We knew it was only a matter of time before we were the lucky winners of a yard covered in leaves.  Dan and I do not mind raking – but in this yard – while we are raking more are falling and it has turned into a never-ending project.

What do you do when life gives you lemons? Make lemonade.  Or when life gives you far to many leaves to control? Make leaf piles.

15 minutes of raking can buy you an entire days worth of your kids playing together SO nicely.

The excitement and giggles pouring from these kids was absolutely contagious.  The crunch of their tiny feet hitting the piles brought back so many memories of doing this as a kid.

I crave days such as these.  When the boys can have hours of fun.  No t.v. – not begging to play with our cell phones.  Not arguing with each other and mom and dad playing constant referee.  They spent the entire day in the glory of fall.

Bring it on fall! Let there be cooler days.  Cozy nights by the fire.  Sipping hot tea all day long.  Jeans and sweatshirts.  And since I am out numbered in this house, I guess bring on football all weekend long.  You’ll find me in the kitchen whipping up the appetizers.

The time has FINALLY come to share with you all the exciting news !

We (Dan and Abby) officially have our blog at a point where we can help YOU grow your business as well! Deciding to monetize our blog involves a huge jump of faith and a huge time commitment.  I LOVE our blog – it is a part of me that I am very proud of – that started as a way to keep track of all of the craziness and be able to cherish each step along the way.  Slowly, you – our readers started paying a lot more attention to our space and telling your friends and family to join along in our wild journey.  We could not be more grateful for that.  Having a sense of community online may seem strange to some, but for blog lovers such as I, it is a dream.

There are SO many blogs out there.  I am preparing a list of my favorites for you guys to scroll through and I know that you will be just as smitten with who I follow.  I wanted this step to be an organic one.   Honestly, as a mother and wife I recognize that my blog has potential – and while that may seem terrifying to me – I know that with my fabulous readers we can all join together and bring out the best in one another.  So, we are looking for sponsors!

Our blog costs money.  Something some of you may not know.  With it not bringing money in, putting money into our space can definitely feel a bit irresponsible.  As a one income family – it was an important decision of ours to start focusing on growing our blog and providing our readers with opportunities to help their businesses grow as well.  Having sponsors will help us better our content and keep our content rolling into you.  Supporting further projects, craftiness and mommy-posts!   Our blog will always stay true to its roots guys – so no worries there.  In fact, if we fall on our face with making this next step it would not stop me from blogging for a moment.  I love what we have created here –

How are we going to do this all while sitting behind a computer you ask?

It’s actually quite simple, sponsoring our site comes in many different forms, making it so easy to find the right way to help your business grow as well!

Ad space – Sponsored Posts – C/o [Courtesy Of] – Giveaways 

With as many eyes that scroll through our site on a daily basis, we think it would be amazing to get our readers eyes on your business as well.  We are breaking this opportunity down into a few different categories so there are options for everyone, literally.  Have an Etsy shop? Fantastic – you could purchase ad space, send us some of your products for us to chat about, or pick an item for us to giveaway to our readers as a prize.  Small  business, wanting to grow? You can purchase Ad Space for a 30 day period at a time that will live on our side bar for readers to see on a daily basis.  Same goes for bloggers, graphic designers etc.  We would LOVE to get to know you guys better and get to know what you are doing as well!

Whether you are an Etsy shop owner – local business – a photographer – a blogger – we would love to bring fantastic businesses together and help each other grow! Have a family member/friend with a business you think would be a good fit for us? Send them our way, we’d love to chat! Check out my ADVERTISE tab on the top right hand of our home page to see all of the details.  If you have any questions at all – email me at thethomehome[at]gmail[dot]com (sorry I have to write it this way to avoid spam) I can help you brainstorm ideas as to what would be a worthwhile fit for you!

Thank you guys for supporting us! We love each and every one of you + look forward to starting this new journey with you! I am excited for our new space + all the greatness that may come with it! What are your favorite things The Thome Home brings to the table? What would you like to see more of from us? Comment and let us know, were always looking for inspiration!

Much love!

Abby + Dan

p.s. subscribe to our blog on the right hand side of our home page, under the “stay updated” tab! this way you get our latest posts directly to your inbox  

There are a few things in my life I am certain that will never happen.

Win the lottery. Sky dive. Own a cat.

The funny thing about life though is that sometimes you get tossed a card that you have to turn over and face.
That card we were so lucky to be tossed? MICE. Yep – read it and cringe all at once folks. We had a few mice in our basement when we moved in – obviously our house was in bad shape when we purchased it, so while the mice were an unpleasant find, it was not shocking by any means.
Traps were placed, a few (aka – 16) were caught, and we were feeling pretty good about defeating the mice mafia in our basement.

Last saturday I woke up to do my usual routine of getting breakfast ready  and wipe down the kitchen.  What looked like to be a few burnt toast crumbs on my clorox wipe became a quick realization that they were mouse turds. Lord help me. I wanted to cry — I am a clean freak – so the fact that they managed to get onto our countertops made me want to run for the hills.

We flipped our house upside down that morning – discovering a few more mouse presents along the way.  It wasn’t even a an hour later until Dan and I locked eyes and mentioned adopting a cat.

Having a woodsy backyard, and living in an “older” home – we are sure that more will come down the road. Having a feline friend in the house will at least hopefully get them at bay.

Cat people we are not. Let’s make that clear.

With Owen’s dog allergy – a pup will not be an option for a very long time. We were 100% okay with being pet-less people for a while. We chatted all morning/afternoon weighing the pro’s and con’s of bringing a cat into our family. What if it is really skitty? Hates people? Hisses or claws at the kids? Marks the house + smells the previous owners cats?

For some odd reason all of these negative thoughts melted away and we hopped into the car with the boys to take a look at some kittens to see if one would be the right fit.

First sweetie pie we saw was this girl —

Her name was Clementine.

She was in her foster’s arms and purring like a race car.  I hesitated to hold her.  Not wanting to get attached to the first cat I held – but within ten minutes she was in my arms and completely in my heart.  Her disposition was so sweet – calming infact.  She loved the boys – even with their wild energy circling her seemed to enjoy the activity.  She has the most gorgeous coloring.  Mainly white with swirls of orange and black.

 It was not long before we knew she was the perfect fit for our family.  We did not need to look at any other kittens – she was the first and only one we wanted.

We adopted her within an hour later and the boys were over the moon about their new family member.  Never in a million years did I envision our family with a fifth member being a cat – but we are extremely happy with our addition.  Since we have brought her home not a mouse turd in sight (wahoo!) and her personality keeps getting better and better.  She loves to cuddle, play and sleep.  She has been a sweet surprise.

Now I am a bit fearful I will turn into some crazy cat loving lady – with cat knitted sweaters, six liter boxes and that stinky couch in the febreeze commercial.  But, for now I will still maintain my OCD ways of cleaning the house – all while enjoying this little girls company.

The best part? Her new name — Meet  Olive Oil.

( Stumbled across this gem in my archives.  This post could not be more true at this period in our lives.  Adjusting Brody going back to school + having one on one time again with Owen in the mornings. )

The many faces of the Thome boys.

Expressive + intense.

Each and every hour of the day.

Their sweet smiles + fish bowl eyes.

And the ever expected goofiness that follows.

Most days we call these kids actors.

 They can throw it all at you, like a group of improv students at a late night show.  Except for we feel more like the students.  As parents learning the in’s and out’s of your kids personalities can be challenging.  Certainly when each child has characteristics all their own.  Balancing everybody – trying your best to make sure everyone is in a good mood.  Handling each scenario with a slightly different approach for each child, whether you realize you do it or not.

These boys have given us a run for our money lately.  As they get older, wiser and sassier.  How did their vocabulary suddenly match up so well with their attitudes.  They know exactly how to dish it out.

Brody had his first day of kindergarten yesterday!

This handsome boy seems pretty excited about starting at his new school, and it is helping mom and dad adjust much easier to our new area.

His teacher reported that there were a few tears at first, which quickly turned into him being a brave boy, so lets hope that bravery keeps rolling throughout the school year!

We love you Brody! Mom and Dad hope that your year is full of fun, learning and friends!