23 weeks today...

I'm 23 weeks today.  There've been some exciting things happening this week.  :)

Whattoexpect.com described this week's development this way:

Your little doll-sized babe is about to chub up a bit. His saggy skin will start to fit his frame as fat deposits fill things out. Beginning this week, he'll start to pack on the pounds (which means you will too!) and by month's end he'll be double the weight he is now (though you won't be — whew!). Right now, your baby's organs and bones are visible through his skin, which has a red hue due to developing veins and arteries beneath. But once those fat deposits settle in, he'll become less transparent.

And here's what babycenter.com had to say:

Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With his sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that he's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see him squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in his lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing him for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze him when he hears them outside the womb.

Yeah, our baby boy has been hearing the vaccuum quite a bit recently with guests visiting this past weekend and the one before.  All that sawdust that Jeff tracks in... :)

And as I said in my last post, he's been moving around a lot.  As a matter of fact, Jeff finally got to feel him move this past Friday!  We were sitting on the loveseat together, he was checking Facebook (on his phone) and I was reading.  I started to feel Deacon move around and start kicking so I watched for a little while and then told Jeff to "look here".  He didn't see the kick at first, but then Deacon kicked again and he saw that one.  He got a big grin on his face and said, "I saw that one!" and immediately put his hand over on my right side.  Jeff got to feel him kick a few times before Deacon figured out he was "performing" for us and stopped.  :)  I think Jeff was really excited to finally feel his boy kick.  I've been trying to stay conscious of when he's moving so that I can tell Jeff and he can have another chance to feel the movements.  Jeff gets kind of impatient sometimes and pokes my belly to get Deacon to "wake up" -- he talks to him, too, saying things like "wake up, buddy!" or "hey, Deac!"  It always makes me giggle.  :)

We had my brother, sister-in-law (who, by the way, is pregnant with baby #2!) and my niece here this past weekend and we had a good time with them.  Brandi and I were able to do a little shopping at the Clothes Mentor -- the place where I had pretty good success finding maternity clothes.  I was successful once again, finding another pair of capris and a couple of tops.  It's a good thing about those capris -- I can't seem to find any shorts and I only had the one pair of capris before.  I feel like I'm wearing the same 5 things every week, just in differently matched ways!

I had a few people comment this past week that I'm "starting to show".  I think everyone's all excited to see a belly on me -- not sure why.  Maybe it's because they've all been waiting a LONG time for us to start a family.  I feel like I've been out there for awhile but all the comments have been, "Oh, look!  You're FINALLY starting to show!  It's about time!" or "Oh, I can see a little bit of a belly now...'bout time you start looking pregnant!"