tonight i dined with some friends at a restaurant called the “blue door” here in saint paul. it’s a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiny little place, serving up amazing burgers, fries, cheese curds, fried pickles…basically heart attacks on a plate. i had a delightful veggie burger and mound of tater tots (no judgement, i didn’t finish it all…almost…not all). it was really fun celebrating our friend eleanor (whom you have heard much about), and her “almost here” baby. she is due on friday!! she and i decided that we are going to walk the mall of america on saturday morning for a few hours if she hasn’t gone in to labor yet! so, again, prayers that she doesn’t go into labor at school or at the mall of america, or really any place she would be considered “under my care.” thanks.

in other news, today at school we had a lot of “girl drama” in my first grade room. lots of tears over not being told secrets, lots of yelling and trying to all be the boss. one story in particular had me laughing though…i went over to a group of girls surrounding another little girl in my room who was in tears. i walked up and asked “okay girls, what’s happening now?” to which the reply was “oh nothing ms. leah. she’s fine. she’s almost over it.” said while rubbing crying-girls back… lol

i just walked away. i mean…they seemed to have a handle on it. (and don’t worry, i made sure that the little girl crying was definitely faking some crocodile tears for the attention). it kinda made me sad to think that all the drama of girl-hood starts at such a young age…but such is life and they were all playing and laughing and hugging by the end of the day. true girls.

also today i received my email letting me know i could order my birchbox now! i am super excited to see what i get! if you don’t know about birchbox you can check it out here.   a nice little shout out for birchbox there i’ll let you know what i get in a month!

what else..what else….nothing really i guess. pauly and i are snuggled up on the couch, each on our own laptops…you know…just spending some quality time together

here are some random pics from tonight, more from crashed ice, and some of me just testing out my new iphone camera app “afterglow”.

oh! read my sister’s blog today here. it’s amazing

veggie burger and tater tots from blue door. say it with me now “our diet starts tomorrow!”

pauly, ryan, and kevin at crashed ice in saint paul

testing out my camera app on our feet in bed :)

i love this gungor song. if you haven’t heard it please please check it out. we sang it on sunday morning at church and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. i feel like this song so perfectly applies to my life right now. God is constantly making me new. taking my dust and making beautiful things from it. maybe this blog is a part of that…..

anyway, here is the link…

on another note…oh mondays. hard getting back into the swing of things but good still. i taught sign language this morning and taught 1st graders this afternoon. i adore 1st graders. i mean they drive me nuts but today i was just laughing watching them perform plays for me and ms. eleanor, singing (all the lyrics perfectly, mind you) taylor swift, one direction, and beyonce songs. they make me happy.

no baby yet on the ms. eleanor front. i am panicked that she will go into labor during school and i will have to rush her to the hospital or something. in my mind it goes like this:

ms eleanor: okay! this is it! here’s this, there’s that…let’s go! (she is very calm and rational…so jealous)

me: (projectile vomit everywhere): okay….okay…..okay….umm….okay….uhhhh…..we should….(more vomiting)…..okay should i call 911??

pray that doesn’t happen. or at least pray i don’t vomit.

speaking of food i just updated our food blog here so check it out! some really yummy additions!

happy monday! remember He makes beautiful things out of us!

Here are some random iphone pics from my phone and paul’s:

in new york holding new precious cousin griffin.

date night with pauly. cafe latte tres leches cake. unreal.

summer and i at rosa mexicano in minneapolis.  amazing food…

paul and grandma grace. she is amazing. and beats paul at cribbage 9 times out of 10..and talks trash while doing it. love her.

amy and i at the crashed ice event here in saint paul. ice cold but so fun!

pauly and i at crashed ice in front of the capitol.

east coast visiting fam. sigh….warm weather…..

while staying with said family..this is how they welcome us our first morning. we will never go back….just kidding :)

at first i typed “superbowel” lol which some days i have… so….it could be a working title in the near future just thought everyone should know that.

i love sundays. as many as possible, our friends cory and summer come over, the girls cook HA-MAZING food, the boys (should be read: husbands) lay around and watch football, and the little boys, ashur (2yrs) and tyson (1yr) play, nap, and generally entertain. it is such a treasured time for us with them because our lives are so busy during the week, sunday is really some of the only time we get with them.

today was no different. we went to church and heard an incredible sermon. you can check out our church and listen to podcasts here. we really love our church and pastor and i think you will too best part of church today though had to be buying girl scout cookies from the adorable little girl in our small group! those are an easy sell in the PLerg household. (PLerg=Paul and Leah Berg). thin mints and tagalongs here we come! thank you junia!

when we got back to our place, the husbands went to work out, the little boys napped and summ and i created some really rather superb meals and desserts. summer and i created a blog a while back to document all our recipes. it’s called “The Plant Based Palate” and you can check it out here…if you want. no pressure. we usually add new recipes on sundays or mondays…

so now, we are watching the superbowl, i’m blogging (obviously), and we are all eating left over food whenever someone passes through the kitchen. it’s been a great day. i will post more pictures of these dear little boys soon…Lord knows i have enough to fill 50 blogs i can’t get enough of them…

here are some pics of the day:

sweet ashur. such a good boy. loves watching thomas the train. :)

come on tys! we know you can walk! bust a move big boy!

so. on the left there WERE peanut butter m & m’s.. on the right are just peanut m & m’s…summer says to me this morning, “who are we kidding. we will eat all these peanut butter ones throughout the day. we might as well just eat them all now and get it over with.” so we did.

such a great sharer!

my little snuggle buddy for the superbowl.

dinner tonight: vegan sloppy joes. they will be on our food blog soon. YUM.

vegan mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. yeah. this happened. unreal. on our food blog soon.

so i meant to write on saturday night about my day and time with friends, but two things didn’t happen: 1) no blog 2) no pictures from all my times with friends! what the?! sorry! i’ll try to find some pic to fill the space on this blog anyway

saturday was so fun! since i had the day off on friday, saturday felt like a sneak extra day! it was so nice having a three day weekend. anyway, it started with a trip to the bank with pauly to work out some stuff…and….how should i put this…i don’t want to be over dramatic….OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYGOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHH!it was never ending! we waited FOREVER. but then the girl helping us was great so it turned out.

then i had an sweet little baby shower for a dear friend of mine, rachel, from high school. it was so fun to see her and celebrate her new little boy due any time now! as we were sitting and talking, me, amy (another friend from hs), and rachel were amazed at how great it is to all still be close friends and how to celebrate each other’s lives. it’s crazy to think that we all met over 15 years ago. time flies.

after that i grabbed a quick dinner with amy at punch pizza…so so yummy. i HIGHLY recommend it.

saturday night our friends cory and summer came over, along with new friends tim and alisha. we had appetizers, dessert, and yummy drinks. the boys played cribbage for almost 2 hours and the girls talked and talked and talked. it’s really nice getting to know new people…i learned a lot from them. tim and alisha, as well as cory and summer have recently adopted and we got to pick their brain. we got a lot of good insight about agencies, plans, etc..i’ll blog more about this soon.

we stayed up until after 1am talking, laughing, and getting to know each other. it was a really nice time

so, old friends, new friends, new babies…old babies? either way it was a great saturday night

here are some oldies but goodies from high school:

all dolled up for banquet! not prom. let me be clear: banquet :)

one of our last days of high school. love you gals :)

8th grade valentines day…i think….pretty sure….man oh man…. :)

i love my sister. i mean…LOVE HER. she is hands down the funniest person i have ever met. she is smart and beautiful and talented. i just needed to put that out there.

also, we share a love for blogs/blogging. she recently started a hilarious blog about her life: outoftheboxbrunette.wordpress.com    do yourself a favor and read it. it’s so so great.

lately, we have both enjoyed the blog “the barefoot blonde.” it’s really unintentionally hilarious and we get such a kick out of reading it. the barefoot blonde refers to her sisters “sissiebears”,  and emma and i died laughing. so naturally we now have to call each other sissiebear, and she now coined the term “sissiebloggers.” omg. i just die.

love you sissiebear! thank you for always being there for me to listen when i vent, to encourage me in my endeavors, to love me unconditionally, and to make me laugh on a daily basis. i am so thankful for you! (and her amazing husband dan!)  i have sOOOOOO many  more pics of us to post, and i will, as soon as i can get this infernal computer to do what i want….(i am such a technology loser…)

sissiebears at christmas!

she is so beautiful!!

so many fun things today. first of all, i didn’t have to work! i am really trying to be more positive about my job, because i know many people are without, it’s really a great place to work, i love my coworkers…..but honestly, who doesn’t love a day off?!

so i went to an eyebrow wax this morning, and it was great…..but the best part was at the end my waxer-lady asked about my weekend plans  (i’m sure expecting the pat “oh not much, you?” response), and for “some reason” i went into all this detail about our plans to meet tomorrow night with friends who have recently adopted and pick their brain a little. my waxer-lady (i’m sure that’s the right term..) said to me “well, you know i was adopted and i would love to talk more about this with you next time.” how cool is that?! it has been so encouraging seeing all the people that God has brought into our life that have some connection with the adoption process. so when i talk with her about it, you can bet i’ll be blogging about it!

after that i DEEEEEEEEEEP cleaned our place and that felt amazing. it needed it so bad. it was gross…true story. after which i got a burst of energy and decided to go running on the treadmill downstairs at our place. the best part of that being my sweet musica. pandora jock jams station is legitimately the best station ever. no joke.

when pauly got home we decided to go see “silver linings playbook” with our cousin jillayne. what a great movie. so so well done. definitely worth seeing you haven’t yet.

but wait! there’s more! we then headed over to jillayne’s place to check out her sweet new kitchen remodel, and decide that yes, 10:45 is the perfect time to order pizza hut! and they delivered on this freezing cold night! win win.

so that is the recap of this day. it may seem silly to blog about such mundane things, but i want to remember these days. also, this blog really has helped me focus on the positives.

okay off to beddy-bye……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………………………………

jillayne and her new kitch!

pauly trying his best to help put kitchen cabinets together…we call this face “classic berg”

we made the fridge at jillayne’s house! whoop!

someday i will kick this addiction..but not now..not with pizza. please.

pineapple and jalepeno…nothing better.

love him. isn’t he so sweet?!

(insert deep voice here): i love pizza….nomnomnomnomnomnom

i want to try to remember to add funny things my students say at schol into my blogs so i don’t forget! they are seriously hilarious. i teach sign language to preschoolers 2 days a week in the mornings, and 5 days a week i teach an after school first grade program. so i have a ton of hilarious moments filling my day. here are some highlights of late:

student: ms leah! great news! i finally lost my grey tooth!

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(while playing go fish) student: do you have any 8’s?

me: nope, go fish.

me: do you have any 2’s?

student: (smug look on his face): ha ha! nope. gold fish, ms. leah

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* student 1: are you a regular 4?

student 2: no! i’m 4 and 1/2….

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student: (to my pregnant co-teacher): ms. eleanor, how is that baby going to get out of there?!

ms eleanor: i don’t know, how do you think?

student: i’m not sure but i could karate chop him out right now for you if you want.

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pregnant ms eleanor has been a great topic of conversation in our room lately too. she is due any day now and so we had all the kids guess baby boy’s name and weight. it was awesome:

so all we know is the baby will probably be between 1 and 12 pounds…

tonight was the last night of 30 rock. i was sad i found that show hilarious. not sure what show i am going to get to replace it on my thursday night line up….but you know it will be replaced…i can’t be productive instead!

today was great, and i found myself looking for opportunities to be thankful. this blog must be working. things i was thankful for today: a coworker surprising me with a red velvet cupcake at work, having enough time to stop for a starbucks before work (skinny vanilla latte with soy milk, my only choice), one of my kiddos spending at least 25 minutes- no joke- showing me how he can walk backwards around the classroom, and after work going with a friend as she got a sweet tattoo!

i definitely had my moments of stress (not getting out of bed until….hermerschkermermermer….and having to RUSH to get ready for work..), or fighting my daily battle of convincing myself to workout, but overall it was a great day and i want to remember to be thankful for it. also, i don’t have to work tomorrow.

such a yummy surprise!