The housing dilemma

When I was young, I never learned about money.  So, naturally, I didn't know how to prevent myself from falling into terrible money habits and ruining my credit.  I am now 27 years old and still fixing all of the problems that I created for myself in the past.  I am happy to know what I know now, but I wish someone would have told me about it all when I was younger.  What makes this such a terrible problem now is that we can't purchase a house.  I want a house for my kiddos so badly.  They deserve to not have to move, over and over again.  So now we are in serious credit crunch mode, trying to create a great financial picture on paper in order to qualify for a home loan.  Ugh.

I've taken the first few steps.  I got a credit card, which will initiate some revolving credit for myself.  My husband will have a credit card within a week or two, which will give him some revolving credit.  We're in the middle of trying to clean everything up while still pay our bills at the same time.  This is going to take awhile, I can already see. 

Looking at houses makes me drool, because I just want one so badly.  Did I mention that my husband does remodeling?  So of course I would like to have a home that we can actually fix up for ourselves.  I know just how I want my kitchen, bathrooms, etc.  But is this dream to become reality?  Probably not for awhile.  We're working with a mortgage broker who has some credit clearing friends, so maybe sooner than I anticipate, but until then, we might just be stuck in a month to month with a crazy landlord who has to pray about everything before making any decisions.  Not that praying is a bad thing, but you would think that us being the answer to her first prayers would make it easy for her to allow us to sign a lease.  Apparently not.  The kids find it fun to house hunt, running circles around each and every living room that we look at.  They don't seem to understand why mommy and daddy are so serious.  :)  I'm gonna try to take a note from them.  Who cares where we live, as long as we live there together??