BABY: Pregnancy update - February - weeks 19 - 22

It's been a fairly quiet few weeks in term of baby updates with a few semi-major reports but a few little developments along the way.
I'm currently 23 weeks + two days into my pregnancy and well into the second trimester, supposedly the easiest part of the pregnancy. Bump is starting to come in, but is still very manageable as not too big yet, although I do have days where I feel gigantic, even though I know I'm really not.

The biggest thing for the last few weeks was our 20 week anomaly scan. All is very well and baby is looking perfectly normal. As you may know from this post, we have not found out the gender, so will be having a little surprise come June. It was a tough decision especially after reading a few gender reveal blog posts, but I'm really happy with our decision. The scan wasn't all fun which was a shame as I had to have an internal scan to check the placement of the placenta, but all turned out absolutely fine in the end and no more scans required at this time.

Dann also got to feel Baby Bee move for the first time at 19 weeks + six days, and has since felt movement almost daily. I have to admit I was over the moon that he felt a kick, and has felt many more since as I think it makes it a little more real for him. We also saw my tummy move from the kicks whilst I was in the bath at 21 weeks + 6 days. Was a funny moment as I caught it out of the corner of my eye and called Dann to come look. Both of us staring intently at my stomach, but there was no mistaking it. Dann of course see's this as a sign that Baby Bee wants to take up Tae Kwondo just like Daddy!

FOOD: 15 Minute Feta Pork and Minted Courgette

A few weeks back we started trying out some new dishes in the kitchen to broaden our food choices and make eating at home more interesting and food. You'll probably have seen lot of new foodie posts recently and I have another for today. 

This recipe is another Jamie fast meal, and is one of our favourites (though I don't think anything can beat the mustard lamb). Neither of us have really done a lot with courgettes, but this recipe impressed us both. And it's really simple and easy to make, and is one of Jamie's 15 minute meals which is actually really close to his timings, even on the first try. 

FOOD: Super Easy Tagliatelle in 20 Minutes

Today's recipe is actually a super easy and really healthy dinner from Jamie's 15 minute meals book, and actually is doable in less than 20 minutes. We did make some slight amends to the original recipe as we wanted to use up some bits in the fridge and freezer that we already had.

BABY: Pink or Blue.... It don't matter

I've been thinking about this long and hard. It's a tricky decision to make, especially when your gut says you might change your mind on the day, but here goes.... I had no intention of finding out the gender of Baby Bee at my 20 week ultrasound scan.

My instinct for a long time has said not to find out, and I have a number of reasons for my decision which I thought I'd share!

LIFESTYLE: Why I'm happy I married young... and other stereotypes

Today is a bit of a personal post inspired by a couple of posts I've read recently.
The first is from Amie Hayward, who like me, married in her early 20's.
The second is from Alice. I know Alice in real life, we're even good friends. We're basically the same age (approximately seven weeks between us) and are incredibly like-minded, however our actual lives are polar opposites. In fact we often joke how completely opposite our lives are.

Alice recently defended her lifestyle in this post and it's honestly one of my favourite a blog posts. She loves a night out with drinks, has no immediate plans for marriage or kids and fairly regularly updates our group Whatsapp chat to 'Alice is getting drunk'. I love Alice's lifestyle because she loves it, she damn well chose it and she owns it.

Me, well you all probably know I followed the stereotypes. Met a guy, fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, got a cat, got married, got another cat, bought a house and are having a baby. I married at 23. I was engaged at 21. I moved in with Dann at 19. I met Dann at 18.
Our weekends and evenings are spent renovating our house, cooking together, planning for the future and binge watching our favourite shows.