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So… I think that Katie loves me. This past summer she made me an embroidered note expressing her love for me. Throughout the past three years she has always done randomly cute things and been insanely supportive of me. She’s been willing to move out east and leave her family in Arizona to help us work towards saving up to buy a house, and many other countless things I won’t list to save on time.

The one thing I will bother to list is that she gets to show me just how much she loves me for the next little while before life gets back to normal. For you see Katie is:

This means that for the next 9+ months she’ll need to remember just how much she loves me to off-set her remembering that I caused the morning sickness, food cravings, insanely heightened sense of smell (like seriously - super hero levels!), and random crying (Katie just doesn’t cry except when she’s pregnant).

We didn’t exactly expect it to happen in our first month of trying, so it kind of appears that Paisley is going to have a little brother or sister with a birthday almost the same time as hers (my iPhone apps predict a due date of 24 Sep. 2010 and Paisley’s birthdate was 25 Sep. 2007). Yay for close siblings!

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Katie left for Springfield, MO yesterday to go visit her friends at Red Velvet Art. I hope she comes back with lots of pictures!!! She ended up traveling on my favorite kind of planes (the small ones!):

Here’s a snapshot from FlightTrack when she was flying to her connection in Ohio:

Paisley didn’t cry the whole way home from the airport like she did when I left, but I think it helped that we walked Katie to security and had a chance to go back and forth a lot of times on the walking escalators (for lack of knowing what to actually call them). Distractions are a life saver with kids I swear. It has helped a lot this trip that Paisley already knows that “on a plane” means we’ll be back eventually. I’m sure Katie went through much more difficulty with Paisley than I did - so far she’s been pretty much normal for me (phew).

After dropping Katie off at the airport I started working on my weekend project: cleaning the house as much as possible. Unfortunately I was only able to get a few projects in before my body just shut down. Pretty sure I’ve got a little flu/cold going on this weekend :(

I was able to take Paisley out for dinner last night. We went to Hana Japanese Cuisine (one of my favorite local sushi shops). Paisley ate almost all of her miso soup (I was SO proud of her!):

And I devoured my sushi (as well as my seafood fried rice):

I woke up insanely exhausted and pretty much done nothing all day today. It took all my energy just to get outside so Paisley could play in the snow for her first time (and I’ll have you know that I _love_ snow - my Burton tattoo on my foot serves as proof). I don’t even think I’d go snowboarding today if I had the opportunity to go for free - I just feel crappy :(

On that note, to keep this short so I can put P down for a nap and probably take one myself, here’s the pictures from Paisley’s first time in the snow :)

And just some photos from throughout the day:

And a few special ones Paisley and I did just for Katie cause we miss her:

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Three years. It’s quite amazing really. It seems like Katie and I met online and started talking via e-mail and private messages no more than half a year ago, maybe a year at most. And yet somehow we’ve managed to get married three years ago today, move four times (from AZ & MD -> VA -> AZ -> OR -> MD), have Paisley (who’s already 2!), and go through more financial struggles than I thought I would ever be susceptible to.

It’s been a very hard three years if you I look back at all the challenges we’ve had. Voluntarily taking a 40+% paycut to move to Arizona so Paisley could be with family. Having to sacrifice the second car and learning how to work with one car even with long commutes. Getting laid off or having my contracts end without warning (literally told at the end of the day that my services were no longer needed the next day). Struggling to find money to pay for groceries for months at a time. Wondering what we would do for birthdays, Christmas, and why we ever bothered to take vacations (even one day getaways). Every time I lost my job it happened within days of our only vacation plans we had up until our trip to DisneyWorld this past September.

In spite of all the difficulties we’ve gone through, we’ve had even more blissful moments than I ever thought were possible. We’ve managed to go to Disney in some form or another every year (DisneyLand for a day for our honeymoon, DisneyLand for a day trip with Paisley shortly after she turned one, and this past September to DisneyWorld for a week!!!!) We’ve been able to go through several parts of the country (a trip to Virginia when we lived in Arizona and an interview trip to Portland, OR where we would one day like to live). We had Paisley and were able to spend a little over a year living close to both our families. We’ve been blessed enough to be able to get a contracting job with some former coworkers of mine out here in Maryland and are grateful for how much our circumstances have changed with the current economy. We’ve learned the joy of making thoughtful gifts for each other. A mailed surprise letter, a simple flower arrangement, a candy bar when we shouldn’t have, or post-it notes scattered throughout the house with random thanks (washing machine, computer screen, dishwasher, fridge, etc). We’ve had a few arguments (who doesn’t in some way or another), but ours are generally mild and insignificant (and infrequent). We almost always resolve them in a matter of minutes - the big ones might take an hour or two. We’ve learned the value of honest communication, and the value of constantly working on improving our personal weaknesses in the relationship (and letting the other one support us). We’ve opened our own businesses (my consulting for web development and Katie’s Etsy shop) and supported each other 100% with those efforts when it was needed. Ultimately, we’ve always strove to show unconditional love and support for one another no matter how uncertain our circumstances have been and I couldn’t ask for a more perfect partner as a result.

With the basic background of our circumstances covered I’d like to borrow from Katie and list some of my favorite things about her. Katie, I want to thank you for being perfect in every way, here are a few of the things I love most:

• That you watch over and teach Paisley so much every day
• That you get distracted 20 times within a 2 minute conversation
• That you always ask me what I’m actually thinking or feeling, even if it isn’t what you want to hear
• The way you look at the computer screen when you’re engrossed in something
• That you love to read
• That you hooked me on LOST
• You in your wedding dress
• How you always are yourself, no matter where we are or who is with us
• How understanding and forgiving you are when I make mistakes
• That you introduced me to Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and Trashy
• That you not only let me do things I want, but encourage and help in any way you can
• The way you look when Paisley falls asleep in your arms
• Your goals
• How intelligent you are (and that you are willing to correct me all the time)
• How you still have common-sense even with your intelligence (because we both know I’m lacking)
• How gorgeous you are
• That you encourage and support me to feel confident in who I am
• That you got me to stop saying “I’m Sorry” so much
• That you sleep in late (letting me watch you when you sleep on most weekend mornings)
• That you would do your hair straight almost every day before we had Paisley
• Your legs in tights
• Your love of designer clothes
• Watching you read or color with Paisley
• Laughing at (and even liking) my insanely corny jokes
• Not teasing me for being a girl and crying during movies
• That you bake, make candy, craft, sew, embroider, and scrapbook
• And so many more that I don’t have time to list them all…

And as you’ve taught me that blog posts are always better with photos, here are a few of my favorite photos of you from the past 3 years :)

Thanks for making my life so perfect Katie!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Steven.Joseph.Haddox

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I suck at blogging so I figure a quick blurb of text will be better than nothing.

I’m thankful for (in no particular order):

• Katie and her constant love, support, understanding, forgiveness, and encouragement. Her belief in me and how valuable and special I am is more than I ever thought of myself and has helped make me the confident, cheerful, and kind person I am today.
• Paisley for her smile, laughter, hugs, kisses, pain, crying, and growth. Watching her grow on a daily basis helps me realize how much we take for granted every day and how there is always room to do more, learn more, and be a better person.
• A job that provides a stable income for my family and allows me to grow professionally.
• A boss who cares about his employees and takes the suggestions we have to heart and really listens to our needs.
• Ruby for making my life as a programmer enjoyable.
• Rails for providing the easiest web development framework that just gets it right the first time.
• Friends for being there even when you haven’t talked to them in months.
• Online friends for getting you through the months when you never make time to talk to your old friends. For meeting up to eat sushi when you’re in town. For teaching you new skills, experiences, and helping you realize how important a random stranger can be to anyone.
• Google Reader, Twitter, and social networking in general for distracting me from whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.
• My iPhone for making it so much easier to get distracted on the go.
• Vacations for forcing me to take a break.
• Impromptu trips for reminding me that family is always more important than that blog, website, side-job, or house project I wanted to work on right then.
• Shopping for making Katie look gorgeous no matter the time of year.
• Eating out for saving me from having to find energy to do dishes.
• Vocelli’s pizza for giving me an easy pre-planned meal (even if they always get it wrong) at least once a week.
• Katie’s baking for satisfying my sweet tooth and helping me keep my tummy she loves ;)
• Computers for providing me a way to make a living without having to be a “real man” (e.g.: cars, hunting, manual labor, hardware, and hammers).
• LOST for being the most amazing television show ever!
• Snowboarding (even just once a season) for reminding me about the beauty of the Earth we live on and giving me that rush that nothing else quite can.
• My savior and constant example, Jesus Christ, for reminding me to turn the other cheek, bite my tongue, forgive others, and be patient.
• Life for helping me to realize that there’s always a reason to keep going even when it seems like there’s no point to it at that specific moment in time.
• Being a girl and being able to express my emotions freely not caring about what others may think of me.
• Portland, OR, Japan, and San Francisco for giving me places I would one day like to live because of their community, beauty, and kind people.

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Katie has had a busy week.  She’s had to deal with a financial roller coaster from a publisher, creating several felt fruit projects, mentally prepare for turning 21, take care of a very emotionally uncertain 17-month old, and discovered that her font was actually published along with her layout.  We also got to take some time and do things together as a family including a fun walk around the neighborhood. Read the rest of this entry »

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