Hunter







Vern has had a busy fall. One thing he has kept busy with has been hunting. Now while I do not enjoy the sport, Vern does, so I support his endeavors. Below are a couple photos of the spoils of his hunting.

 

 

First is a photo one the day after raccoon hunting.  Vern's words "Do you see how much fat is on it?" I guess the raccoon was getting ready for winter. Vern went swimming on this hunting trip in a creek up to his chest. That had to be cold! 

 

 

This next photo is from this past weekend when Vern went deer hunting. He got his very first buck. It was SOOOOO cold outside. Vern had on a few layers and boy did he sleep well last night. He ended up hurting his ankle on this hunting trip.

Vern is enjoying his fall.

 

Top Jr. High Dog

Wow it sure doesn't seem possible that my baby is in 8th grade this year. The years are flying by.  I have been doing Vern's blog for quite a few years now and you have watched him grow on this page. Soon he will look more like an adult with all this puberty we have going on. What a ride!

Second day of school picture. It is a tradition to get your photo taken each year with your book bag, new outfit, and shoes. It's always in same room, same spot so I guess you get to see how little I change things up in the house. LOL

The 8th graders are each issued an iPad. This can be good or bad. For our household with Vern in it I would go the bad route as it is yet another electronic device for him to play on instead of doing something constructive. Sigh...

Here is an up close and personal shot of the iPad. The identify them in school by the picture they each took on day one.

Next I am tossing in a couple photos from Vern's court of honor we had a week or so ago. This is where they are recognized for the badges they have earned. Vern had a few he earned at summer camp.

Vern said he becomes "Life" at the next meeting. He is doing well and I hope he continues to advance.

Here is to a successful 8th grade year!

Summer Camp 2014 - #3 aka Farm Camp

Vern attended year two of farm camp recently. He had a great time as usual. (Thanks everyone!)

My sister did comment "Boy I forgot how boys that age eat." She needed a loan to feed him for the week. :-)

Vern did comment that by the end of the week he was tired of pizza.

Some other activities for the week included riding motorcycles. No Vern did not ride his own!

He also rode 4 wheelers and had some fun with his older cousin.

He got quite a few bug bites in bad places. (You just can't spray that thing....)


Sis did say he fed the animals and did some chores.

Finally they did some fishing. That guy is still in my freezer!

Vern had a good end to his summer and now it is back to learning at school...

Summer Camp 2014 #1

Summer camp #1

Well Vern is back from his first camp of the summer. This was confirmation camp through the church. As you can see from the photos below it is a lot more than studying the Bible. It is fun together time with great counselors. 

I asked Vern so what did you learn?  His typical response, "Oh stuff I all ready knew like God loves you."

This year they got to stay in a new building - more of a dorm style. This was much nicer than the old sheds converted into sleeping quarters they had in prior years.  Vern did say he did not like his counselor and one time a counselor hit a boy. I don't know what was all up with that but plan on looking further into that.

This week Vern is off to Summer camp #2. I do not know if I will get any photos from that camp out but will be sure to update how it went.

Paddle boating -

Fishing - Vern said they only got to fish for a short time and the other kids kept catching his line. No fish either. :-(

Vern is the second kid on the high ropes. He ended up with a nasty scrape down the front of his leg from falling once.

Zipping down the line at the end - always fun!

 

Schools out for summer!

Well Vern is now finished with 7th grade and onto 8th grade. His final grades were similar to 3rd quarter with A's and B's. I was happy but the part that made me the happiest was there were no "N's" or needs improvements from any teacher!!!! Vern was using his time more wisely and trying harder. That is what we have been asking for and Vern finally pulled through. GREAT JOB VERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next year in 8th grade each student receives an Ipad to use for the year. We have to attend meetings in August on this. If it helps Vern with studying I am all for it. I just hope he doesn't sit in class playing games. This will be quite the test of his abilities to resist temptation. I am sure you will see blogs on the topic...

Vern has a lot of summer activities planned. There are camps and vacations and trips to see people. He will keep busy.

We are trying to push Vern to get off the electronics and get out and do different things. This is a huge challenge. Last weekend we "made" the teenagers go on a bike ride.  Vern actually had a good time and enjoyed it. His sister....let's just say she hates us and can't believe she had to be seen in public with a stupid helmet on. My God, we are trying to ruin her!  The drama was unbelievable.

For the summer we are hoping there is more of this:

And less of this!!!

We shall see how it turns out!!!

Just like all the others...

Vern is very much into puberty. Not so much yet on the outside but zowie on the inside. His emotions are all over the place. He is mouthy. He ignores you. He is disrespectful.  Yes, he is 13.

Now I as most parents probably try to curb this bad behavior. I believe those same parents have about as good of results as I do - NILL.

We talk about it. We inflict punishments for poor behavior. We talk about it some more. We dole out more privilege restrictions. Things get better until the restriction is released or the item returned. Then the poor behavior returns.  Can I say frustrating???

How do I know this is typical 13 year old behavior, because our nephew turns 13 this week and he acts the exact same way!!!! He hasn't seen his uncle in months and the first thing he tries to do to him is rack him in the balls!!! After that he is super mean to Uncle and wrestles and fights with him the entire time.  He is rude and mouthy and just like Vern. Hmmm, I see a pattern.

OH PLEASE let this phase pass quickly.  Soon it will be driving. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

April 2014 - Happy Easter!

I was looking at the blogs and thought CRAP, it had been a month since I have updated Vern's blog. There has not been a lot going on. I have been working, working, working so have not done any blogging, even reading blogs.

Vern is really starting to get into puberty. His attitude is typical teenager - BAD. Mouthy, not listening, and all he does is mess with his iPod, XBOX, or computer.

He is doing OK at school - Had one detention this past month.

Today was Easter. He looked so handsome all dressed up. We had to make a quick trip to get dress shoes as he didn't have any that fit. The weather was beautiful so we spent the rest of the day outside.

Vern and his sister helped me with leaves and they picked up stick and pine cones. Then they drove the garden tractor over to a giant burn pile with all the stuff we picked up.

It was a good day and our evening meal Vern loved. We had ham, potatoes, green beans and fruit salad! Vern has bowlfuls of fruit salad the way I make it.

They worked really hard and even got a bit sun burnt. Tonight we are getting a bit of rain. April showers.


Happy Easter to all. May God Bless you all.

Ending 6th grade on a good note.

Here we are at the end of another school year. Vern is SO excited to be done with 6th grade. I think he ended the year with 2 detentions within 2 weeks of school getting out.  We both are glad school is out and Vern gets some time to do other things. He will be kept busy this summer.

Before getting on with summer I wanted to brag about his report card. I was pleased that Vern did indeed try and ended the year on a good note.

English                B+
Social Studies     B+
Science               A-
Math                   B
Physical Ed        A+
Choir                  A+
Music Apprec.   A-
Foreign Lang     B+

If you know Vern please congratulate him either in person or via the comments section. He deserves it!

Now it is onto fun summer time activities.  Summer is just starting and he already had a dog over for a week to play.  This week he is spending at his dad's house and next week starts his time as a helper for vacation bible school.  More updates to follow!

He's in the dog house now.

Poor Vern.

He is in the dog house with mom.

It is his own choice.

I hope he gets out soon.

Still love you Vern,
Mom



So what did Vern do this time? Well he is a boy with ADD. He gets sidetracked very easily. Vern can not seem to leave his electronic devices alone. He could play with them a lot more IF he would just follow the rules. What are the rules?  Do your homework and (easy peesy) chores. I had to take drastic measures and take away the devices until his book and book report are finished. Vern is NOT happy with me to say the least. I don't like being the mean mom but I do try to be a good parent and this is one of those things you do as a parent to make better kids. What is even more frustrating with this situation is that he just agreed to work on this and do better 3 days ago. Sometimes, OK a lot of the time, I think he just says yes to get grown-ups to be quiet. I don't know how to fix that except with these extreme measures. Let's hope Vern gets that book report finished soon!!!

Happy Birthday, I think...

So Vern made me a nice homemade card. I scanned a photo of page one below.

I thought this was a nice card until someone at work told me Stewie, the guy he drew, is always trying to kill his mother. EEEEK!

Then we get to page 2. This page concerned me so I didn't take a scan of it. Vern drew a swastika flag and a "dude" with a swastika arm band!!!!

I asked why he would draw this and give it to me for my birthday card. His response, "Oh I was bored and just felt like it."

I'm a little bit scared to go to sleep tonight...Maybe I will lock my door! :-)

Glasses

 

 

Vern is a new man. He has now joined the ranks of millions of people around the world.

He wears glasses.

Now his prescription is barely a prescription but he had been complaining about not being able to see the board so both the optometrist and I broke down and he now has glasses.

I keep wondering in the back of my head if this was a ploy on Vern's part because his best friend has glasses. Time well tell.

Until then, here is Vern in his new specs.



 

 

 

 

 

THE boys

I love this photo

AND

I love those boys!

Urgent Care - again???

What blog about a little boy would be complete without a trip or two to urgent care?

Monday Vern comes home and wants to talk to me on the phone. This is always big as I have previously discussed how he isn't a big phone talker.

Mom I smashed my finger and can't go to wrestling.

What did you do?

Smashed it in church.

I'll look at it when I get home k?

So when I get home I have him take off the bandaids - yes plural. His finger looks B-A-D!!! I immediately decide this needs a trip to the urgent care center and this happened over 24 hours ago!!!!

We eat a quick dinner and Vern and I head out to wait and wait and wait to get in. You know the drill.
We finally get in and the little old doctor finally shows up. We try to get out of Vern what happened but never really do get the whole story.  The doctor is looking at me like I am nuts. Why hadn't I brought this boy in sooner?  So then I have to explain that I had no idea the injury had even occured (Like he believed me :-( ).  I am hoping they aren't thinking I am abusing the boy that badly....He was at his dad's house all weekend!

Doc decides that xrays are in order to rule out a smashed bone tip. Vern enjoyed that process and asked a lot of questions.  Turns out his bones are ok but doc perscribes an oral and a topical antibiotic because it is smashed so badly.  We have to change the dressings 4 times a day. As of 3 days later it still bleeds slightly.  I am hoping for improvement shortly.

Perfect for a 9yr old boy - Gross for the rest of us...

Vern rarely talks to me on the phone. The other two will chatter away but Vern will only begrudingly talk if I force him to. Then it will consist of only short quick answers followed by a bye mom - click before anything else.

Yesterday something was up. He asked to talk to me when he got home from school. I was stunned. It went something like this.

"Hi Vern, how was your day?"
"Fine. Mom guess what? I had diahrea at school. I mean it was a lot and it EXPLODED out my butt." He went on with some more details I will leave out as you get the jist of his excitement and how absolutely awesome this was for him.
"How are you feeling now?"
"Oh, Ok I guess. Can I still go to wrestling?"
"Yes as long as no more bathroom trips."
"Great, hey mom can I stay home from school tomorrow?"
"Let's see how you feel first ok?"
"Ok, bye mom." Click...

I slowly remove the phone from my ear and stare at it in disbelieve. That's my Vern.

Vern versus da Mom

Ok so I promised Vern I would play his Madden 2010 video game with him tonight IF he had his chores done. Finally around 7pm he was finished and off we went to play.

Well this mom hasn't been into a video game since Ms. Pacman in the 80's so I knew it wouldn't be good. I told him to be gentle with me as I didn't know what I was doing.

He got me a chair to sit on (like I was 90 and needed one - frowns). We would start out with a 5 man easy game.  We each picked our favorite teams and set off playing.

To give him credit Vern DID try to tell me how to throw. It's just that he must have forgotten a tiny step as he sacked me every time! I was pushing buttons and throwing the controller all around my body along with the nunchuck or whatever that damn thing is called... N-O-T-H-I-N-G! Ball  still in the QB's hand and me on the ground or so it felt.

Vern giggled and laughed.  I didn't find it Quite so amusing. Finally, I think the Wii felt sorry for me. I some how got the ball in one of the runners hands and scored!  You should have seen me. You would have thought I was in the Super Bowl with all the jumping around and hooting I was doing.

I soon tired of the beating. Vern even let me get down the field as he was tired of sacking me every play. The short torturous game ended 5-3 for Vern's team. Enough of that crap... I'd rather scrub toilets or fold socks.  Well at least until the next time he bats his long eye lashes at me and says MOM will you play football with me.

2008 Vern - The Tampon Story

So we are in church yesterday, it was the portion of church where you are standing and responding back and forth or the prayers I can't remember for sure. We are near the front as Ann picked the spot. I am trying to pay attention to what I am supposed to be doing and Nolan manages to start "snooping" in my purse. I am thinking all is well with the world (big mistake) and turn around to see Mr. Vern holding one of my tampons WAY up in the air and waving it like mad. He proudly proclaims to all in church with his typical loud voice "HEY MOM LOOK, I found an ear plug in your purse!" I am sure at this point my face says everything that needs to be said as I say GIVE me that and turn around so no one can see my face and I can pretend everything is normal the rest of the service. Ya right.