We’re here, folks… the home stretch of November and the last of my series of weekly gratitude posts. In general, I have so much to be thankful for this year and every year, and I decided to focus my last list of 20 on my immediate family. As a pretty extreme introvert who doesn’t let many people see my full self, my immediate family is absolutely everything. I mean, sometimes it drives me crazy that my alone time is so hard to come by, but there’s no one else I find myself missing when I finally get those moments of solitude. And here’s my 20 things I love about them…

1. Moments when my husband takes over care for our children, cat, or dog, so I can get a break
2. My husband’s drive to learn about and take initiative on our financial planning (so I don’t have to)
3. Watching my kids bond with their grandparents and witnessing the love and connection between them
4. The rare treat of warm cuddles from my cat
5. When my dog has found something potentially dangerous (like a snake in the house) and alerted us to it
6. When my dog sticks his face in the window curtains and wags his tail slowly as he watches me return home
7. “I love you SO much!” said by my toddler
8. When my toddler leans on me for a snuggle
9. When my toddler is being silly (and we aren’t trying to go somewhere)
10. How my husband sometimes gets me to laugh at myself
11. My husband pushing me to step outside my comfort zone to accomplish something I don’t think can easily be done (and it turns out he was right…)
12. When my toddler offers completely unprompted to share part of a snack he’s eating that I know he really enjoys
13. My toddler’s insistence that everyone get a “bed buddy” (comfort stuffed animal for sleeping)
14. When my toddler has spontaneously sweet moment with his baby sister, like giving her a hug or saying “I love her SO much!”
15. When my husband, unasked, goes to change our baby’s dirty diaper
16. That look of joy and awe on my toddler’s face when he’s watching a train garden run
17. Sleepy snuggles with my newborn
18. Watching my husband become a ‘new’ father again with his sweetness and protectiveness
19. When my husband offers to massage out a muscle ache for me
20. The way my husband and I so well balance each other and work together as partners

Back to my more more typical style posts next month. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and a joyful end of November to anyone else who’s stumbled across this corner of the Internet.