We have a house

and baby jeebus sang Hallelujah.

We saw the house on Friday with all the kids and signed the paperwork last night. Our target closing date is November 30. Because the house is brand-stinkin new, we don’t have to wait for the sellers to close or move out. We only have to wait on our mortgage to go through.

This is not the first house we wanted. I’ve been on a strict online news embargo through the whole process. The first house was earlier this summer, and remains my dream house. Maybe when I win the lottery.

So now we have this house. It’s out in Dripping Springs, which is about 20 miles SW of Austin, kind of in the country. Even though we’re moving further out, our commuting times won’t change much because we’ll be going against traffic. We’ve already timed the drives to ballet and climbing practice.

The schools in Dripping are excellent, some of the best in the state. We’ll leave the big girls in their current school until the semester break and then make the switch. Ella says she wants her last day of school to be the day before the last day because people will pay more attention then. She’s also been advocating for letting her take a couple of weeks off school before switching.

And now about the house. It has FIVE bedrooms - each child will have his or her own room – and four full baths. The kitchen is immense, and there’s a butler’s pantry. I don’t currently have a butler, but when I get one, I’ll have a place to put him. There’s an upstairs playroom for the kids, with a giant closet that will be perfect for bins of Legos and trains and puzzles. The kids were thrilled to discover a huge cupboard under the stairs, and the big girls have Campbell convinced that it’s going to be his bedroom.

The kitchen is huge and has lots of storage. And we’ll finally have a microwave that’s younger than I am. Seriously. Brandon dug our old one out of the basement at his dad’s house 17 years ago when we moved into our first rental. It has a turn knob instead of buttons.

It’s a terrible picture because of the backlighting, but it does show the view out of the great room – nothing but trees. And cows. I can pretend I’m the Pioneer Woman with cows in my yard.

This is looking from the great room to the front of the house. On the left upstairs are Campbell’s and Elizabeth’s bedrooms and bathroom. The right is the playroom. We will probably drywall over that arch at some point for the sake of noise control. B’s office and the dining room are up front on the right.

The closet in the upstairs playroom is huge – that’s Elizabeth lying on the shelf. It will be perfect for storing bins of Legos and trains and puzzles and everything else.

There’s a nice view from the master bedroom, too. It’s not a huge room, but it is nice and bright.

And finally, the butler’s pantry. I’ll have someplace to store the good silver and china other than wedged on to the top shelf of the bedroom closet buried in sheets and towels.

Given how little storage space we’ve had in our houses – two closets in our first, four in our second – I’m absolutely giddy at how much room I’m going to have to stash stuff away. We may even have empty closets and cupboards!

As this was all coming together last night, I had very mixed emotions. On the one hand, it’s a great house in a great area with excellent schools. On the other, we’re leaving the neighborhood we’ve lived in since we got married. I’m going to miss my friends, and because I worry about things, I worry that I won’t make any new ones.

For now, I’m going to focus on the closet space and that we’ll be in before Christmas and we’ll have a mantel from which to hang stockings and that everything will work out.