Reading and Chocolate Cake



Ben doing schoolwork.
(I didn't take any pictures of him reading.
I thought it might make him more nervous.)



Since Ben started Kindergarten he's been bringing home little paper books every week or two that he's supposed to read to us.  He reads it to us, we sign the paper and then we send it back to his teacher.  It's been exciting to see him start to read, but mostly the words have been sight words.  He just memorizes it and then repeats it back for us at home.  Often times I've had to remind him to actually look at the book while he is "reading" the it to me.  While I'm glad that he's been learning these words and know that it's part of the process, I've really been looking forward to the next step.



Caleb loves chocolate!



 Today was the day.  Today Ben came home from school, sat down on the couch with his daddy and pulled out a book that he really had to read.  He made mistakes.  He needed help.  But he read the book.  He can read!  Now while I was excited about this, Ben wasn't so much.  He gets easily frustrated when he gets something wrong and would much rather be doing math.  He always tells us, "Mrs. Csenar says that I am really smart at math."  I don't think that it's that he doesn't like books....he's just afraid to be wrong.  He's one of those kids that doesn't really want to try something in front of others until he's absolutely sure that he can do it well.  I can relate. 

Eli helped too!



Anyway, I was so proud of him and wanted to give Caleb and Eli something fun to do while Ben was reading, so we decided to bake Ben a chocolate cake to celebrate.  The younger boys had a great time and Caleb even managed to keep the cake a secret from Ben until the cake came out of the oven.  This is a major accomplishment since Caleb was wearing the evidence all over his face! ha! 

After dinner the boys had their cake.  I surprised them by getting out all of the leftover sprinkles from Halloween and Christmas.  The each got to put their own sprinkles on their pieces.  Of course they wanted to put some of each sprinkle on their little piece of cake, but they loved it!