My Valentine

David and I noticed that we have been in a different place each Valentine's Day since we met over four years ago. Neither of us was very big on Valentine's Day before we met so it's still very new to us to actually celebrate it. So we usually come up with some pretty creative gift ideas—this year included. This year, we made each other personalized cards, without even knowing that's what the other one was doing. (The flowers are also from David)

David's card was so cute, I wanted to get a close-up. I'm 21 weeks pregnant and we scheduled an ultrasound appointment on Valentine's Day. David really wanted to go old school and not find out the gender of our baby until it was born but I just couldn't wait. Finally, he decided to find out as a gift for me on Valentine's Day. So the words are cut out on the card and then David added a little baby in the heart. I absolutely love it!


And the big news of the day is...



We are so excited to welcome a little girl into our lives. We were both so sure that it was going to be a boy. All of my sisters and sister-in-laws, except 2 so far, have had boys first and we both kept dreaming about little boys. It was a sure thing, we felt. But when we saw the ultrasound and the nurse told us it was definitely a girl, we were thrilled. Girls are so much fun and my head is already swimming with ideas for bows, little dresses and decorating the nursery.

Also, our little girl is extremely active. She was moving around and kicking throughout most of the ultrasound appointment. It was really cool to feel her kicks as I watched them on the screen. The nurse had a hard time getting good pictures because she wouldn't hold still. That might explain why I've been feeling pretty nauseated, lots of heartburn, and like I've got a bag of popping popcorn in my stomach throughout the day. We've got a feeling that she might be a handful when she comes out but we're excited for that day. At the end of the appointment, she finally calmed down and put her hands over her eyes to rest. It was so precious. We are already in love with our beautiful little girl.

All in all, in was a wonderful Valentine's Day!

(Thanks again, Debbie, for the picture idea. My bump is still pretty small so we had to be a little creative to make it look bigger for the picture, but I'm happy with how it turned out.)

The Graduate

December was a busy month for the Landeen house. David found out he could go back to work for his internship (LDS Small Productions), I quit my job, David graduated, David celebrated his 25th birthday, and we moved to Provo, UT. It was just one big event after another, really. But the event that made most of these events all happen was David's graduation from BYU-Idaho. He's worked really hard the past 3 years. He was on fast grad nearly the entire time (taking classes all year long). He worked his way up to Executive Producer for the student media organization and produced numerous videos. (His website is davidlandeen.com if you'd like to check them out) And he managed to keep his gpa above 3.8 the entire time. I'm so proud of David and all he's accomplished and I'm glad I was able to be there for him on his important day.

David's entire family was also able to come to the graduation. Here is a picture of everyone after the ceremony. I know it meant a lot to David to have them all come celebrate his big day with him.


My parents were also able to come. We're really glad they could also be with us that day.

David was so excited. He had this big grin on the whole day.


Here is David shaking Elder Cook's hand right before David received his diploma.


It's official! David is now a BYU-Idaho graduate. (Please don't let the upside down diploma cover confuse you.)


I had to get a picture of both of us with our diplomas. College has been a huge part of our married life and I'm so glad we were able to accomplish this together.


David and I have been so blessed the past few years. It's been an incredible journey so far. And the best part is that we've only just begun our adventures. The best is surely yet to come...

BYU Game

I'm sure many of you readers (hopefully some people actually read my blog, otherwise I'm just writing to myself here jk) caught the amazing BYU vs Central Florida game on Friday. And if you didn't watch it, you missed a great game. After a horrible game last week, BYU was able to come back last night with a solid performance.

Yes, it's true. I watch football. Growing up, I never cared much for the game. I'd go to the high school games to socialize. I always thought football was just a game of highly aggressive guys hitting all the sense out of each other. But then I met David...

When David and I were dating, it was during football season. I remember him stopping by my apartment after watching BYU take a horrible beating from TCU and I told him that football was just a game.

That didn't go over very well...

Luckily (after taking a long walk to discuss our priorities) he forgave me and I learned to appreciate football or be alienated from David for 4 hours each weekend in the fall.

Three years later, I am an avid BYU fan. We watch the game together each weekend and David has even taken me to a few football games in the "good" seats. His family has season passes that are on the 50 yard line 12 rows up. It's amazing to actually see the players' numbers on their jerseys.

I've even done my homework on the game of football and can name a lot of the positions and players on BYU. David sometimes likes to quiz me in front of other people so he can show others how much I know. Just don't ask me about any other team because I won't know and don't really care. As fun as it is, I still can only stand so much football.

Red Beads and a Pocket Knife Part 1

Last semester, David took a class where he had to complete a 50-hour senior project. Needless to say, it was very time-consuming. For his project, he decided to make a short film based on a true story about his grandma during Christmastime. He worked very hard on this project and learned a lot. And being the overachiever that he is, he spent over 100 hours working on the script, storyboard, finding actors, planning, setting up locations, filming, directing, editing, and whatever else goes into making a short film. We ran into a few bumps along the road and but, all in all, I think it turned out great. We had some amazing actors and a great behind-the-scenes crew. And it's a sweet story about the true meaning of Christmas.

I'm so proud of David and all the hard work he has put into his school. He's built himself an amazing portfolio and I'm excited to see what he'll come up with next. He's going to graduate next semester and then... Look out world!! Here he comes!

But, until then, I hope you all enjoy this short film called "Red Beads and a Pocket Knife" by David Landeen.

Second Half

Hiking Tablerock Mountain

Last Wednesday, my coworker convinced David and I to hike Tablerock mountain. David and I have never been on a hike together before so we decided to do it. It sounded like a lot of fun. Little did we know...

We got met up with my coworker and his wife in the Teton Canyon and started up the trail. This is what we saw at the beginning of the trail:


And it was.

The hike:
4,000 ft (elevation change)
8 miles round trip
6 hours

The first few miles were straight up the hill. It was hard but we made good time. There were some beautiful views at the top. This was one halfway up the mountain when we made it to a little meadow. It was beautiful.


Here's a view from the top. Gorgeous, huh?


Here we all are at the top. You can see Grand Teton in the back. We were at 11,000 ft elevation. It was a bit scary.


It ended up being a fun hike and we're glad we went—even though I'm barely starting to feel my legs again. And we're already planning our next hike!

4th of July

I know this is way late but our 4th of July weekend was so fun that I just had to post about it. We went camping with David's family and invited our friends, Kylee and Aaron, to come along. It was a lot of fun. We went fishing.


David caught a lot of fish—not as much as his mom, she caught so many—but he caught quite a few.


Here's me with my fish. Isn't he so cute?


I took the following picture. David thought it was really cool. If only that sign wasn't in the way it could be a great fishing picture.


We took a lot of night pictures and this was one of the coolest ones we did. It's of Aaron punching himself. Cool huh? Cameras are totally cool!


We also went to the shooting range and shot rifles. I'm horrible at it but David was really good.




I'm still not sure why I couldn't hit the clay-pigeons. Maybe it would help if I opened my eyes...


The coolest part was when David and I took a walk one morning and on our way back to the camp we saw 3 moose (or moosen). It was soooooo cool! The only problems were that they were right on our path so we couldn't get back to our camp and we didn't have our camera. So we watched and waited for them to walk on before we booked it back to camp, grabbed our camera, and ran back to see if the moose were still there. Luckily, two of the three were still there and we got some cool shots. Here's proof:


And that was our weekend. It was great to spend time with friends and family and to just enjoy the beautiful nature. It was a lot of fun.