If you want the "small town feel" i'd pick Cabarrus County... Mt. Pleasant is a nice small town to live in. There are some nice developments around the area you could choose to live in. The Mt. Pleasant schools are some of the best in the area... This is within 10min driving distance of Concord, and 20 or so to Charlotte.

Concord is nice too. It's bigger, but still small. It has Concord Mills, which i'm SURE the kids would love...

I concur about Cabarrus. The Harrisburg/Roberta area is close by the University and has some good neighborhoods.

In Iredell County I would check out Mooresville. The schools are very good(both county and city), the taxes are low, close to shopping, many parks, and they are opening a state of the art YMCA in September. The new "old" library is great! We live in Mooresville on the lake side of town. There are many boat launches and boat docks. I love Mooresville because it feels "small" but it close to uptown Charlotte. My husband works in uptown and while he has about a 45 minute commute he would want to live anywhere else. There is quite a bit of traffic on the major roads but I always find another way around that. Well, until you hit Brawley School Road where you just have to sit and wait! If you want to check into housing go to www.carolinhome.com This is the main MLS site. Iredell county is area 12, Cabarrus County is area 11, and Lake Norman area is 13. Lake Norman has Mooresville, Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, and a few other towns surrounding it.

Cabarrus County is a nice town but depending on where you live it could be a very long commute to uptown Charlotte. We lived there for 5 years before moving to Mooresville nearly 2 years ago. A lovely n'hood in Concord is call The Woodlands. Houses sell fast in here and range from mid 200's to upper 300's.

I would find an agent to help you find a house since there are SO many n'hoods in the area that it can be very overwhelming.

Good luck on your research and move!