A new year

2008 is nearing it's end and all I have to say about that is good riddance. 2008 was the year from hell as far as I am concerned. I got a beautiful baby girl out of it but other than that it pretty much sucked for us. I started having my gall bladder attacks in January and after delivering Soren on Feb 11 I thought they were finally over but then on the night of our anniversary I had the worst one ever and on March 1 was in emergency surgery to have my gall bladder removed. Less than two weeks later Raymond went in to have his gall bladder removed, he had to take fmla leave from work to recover and then all of the mess with Dannon started, he was not allowed to return to work until July 21 and was unlawfully fired on Aug 20 our lawyers are still going back and forth and we hope to be able to resolve the situation early next year. Some good news was that I was able to start a job about 10 days after Ray lost his but then this past month found out I will probably be laid off mid January. Luckily Ray also found a new job and even better is the fact that he absolutely loves it. He has enjoyed the challenge of working on "older" equipment and being one of two maintenance technicians plus there is the added bonus that his new title is Engineer and he is a department head. He may make less money but I would rather he be poor and happy then making tons of money and miserable. I guess if I look at it from a different point of view, losing his job with Dannon was a blessing but it has made for a very stressful and difficult year. I have very much enjoyed my job with Fairchild and despite the layoffs I cannot think of a company I would rather work for, they have treated me so good and I honestly love my job, I am hopeful that there will be enough people signing up for the voluntary layoff program that my job will be safe but I have to be resonable with myself and prepared for the very real and likely possibility that come mid january I will be looking for a new job. Anngee recently posted that the new year gets her motivated to make changes and set goals and I feel the same way. I am going to try to make 2009 a better year than this past year has been and hopefully this time next year I will be able to say I am sad to see it end.

Fluffy Butt

So for a few months now this adorable stray kitty has been coming to my house everyday (probably because a new bowl of food miraculously appeared everyday). As the weather began getting colder I began finding the cute litte kitty laying right outside my front door when I would leave for work in the morning. I have a weakness for kitties especially sweet ones, I couldn't leave her outside to freeze so I have officially adopted this cute little kitty, we have not named her yet so I call her fluffy butt, here are some pics of the adorable little fluffy butt!!





Raja just loves fluffy butt but fluffy butt is not so fond of poor raja, we did get some cute pics of them being curious about each other.

window painting

This year I went for something a little more difficult than I normally do. I decided to do a cute pic of Mickey and Minnie that I found online. Minnie's head is too big or mickey's is too small but I still think it turned out ok and I like it. Maybe next year I will draw out a grid like Maxine does and it will turn out better. Anyway here is the pic.

New Templates

I love changing my template to match the season but I hate that my widgets always get deleted. If there if someone out there who knows how to change a template without having to redo the widgets please let me know how to do it.

I am loving the snowman, I think he is cute. I am irritated because my stupid playlist isn't working and it has the cutest penguin with a cute little scarf, hopefully I can make it work.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love that, for the most part, people are happier and friendlier than any ofther time of year. I love the smells of cinnamon and ciders and wassail (sp). Most of all I love the snow, I am sad that there hasn't been much of it yet but I was just looking at my weather gadget on my home page and it looks like snow tomorrow, woohoo!! I need to look up cute christmas pics now for my front window painting. I will post a pic when I am done. Happy holidays!!

Long Week

We had a rough week last week. Soren broke my cell phone earlier in the week by slobbering all over it so now I can't use it and have not figured out how to check my messages, So mom if I have missed a call or two I promise I am not ignoring you I am just too dumb to figure out voicemail. We have had a hard time finding a permanent babysitter so Kimi watched the kids for us on Wednesday even though her family was sick, Thank you Kimi!!! We had Amanda take them on Thursday, I felt bad because she has a baby too and she is 7 months preggers so I knew it would be hard on her. I called to check on them on my second break and they were doing good. When I got off at 7:00 I called Ray to make sure he had them picked up, he said he was on his way and asked where I was, I told him I was just leaving work, then he told me that Roby had been in an accident and may have had Ryan with him, I got pretty upset and ran out to my car. I was out of gas so I went to Ryan and Suzan's because they are super close, when I got there Ray still didn't know if it was Ryan, I was confused "Why don't we just call Amanda?" so I did, no answer(Roby had the cell phone with him and the battery was knocked loose during the accident). I call Ray back and ask why we think Ryan was with him, apparently his mom talked to one of the witnesses whose phone Roby had borrowed, he told her that a little girl, 7 or 8 years old, was pulled from the vehicle and laid on the grass and that she was bleeding from the mouth. Now I am even more upset and frustrated that we don't know if it was Ryan yet. Finally Ray gets to Amanda's and finds out that it is Brynleigh not Ryan. Now I am relieved for Ryan but worried about Bryn. We finally hear from Ryan(Ray's dad), both of them are fine and they are on their way back, the jeep and both of the other cars involved were totalled. Luckily no one was seriously injured. As if that was not enough for one week, on Friday when Raymond drove his Uncle Tim home from watching our kids he gets pulled over for expired plates (they had just barely expired on the 31st of Oct.) The officer informs Ray that he has a warrant and is driving on a suspended license, Raymond asks why and the cop tells him it is due to failure to prove our fix-it ticket earlier this year. We were cited for a broken headlight and given 14 days to fix it, which we did however, we never drove out to prove that it was fixed so they issued a warrant and suspended his license. West Jordan never ceases to amaze me with what they consider to be criminal acts (if you don't mow your lawn it is a misdemeanor). I am finding myself more and more agreeing with my father-in-law, It is a Conspiracy. Anyway now Raymond is not allowed to drive until we get all of this taken care of. Sometimes it feels like you just can't win. Luckily (or not, since it is due to the economy) I have this week off so I don't have to worry about babysitters. Anyway it is almost Thanksgiving and regardless of everything else I have a lot to be grateful for, So I guess I will just stop whining and count my many blessings.

lotsa laughs

The night of Braxton's halloween party We did some you-tubing any way I thought these videos were funny

Charlie Bit Me.




BLOOD!



and of course

Twilight Trailer Spoof



And finally, added by Anngee's request,

Homemade Fireworks.



Ryan reminded me of her favorite,

Hey Goat!



and last one I promise

Say hi to your mother for me.

Woohoo!!

So Raymond got the Maintenance Engineer job at Dunford, Hooray! He started yesterday and he says he likes it. Dunford is actually 3 seperate companies; Dunford, Donuts Inc., and Rocky Mountain Bread Co. Raymond is the Engineer for Rocky Mountain Bread Co. His schedule is 9-5 mon-fri. Of course Raymond would finally get a normal schedule now that I have a funky one. Luckily for us Raymond's wonderful Uncle Tim has agreed to watch our kids this week, though I don't know what we are going to do next week. We will be brainstorming this weekend to find something more permanent. We are just grateful to have the job and will figure something out.

Job Hunting

Raymond is trying to get a new job so we took some time and put together a really good resume for him (I think it is anyway). We got online and applied for every Maintenance Mechanic postion that was listed. The very next day He had an interview lined up at O. C. Tanner, the interview went well and one of the engineers told him that if he didn't get the job he would like to hire him for contract work as a consultant or something like that, anyway they said they would get back to him within a week. So while we wait he lined up another interview at Dunford Bakery wich would actually be a promotion because it is a Maintenance Engineer position. His interview is scheduled for Monday so hopefully that will go well.

I got sick this weekend and had to call into work yesterday and today, I hated doing it because that is the one thing they told us not to do in training if we wanted to stay beyond the 6 month interim period but luckily I have a very kind boss and she was very understanding, I told her that I would still come in if she needed me but she said she would rather I didn't come and get everyone else sick. I went to the doctor and he said I have a very contagious virus and that I would be puking all weekend so I called Kimi to cancel sleepover plans for our kids and the poor girl had already caught if from the day before when I watched her kids for her job interview. Sorry Kimi! Hopefully it only last through the weekend I hate being sick.

Newest Twilight Preview

Make sure you pause my music player so you can hear it.

Twilight HD Exclusive Trailer

Picture Time.

It is that time of year again. My kids school always does pictures in mid Sept and then the pics come home the beginning of Oct. We were able to take Soren and Alex to get their pics done too and I love all of them, though Ryan will probably be getting retakes because she forgot to take her jacket off and her hair was falling out of her ponytail. Anyway here are the pics. (Chelle I will be mailing yours out to you!)

Photo Tag

So Anngee tagged me to do this post where I have to do a yahoo/google image search for pics to go with my answers, so here goes.

My favorite vacation:
Camping


I love to go camping, it will always be my favorite summertime get-a-way. I haven't done it in years and really miss it.

My favorite color:
Orange


I love Orange. I have a ton of orange clothes I even have bright orange shoes.

My age:
28


I am 28 years old. I feel old and young at the same time. Sometimes I feel lik high school was just yesterday and then I remember I have 4 kids now.

My favorite treat:
Starburst


I love starburst candies especially the tropical flavors. I always eat the orange and pink ones before anyone else can get to them.

Favorite food:
Jambalaya


I have several favorite foods so it is hard to pick just one. Lately I really like Jambalaya as long as there is no shrimp!!

The place I would love to travel most:
Scotland


I swear I am not trying to copy you Rochelle, I love scotland! I would not mind buying one of my own islands in scotland, there are over 700!

The place I grew up:
Midvale


I love Midvale. Historic Midvale is my favorite part and I was lucky enough to live in that part of Midvale. I too love harvest days and still enjoy going to watch the fireworks.

The Place I live now:
West Jordan


I love West Jordan! Tons of near by shopping, most of my family and it doesn't suck to drive here like it does in Salt Lake. The sign in this pic is actually just down the street from my house.

My last name:
Eggertsen


How sad is it that the only pic of my last name is a headstone? I love having a unique last name. There aren't a lot of Eggertsens left, I guess the Eggertsen boys consider that a challenge to save the name because they sure are having a lot of kids!

My middle name:
Dawn


I love my middle name because it is the prettiest part of the day and because it comes from my mothers' name Dawnita.

My first name:
Britteny


Ok so her name isn't even spelled that way, but lets face it she is the first person most people think of when they hear my name. I still love my name despite that fact and besides that I had the name first.

Something I used to love:
Pottery


I absolutely love making things with clay and I really miss it. I have always told Ray that someday I will have my own little shed where I can keep my ceramics stuff including a pottery wheel and build my own kiln.

My favorite animal:
Pig. Surprise, surprise right!


I love pigs and someday I will have a black potbellied pig and his name will be Ferdinand.

Ok apparently I am supposed to tag someone else now (thank you Kimi) so I officially tag Kimi and Max.

My baby is crawling!

On Sunday night Soren took her first little belly scoots across the floor, now she has started to prop herself up on to her knees. She can get pretty far pretty quick. I am starting to worry about little things since she will be getting into everything now. I tried to take some pics of her crawling but it is hard to catch her in action so this is the closet that I got.

My new job

So I totally love my job. I am in diffusion, basically I bake the wafers that will become a power source for cell phones, laptops, mp3's or any other battery powered portable device. I get in at 7:00 am, take an hour long break at around 10:00 am then another hour long break at around 2:00 pm (lunch) and finally another 45 min break at 5:00 pm so I get paid for 11.5 hours per work day even though I only actually work 9.25. pretty nice huh? I also found out that when I am officially hired from interim I can get tuition reimbursement 100% paid in advance to any school I want to go to as long as it is in a related field. Everyone that I have worked with is super nice and everyone smiles and says hi as you walk down the halls. I am really enjoying it plus it is always fun to learn new things, though I must say that learning their system for logging work is weird it reminds me of dos you cant use your mouse and have to navigate with the numberpad so that has taken some getting used to. So far the only down side has been that my feet are freakin' killing me, and my thigh muscles hurt (that is probably a good thing.).

I love this song

I am sure in a couple of weeks I will be totally sick of it but for right now I love it.

The Ting Tings, Shut up and let me go.

worry

My grandmother-in-law posted this on her blog and I think I should try to heed it's advice right now.


"For every problem under the sun,
There is a remedy or there is none;
If there be one, hurry and find it,
If there be none, never mind it."




"Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something
to do, but doesn't get you anywhere."

Some bad news.

I don't really know how many people are aware of our situation with Dannon. I am pretty sure everyone knows Raymond had surgery in March. Raymond took FMLA leave in order to have the surgery because Dannon refused to give him vacation time because he did not know two weeks in advance of the surgery in order to schedule it as vacation. When Raymond was released to return to work by his doctor Dannon refused to allow him to return to work, they called him the day he was supposed to go back and told him not to come in because they needed to deal with their legal department and they would call him when he could come back. Needless to say we hired an attorney (difficult thing to do when you are poor.). Our lawyer and Dannon's lawyer finally worked out an agreement and Raymond was finally allowed to return to work on July 14 with some demands that were agreed upon. Federal law says that a person cannot be penalized for taking a leave under the Family Medical Leave Act but that is exactly what Dannon had done and we knew eventually Dannon would have to allow him to return to work, when Raymond initially took the leave on March 12 Dannon gave him what they call an Occurrence which is basically a mark against him on his record, one of our demands was that this occurrence be removed and was agreed upon by Dannon's lawyer. Well anyway this Wednesday when Raymond went to work he was asked by his coach to come with him to speak with the HR director. The purpose of the meeting was to Terminate Raymond's employment with Dannon, they used the unlawful occurrence wich was added to Ray's record on March 12 as grounds for his termination which is obviously in violation of their own legal agreement, our lawyer has already drafted a letter to Dannon's lawyer to make them aware that they are in viloation of a legal agreement and demanding Raymond's immediate reinstatement. Our lawyer has given Dannon's lawyer until until the Aug 26 to reply. Obviously we are upset and frustrated and are somewhat at a loss about what we should do at this point. Luckily I did just get hired by fairchild however my income will be less than half of what Raymond was making. We understand that people are concerned and worried about us, we appreciate it and ask that everyone give us some time to deal with this situation and decide what we are going to do. We have a lot of decisions that we need to make in a short amount of time and I am taking this especially hard. Please keep us in your prayers and hopefully things will work out ok.

A new job?

So I applied for a job at Fairchild Semiconductor online and was later invited to attend a " Getting to know you/ Interview " thing. Two days later I recieved a phone call,(I didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number) they left a message informing me that they would like to offer me the postion. I called back but they are in South Portland, Maine so they were long gone by the time I called. On Saturday I recieved a packet by fedex with a bunch of forms that needed to be signed and returned and the drug test paper that I needed to take in to an urgent care office to be tested for pre employment. So I did all of that and they called me back and officially offered me the position again. So as long as my Drug test comes back clean I will be starting Sept. 2 at 8:00 am for orientation. I will be working 12 hour shifts every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and every other Wednesday 7:00 am - 7:00 pm. It is a clean room enviroment and I will have to wear what they call a bunny suit, basically I will have to wear latex gloves that come up to my elbows, a full smock with sleeves coming to the wrists and legs down to the ankles, little white booties, a hair net, face net and hat, pretty much the only thing visible will be my eyes but even those will be covered by safety glasses. I wont be able to use hair spray or wear perfume, make-up or nail polish. So pretty much you just roll out of bed and go to work, I could even go in jammies.

How to stop swearing: Painful

So I have decided that I swear too much and that I want to stop. I typed "How to stop swearing" into Google search and got lots of answers most of them the same. They all had at least 10 steps most of which included, 1. Recognize that you have a problem. 2.Understand why you swear. 3. Know why you want to stop swearing. 4. Make a commitment with yourself to stop. 5. Express yourself better. 6. Accept responsibility. 7. Enlist support. 8. Find substitute words. 9. Punish yourself. 10. Reward yourself. 11. Persevere.

That seems like an awful lot of steps for something that I thought was a relatively small problem. I feel like I should be walking into a meeting and saying " Hi, My name is Britteny and I swear." and then everyone will clap and say " The first step is admitting you have a problem."

So anyway I have completed steps 1-4 and 6-9, I will work on expressing myself better (step 5) and reward myself when I feel I have accomplished my goal (step 10). As far as my punishment goes (step 9) I have chosen to wear a rubber band around my wrist and every time I swear I pull it up and then let go, man it hurts! A swear jar that you place a quarter into every time you swear was also suggested but I just don't have that many quarters, and I think the pain will be more effective for me.

They also say 21 days to break a habit, so by August 24Th I should be able to walk into my meeting and say " Hi, my name is Britteny, and I no longer swear.". Wish me luck and if you catch me swearing make sure I pull my rubber band.

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. For some reason 28 feels so old to me. Raymond and I got to go out to dinner with my parents and his parents, plus Colton, and Roby & Amanda. We were planning on going to Chili's but when we got there the wait was 30-45 minutes and we didn't want to wait that long so we went to Famous Daves, it was good but I was kind of bummed about not going to Chili's, I seriously love their southwestern eggrolls. After dinner Ray and I went to see Hancock. Good movie, though I was able to guess fairly early on what was going on between the Hancock and Mary characters. In between dinner and the movie I got a horrible stomach ache and I am almost worried that I have food poisoning, I am still having the stomach pain today, it has been awful I can hardly move. I am thinking I will avoid food on special occasions from now on, my anniversary meal resulted in gall bladder surgery and now this stomach ache.

First day of school

Today is Ryan and Rayden's first day back at school. They are in the same class again, their teachers name is Mrs. Yanda, she is an older woman, probably early to mid 50's so I think Ryan will do better this year, she always does better with older people, I think they just have more patience and dealing with Ryan requires that. Rayden does pretty well no matter who his teacher is, he does his own thing and is a fast learner so I am not too worried about him. I overheard their teacher when she met some twins in their class say "oh , the other twins." Ryan hates when people think She and Rayden are twins so I am sure if they get called twins her teacher will get an ear full. I can't wait to pick them up and see how things went.

Memory Lane

Let's Take A Walk...
down memory lane.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. Fun huh?!!

Healing your spirit

My Grandma-in-law has a new website and blog that I wanted to share for anyone who is interested in Holistic healing and improving mental health.

her website link is
http://www.healingyourspirit.com/index.html

Her blog link is
http://healingbodyspirit.blogspot.com/

Mush and time

Today Soren tried Rice cereal(mush)for the first time, she did better than any of my other kids have ever done on their first spoon feeding. Maybe becasue she is older than any of the other ones were for their first feedings, I also bought some new baby spoons made by Nuby that are a better shape for baby feeding than the Gerber spoons I used to buy so that probably helped too.



I can't beleive how fast she is growing. Time seems to be flying right now, She is already 5 months old and 16 lbs. It is crazy to think that within about a month she will be sitting on her own and crawling.



I remember when I was little I thought time passed so slowly but now watching my own kids I understand the saying "They grow up so fast.". I cant believe it. It seems like yesterday that we were celebrating my first nephews first birthday and now he is about to go into the 8th grade. My bro-in-law was only 6 when I met him and now I am letting him drive my car(supervised of course)to get fast food, my little sisters first child is about to start kindergarten and my two oldest are about to start 2nd grade. Craziness!!

Spiders on Drugs

Hilarious youtube video about spiders.

The Van

Raymond and Ryan spent all day Saturday and Sunday evening fixing the van. It is finally done. Yeah!!! They are so funny, they tried to tease me that it takes 24 hours (Ray tried to say a couple of days) to charge the battery, and they kept acting like something went wrong just as they would get something put back together and say they were going to have to take it all apart again. Now we just have to fix the rear wiper motor and it should (fingers crossed) pass emission and inspection. I am so happy that I will soon have 2 working, legal vehicles again, at least until Oct. 31 when we will have to register the car again.

Surgery Update

So the surgery went well, though we ended up being there way longer than we initially planned for. We were asked to arrive at the hospital at 8:15 am in order to prep him. Surgery was supposed to begin at 9:15 am and take 1 hour and 50 minutes. They didn't take him back to the O.R. until 10:05 and he was in surgery until about 1:30. The doc said his teeth were bigger than the crowns that he had so he had to grind his existing teeth down until the crowns would fit and that is what took so long. So the poor little guy had one of those plastic things that holds your lips open for 3 1/2 hours and came out of surgery all swollen and looking like Angelina Jole. We finally left the hospital at 3:30 over seven hours after we got there. At least his teeth are fixed and with daily brushing and flossing will stay that way until they fall out and we start all over again.

I don't know if I ever mentioned that the reason he had to have surgery in the first place is due to an enamel defect that runs in the maternal side of Rays family, several people have had to have this operation done including my Rayden.

Surgery tomorrow

Alexander goes in for surgery on his teeth tomorrow, I don't know what time it will be yet, I have to wait until after 2:00 to call and find out but it will probably be fairly early. I know he is second or third for the morning. I am a little anxious, I pre-registered today and now it feels real. I remember when Rayden had the surgery and it is so scary to watch such a tiny person go under general anesthesia and on top of that Ray and Uncle Roby have a hard time coming out of anesthesia so that makes me a little more nervous. I am sure everything will go fine but please say a prayer for him anyway.

Stupid Google

I set up a google account for Rob while I was still signed in and it changed my blog into his name so I had to completely delete his account wich deleted my blog and now I have to start all over again. URGHH! I am super irritated.