The Ussery Update

Welcome to our dining room, pull up a chair and stay a while! I'm joining Kelly's "Show Us Where You Live" tour again this week. The dining room is the first room you see when you enter our house. We love this room and I've enjoyed decorating it little by little over the past couple of years - we've made a lot of changes from the very plain room it started out as. The first and best improvement was the diamond wall. My dearest friend, Carianne was the mastermind behind this idea. It involved a lot of measuring, grid drawing and careful painting, but I couldn't be more pleased with the result. It was a lot of work, but we had fun doing it and it turned out awesome. Thanks again, Carianne! We get so many compliments on it - some have even asked if it is wall paper. It definitely is an attention getter when you walk in the door. The china cabinet in the corner was my Grandmother's and I'm so pleased to have it. My grandparents collected be

Oh how I love this time of year - Fall is my FAVORITE! The weather is starting to turn cooler - hooray! The past few mornings have felt so nice and crisp. John and I cleaned out our closet and have gotten rid of all the "stuff" we don't need and have our clothes ready for the cooler months ahead. This is the time of year for football, soups and chili, yummy baking, snuggly blankets, warm clothes, apple cider, pumpkins, smells of cinnamon, candles burning, changing of the colors and the anticipation of the holiday season - Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've put out a few fall decorations throughout the house and hope to add some touches of Halloween this weekend with October almost upon us. Hopefully, I can post all of those pictures soon. Then I have a few Thanksgiving decorations that will replace all of the Halloween stuff once October is over. Just a few things here and there throughout the house make it feel so warm and cozy and really get you in

Welcome to the Master Bedroom of Mr. & Mrs. Ussery! I am joining the "Show Us Where you Live" tour with Kelly . Some of these bedroom pictures were taken a year or so ago, but there have been a few changes. We have different bedding right now, but I didn't take a new picture because we change out the bedding from time to time. We have several sets of sheets and 2-3 comforters - all in the "jungle" theme. One of the pictures of our entertainment center (the first one) is an old one. You can see by the second picture that we have a new TV, changed up the decor on top of the entertainment center and added a basket of toys for Calvin beside it. Calvin is our sweet beagle. The items on the dresser have changed some too. The first picture of our dresser that you'll see is what it looks like now except I have added a carmel colored Scentsy warmer on there. The other dresser pictures are older, but we haven't changed it too much. We've also added a pictu

Welcome to the USSERY Living Room! I am joining the "Show Us Where You Live" tour with Kelly . We did this last year, but there have been a few small changes throughout the house. Our living room is open to the kitchen, which we really like for conversation and being able to see the television while cooking and hanging out in the kitchen. The living room is on the back of our house so the door in our living room goes out to the back patio/backyard. Labor Day weekend, we got a beautiful picture at Mardel for above the TV, but we want to add a metal decor piece on either side so we're on the lookout for that. That'll elimate the big blank spots on either side of the picture. Hobby Lobby here we come! I put a few fall decorations out last weekend so you'll notice a few items here and there. We are a football family - which explains why it's on the TV in all of the pictures! Enjoy your visit... Thanks for stopping by - have a wonderful weekend! Until we me

We want to wish our sweet nephew Scottie a very HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY!! We hope you have a wonderful day and we love you very much! Aunt Riley & Uncle John

WE ARE! Hooray - it's beginning to look a lot like FOOTBALL. High school football is underway (our Bronchos are 1-1) and college football started last weekend. It felt so good to watch and keep up with a few college games over the Labor Day weekend. We had our Fantasy Football draft two weeks ago so the "Champion Cougars" and "Pernicious Pixies" are ready for another fun and exciting year of keeping up with our Fantasy teams. And tonight the NFL season kicks off with a game between the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings. We will be getting pizza for dinner and watching the game in the comfort of our living room. We are BEYOND pumped for the NFL season to begin. Let it begin! Until we meet again... Riley

School is back in session! Every year we love to go school supply shopping for our nieces and nephews for a couple of items they can add to their collection of supplies at school or things they can use at home. I try to find their actual school supply list online, since they are in various school districts, so we are buying exactly what they need. For the older ones, that don't have a supply list, we give them a gift card to pick out a couple of things they may need. It was lots of fun. We wrote them each a little note and gave them their gifts last month. Here are a couple of the sets of supplies... Some big "Back to School" news in our house is that John is going back to school starting tomorrow! He will be taking online classes through Central Baptist College located in Conway, Arkansas. He is studying for a Bachelor of Science in Leadership and Ministry degree. It should take him around three years to complete this degree. This is something he's been thinking ab

Well July got away from me and now August is in the rear view mirror - WOW! That being said, I have double the "things to be happy about" since I never got around to posting for July. If you are new to this, I received a bright yellow, page-a-day desk calendar for Christmas last year and it sits on my desk at work. Each day the page lists various things to be happy about. Throughout the month I keep up with my favorite things the pages list and blog about them at the end of the month explaining why it makes me happy. I'm definitely a person who finds happiness in the littlest of things and so many things excite me. I'm easily pleased. If you want to read about the previous months, click here . That will take you to the June Edition and there are links to the other months in that post. Here are my July and August things to be happy about... Sheets of Cookies ~ A cookie sheet full of warm cookies, so simple and devine Food Cooked Outdoors ~ Ahhh, the smell of a

Happy Wednesday! Here are a few things I'm loving today... I'm loving my Mom and Armando and today is their 9th Anniversary. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY - may God bless the many wonderful years ahead. We love you both! I'm loving our sweet nephew Noah, who is turning 2 tomorrow - HAPPY BIRTHDAY - we love you Noah and your gift is on the way! I'm loving that it's now SEPTEMBER which means FALL is right around the corner - our favorite time of year! These next four months make me so happy for so many reasons. I'll soon be getting out our fall decorations - hooray! I'm loving that we had our Fantasy Football draft last weekend - it was FUN! College football starts this weekend and then NFL season kicks off September 9th with more games to follow that weekend. Be still my heart...I can smell the pigskin in the air. I'm loving that Labor Day weekend is coming up soon - hello 3-day weekend. It's going to be great! I'm loving that I get to go to Michaels