Update...

Sorry for the absence... the past two weeks have been quite a doozy. The home-buying process has proven to be a stressful one at times; not to mention a birthday party, two very busy weeks at work and an upper respiratory infection to top it all off.
Here's what's been happening since I last posted:
We ended up taking Patrick off the loan and tried to run it only under my name. Turns out, your debt to income ration has to be 41%... mine was at 42%, and they would make no exceptions because we aren't currently paying rent. What a mess...
Turns out, that Patrick ended up taking a full-time position at his step-dad's company, instead of working contracted jobs for him. He's very happy about his new job and is enjoying the work.
Thankfully, that meant we were able to add him back to the loan. They did his verification of employment on Tuesday and sent in his first paystub on Thursday. Our loan officer, Stephanie, sent me the new loan application and good faith estimate to sign on Friday, I signed and faxed them back to her and she sent them over to the underwriter. We kind of had to start the whole process over again and we have no idea how long its going to take this time, but we're just pretty psyched that things have turned around for the better. I'm still a little hesitant to get too excited, so I'm just taking it one day at a time.
On another note, our renter to our old house is moving at the end of the month, so I've been working on finding another renter. I posted the house on craigslist, and hadn't heard a peep. For some reason, the listing wasn't showing up in searches, so I deleted that post and created a new one. Its up and running, and I'm waiting for the emails to start pouring in...