Happiness is...

As usual, I am being a blogger copycat! La'Shawn is as always my inspiration, because she always picks projects that seem fun to me, and because I like joining in what she does, so that she learns about me what I learn about her :D

So I'm joining in Second Chances Girl's "#30 things that I want my kids to know" challenge.

I don't really plan on doing them all, to be honest. Partly because I just won't have time, and partly because some don't speak to me for one reason or another.

You can find La'Shawn's blog here with her participation in this challenge and much more, and the original challenge here.

I'm starting with the second prompt, because at the moment, trying to make a list of 20 things about me seems like too much. I'm also choosing the second one because it's about what makes you happy and I've been in a foul negative mood and it would do me good (and people around me) to focus on the positive :D

So here are 5 things that make me most happy right now:

1. The first one is fairly obvious, as it must be for any mother. My son Cédric makes me happy. But more specifically, his smiles and his hugs. There are moments when he makes me less than happy... But a genuine smile from him can light up a whole room, and his is the best hugger ever!!

Need proof?

Here's a smile:

And here's a hug:

2. The second thing that makes me happy is digital scrapbooking. I've been doing it for years now and I've had times when I struggled, felt stuck, didn't have time or really just didn't feel like doing it. But right now, I'm really enjoying scrapping. Partly because of being on a new team for Jen Yurko and playing with really fun new goodies, partly because I'm scrapping mostly my Disney photos and that brings me back to very happy moments, like this one of my birthday:

3. The third thing that comes to mind is Jiu Jitsu. When I started, I thought I would complete the self-defence women's program and call it a day. But now that I have my pink belt, I still really enjoy learning new techniques just for the fun of it. It's an hour where I socialize with people there and really don't think at all about all the stuff I have to do or anything that worries me.

4. The fourth thing is my regular date nights with hubby. Every two weeks minimum, we go out for a meal and a movie. It's nice to be together, relaxing, eating without having to cook or clean. And we've always enjoyed movies, so it's nice after a few years of not going very often, to be able to catch most of the movies we want to see on the big screen! I guess I should add that I'm happy about respite funds and great respite workers.

This photo is of a special date night we had in November to a murder-mystery party with a fairy-tale theme (we were The Beast turned back to prince and a Fairy-Godmother):

5. The fifth thing that makes me really happy and even excited is the prospect of upcoming trips. I'm really tired of winter and bored of the town we live in. But I'm lucky enough to have things to look forward to in that department. Next week we're taking a short trip to southern Ontario for a medical appointment for Cédric. That's not really exciting, but it'll break the routine a bit.

In early April, though, hubby and I are going to be spending a week in Lisbon, Portugal, for an all expenses paid work conference! We're staying at the Four Seasons, making excursions to Sintra and Cascais, visiting palaces and eating in cool restaurants and the guest speaker is Colonel Chris Hadfield, the canadian astronaut who was commander of the International Space Station.

Then in early May, we're making a super quick escapade to Toronto for a Jiu Jitsu seminar with Rener Gracie and as luck would have it, the Lion King Musical comes back on stage a couple days later and we're going to go see it :D

At some point in the summer, we'll have our annual cottage week-end reunion with our friends from southern Ontario, which is always a super relaxing, music-filled, too much food, campfire and river swims kind of time:

And finally this summer, we're going back to Orlando, mainly to try hyperbaric treatments for Cédric, but also to make very good use of our annual passes to Walt Disney World :D :D

And boom, just like that, I'm happy!!