It's not exactly how I pictured our first Christmas

It looks like we will officially be homeless on Christmas this year!  Okay, not really, since we have a rental house to go to, but we won't be homeowners for our first Christmas as a family of four.  Our house is under contract, and we are set to close on December 21 (assuming everything goes as planned...we pray that it will!).  When the house had not sold by the middle of November, we assumed we would be here at least through the first of the year.  (Did I mention I put my tree up earlier than EVER?!)  Well, wouldn't you know, a lady looked at our house the week after I put my tree up and immediately made us an offer.  We came to an agreement, and oh yeah, did we mention that she needs to close on or before December 21?  What a mess...  But I will be SO glad to get it sold that I don't even care.  The girls won't remember that their first Christmas was spent in a rental house, without a tree (cause I am NOT putting it up again), and living out of boxes. 

Thank goodness for an amazing family who can provide us with a house to live in for as long as we need it.  My aunt has just finished remodeling a house to rent, so we will be moving in there until we get something else.  The other option was staying with my mom, and with my sister home from college and a friend of hers visiting from Brazil for the holidays, that would not have been a happy situation AT ALL.

The depressing part of the situation right now is that we thought we had found the perfect house for us.  It was built by an older couple and the man apparently passed away last year.  The house is empty and it was going to work out just right so that we would only have to spend about a month in the rental house while we painted, etc. in the new one.  It was an unbelievably perfect fit for our family, and I couldn't believe our luck in finding it so easily.  We settled on a price and had a contract...then my dad crawled underneath to do his inspection of the foundation and crawl space.  And so began our breakup with the perfect house.  The whole neighborhood is in a lower section of land, not a flood zone, but the dirt underneath the house was basically moist clay mud.  It was a bad situation involving water, rot, and mold.  Bah....   Of course, we couldn't go through with it after finding that.  As much as it sucks, I will not risk my babies' health for a house we like love.  Back to square one we go.

The worst part of the whole falling-through on that house is that now we compare every other house to it (and did I mention it was perfect for us?).  There is a house that we liked a lot before we found this one, which we will probably end up buying in the end, but I can't help but see its shortcomings now.  I just hate to feel like we are settling for second best on such a major investment.  We are going to look at the probable new house again this weekend, and you'd better believe we will be sending Dad under that crawl space immediately!  I am going to try to put the mold-infested house out of my mind and just try to imagine our family living in this house.  We'll see if it's a fit. 

As crazy as it sounds, the little OCD, neurotic part of me loves to move.  It's a messy and chaotic time, but I love the chance to start fresh, to organize and arrange our household all over again.  Each place we lived has been a little more put-together than the last, so there's hope for the next one.  Maybe it will actually get painted, decorated, and organized by 2011!  : )  (Although I guess we have to find it first....)