21, 22, and 23 Weeks!

Disclaimer: I've been writing this in pieces since last Tuesday, so....if there are any discontinuities please forgive me. I've been busy enjoying the nice weather in St. George, not finishing up this blog post.

Unfortunately, I haven't been on top of things lately, so here are the pictures for 21, 22, and 23 weeks, since I'm 23 weeks along today (Wednesday the 14th)!

21 weeks (this is Jeff's favorite of all of my shirts)

22 weeks. Forgive the hair, it was late and I just wanted to go to bed.

So does it seem to anyone else like I got significantly bigger over a really short period of time? It sure looks and feels like it to me. I mean, the coral shirt definitely accentuates my curves more than the other shirts I've been wearing, but even then! 

2 days ago as we were packing for our little trip to St. George (there will be pictures...later), I was trying on some clothes to take with me and I suddenly felt enormous! I'm not, but it sure felt like it! I've already had to buy new bras (sorry if that's TMI, dudes) and a bra extender to accommodate....me because the growth is out of control! So while I was trying on clothes it became apparent that I needed some summer clothes (mostly capris or bermuda shorts, but also more short-sleeved shirts), and that nothing I currently owned would work. 

So yesterday in St. George we went to Motherhood Maternity to find some capris that have the nice elastic belly on them. The only employee working there was really weird and super rude. I asked for capris and she said "They're right here. We don't have shorts, we just have shorts, and they're here too." Which of course caused me to look somewhat confused (you don't have shorts, you just have shorts? ....riiiiight). Seeing my confusion, she then proceeded to demonstrate what shorts were by drawing an invisible line on her thigh indicating the length of shorts (because that was the issue-me not knowing what shorts were). At that point I was irked, so I just said "Ok, got it, thanks." and she left me alone. I tried on the only legit capris that they had, picked a pair (I felt a bit too big for mediums :( so I chose larges, even though they're a bit bulky. But at this rate, I'll grow into them) and Jeff went to go buy them for me while I got my own pants back on in the dressing room. He gets up to the counter where weird/rude employee is standing and sets the capris down. She looks at him and walks off! She went around and spoke with every other customer in the store before coming back and taking care of Jeff. Weird, right? Rude, right? I've never experienced customer service like that at a Motherhood store before. Everyone is usually so nice! They try to upsell me like nobody's business, but they're attentive and polite, so it doesn't bother me. I'm really glad I won't be going back there anytime soon!

On Tuesday I went on a walk because the weather down here is so nice. I walked to a nearby grocery store so I could pick up a few snack items and some much needed almond milk. The walk ended up being two miles round trip, with the return being much less pleasant since I was carrying a decent amount of groceries. I went for another walk on Wednesday, but kept it just under two miles, since the Tuesday walk wore me out completely (I sat around trying not to fall asleep the rest of the afternoon). I failed to stretch after the walks, however, and suffered abundantly for that oversight on Saturday morning. More on that later. Here's the 23 week picture from Wednesday (with my favorite maternity shirt that my MIL put in the dryer last night and now is no longer big enough for me to wear for the duration of this pregnancy :(....boo)

23 weeks

Also, have I told you that St. George was BEAUTIFUL this week? 

The flowering plum trees were so beautiful! I hadn't yet seen those in bloom in St. George.

So back to Saturday morning. I had been struggling with heartburn throughout the wee hours of the morning, and eventually just dragged myself out of bed and took something for it. Not long after I got back into bed, the muscles just below my calf on my left leg seized up. It is among the most painful experiences I've had in my life so far, and it caused me to panic. I jumped out of bed and onto the floor, trying to stretch or rub it-anything to make it stop-and I woke Jeff up with all the commotion. He was a bit bewildered, but jumped right in and asked what he could do to help. I suggested he rub it, but that didn't do a lot, and eventually it stopped cramping. Even though the immediate, panic-inducing pain was gone, my leg still hurt quite a bit and I was a bit traumatized by the whole incident. I was scared to fall back to sleep, because I was sure that at any moment the cramp would come back and I would be helpless again. So every couple of minutes, I would stretch my leg and tell myself that as long as I kept stretching it, everything would be okay. The weirdest thing to me, though, was that the pain didn't go away. It's now Tuesday the 20th and my leg still hurts! I've been stretching it, Jeff has massaged it several times, but it still hurts a lot! I asked my friend Alaina, a personal trainer, what the deal was, since I was stumped. She told me that normally she would just say potassium and water, but she read an article recently that recommended soaking the area in water and epsom salts, because the root of the problem is magnesium, and the water and salt draw out the magnesium. I'll be trying this later, and I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I just keep stretching and hoping that it's enough. 

Saturday afternoon my MIL threw me a baby shower because there was a family reunion going on down in St. George. It was really fun, and everyone was so sweet. There was, however,  this one game...

My mom drove all the way down from Logan to come to the shower! So cool!

...which was totally disgusting.  Grandma hated it, which is evident in this picture. After two chocolate-filled diapers, she just couldn't do it anymore (which is completely understandable, since it's beyond gross) and sat the rest of the game out. 

I also got to open presents, which was super fun (who doesn't love opening presents, right?). Henry and I got some really great stuff. My favorite gift, however, was from Jeff. 

That paper says "Good for a $1,000 pre-baby getaway! Choose your destination:" with several places that I've talked about wanting to go listed beneath. The list consisted of great places such as Seattle, San Diego, Portland, Toronto, ON,  Victoria, B.C., Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Atlanta. The combination of hormones and the sweet gesture made me cry a little. I have such an incredible husband! He warned me that I was going to freak out when I opened his gift and that I was going to be really surprised. He was right-I did not see that coming. He has come a long way from 4 years ago, and seems to have mastered the art of surprising me! Oh, how I love surprises. :)

So I've been thinking about it almost non-stop since Saturday and last night I finally decided that we would go to.......

TORONTO!!!!

I'm pretty dang excited. 

In case any of you were unaware, Toronto is where I served my mission, and it is dear to my heart. There are so many people that I want to see again before Henry comes and it gets a lot harder. Most of the destinations I could choose from were in the western U.S., and were really great places, but it seemed like most would be much easier to visit post-baby than Toronto would be. So we're goin' for gold! Toronto, here we come!

(I'm sure I'll tell you more of the details as we get closer to it but for now that's all I got.) 

Two quick highlights from the St. George trip with my little sister-in-law Meghan, who is 16:

Meg: Hey, wanna learn how to do a sock bun?

Kimberly: Yeah, sure!

Meg: Yeah, me too.

Kimberly: (during a song on Dance Central2) Why on earth are they singing about cheesesteaks?

Meg: (after her laughter dies down) They're saying "G-6!" 

(I surmised that this is a part of pop culture that I missed out on. If any of you are in the same boat, here's what that's all about)

Also, I feel like I need to just post this already, since it's now Thursday the 22nd and I have officially dragged this out for waaaay too long. I'll post a 24 week pic...whenever I decide to. 

What do you think? Where would you have gone if you'd been given the same choices of destination?