a test. It makes us feel better when we see we’re not alone.