need photos?

one more thing --

please be sure to check out Beth Hamilton Photography on facebook!

this is one of my best friends and she is starting her own photography business; she's amazing!

my baby sister! ahhh.

gorgeous flowers..a friend of beth's does this on the side!

contact beth for her friend's information if you like it.

me! {goofball.}

artsy and beautiful.

and a not-so-professional photo:

i'm on the left, and the lovely beth hamilton is on the right.

contact her to schedule a shoot!!

i have a bff crush.

i came across the COOLEST blog tonight. and in reading it i found out that i have a TON in common with the blogger: we both went to cosmetology school while still in high school and both love Jesus. we have similiar tastes in a lot of things and while i've been wanting to marry a worship pastor and live in carolina {i'm only half-kidding}, she lives there now, married to a guy she met while he led worship at a church! her blog is

http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com

and i'm kinda in love with everything on it...

like the messy ponytail how-to:

or the how-to-curl-your-hair video: 

{in fact, i'm pretty much certain that i'll be getting this haircut now.}

or the super cute jewelry she designs: which you can find by clicking this.

to my lovely 9th and 10th grade girls -- y'all will LOVE it. i'm so excited to see how many of you come in with cute little headbands and curly ponytails next week.

so i'm going out on a limb: i'm going to send her an email. i'm fairly certain that we could be blogger-friends. sometimes you just get this feeling when you meet someone, or in this case, stumble across someone's blog; and you just know if you could talk over a latte in starbucks, you'd be best friends. or is that just me? oops; i'm outed. :)

i just love people; strangers, friends, old, young...and i love making new friends. so if you're reading this and we've not yet been acquainted...in a nutshell:
i'm anna nicole. i love my Savior. the word "grace" is my favorite word. i like to laugh, love, and listen to music really loud in my car. i'm a dog person and i do makeup part-time. and i can not wait to see what God has in store for my life!

{p.s..something neat! a lot of my words can be clicked on to take you to other sites! if it's bolded, colored..etc, try and see! you never know where i'll hide a surprise!}

tonight's frustration.

welp..tonight was supposed to have been productive. come home, clean, fold some laundry, listen to music.

instead, i've been battling something for the last 2 hours because i insist on being self-sufficient and really want to fix things myself.

meet tonight's nemesis:

my cable remote has deprogrammed itself. i keep reprogramming and it keeps not working. and the only thing customer service can advise me to do is drive to FRANKLIN and exchange my remote.

um, charter, i will be calling you in the morning. this is not going to go down without a fight!

"see you soon!"

the title of this post says it all. i had to say goodbye to my friend krystle tonight..and let me just say, she's an amazing person that i've been blessed to have in my life. her new husband, steven, has had a job transfer and they are moving to tampa. can't believe they'd want to leave us for sunny florida, but whatever. ;)

i met krystle in approximately february of 2009. she took me in immediately as a friend and didn't hesitate to invite me a few short weeks later to hang out. when my heart was happy, she was there; when my heart was broken, she was also there. and amongst it all, she is a Jesus-lover. i LOVE souls like hers.

i wanted to photo-journal our friendship in this post; call me sentimental but i am just not okay with her leaving and wanted to do this. :) so here goes!

at her college graduation party, may 2009.

she's going to kill me for this one! at a tides' game in august 2009.

my birthday, may 2009.

HER WEDDING! 10.1.11 <3

the girls at her going away party, tonight.

 we polled the audience..no one is happy this girl is leaving us!

oh, and steven will be missed a little too. :)

thank you Jesus for bringing this beautiful woman into my life, to be such a great friend and amazing example of Your love.

and dang you krystle, i was fine and not crying until you did! love you so much, mrs. krystle sherman :)

you are more.

LOVE this photo that i found on pinterest just now!

"but don't you know who you are,
what's been done for you?
don't you know who you are?

you are more than the choices that you've made,
you are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
you are more than the problems you create,
you've been remade.

'cause this is not about what you've done,
but what's been done for you.
this is not about where you've been,
but where your brokenness brings you to

this is not about what you feel,
but what He felt to forgive you,
and what He felt to make you loved.."

-tenth avenue north

if you like those lyrics, click here for their website and a free song download!

a little something from anne frank.

he cares.

i was reminded of something this past weekend, and it hit me hard.

my friends steven and krystle got married this past saturday. {yay!} i couldn't be happier for such an amazing godly couple to commit their lives to each other..it was such a beautiful weekend.

in the midst of such a beautiful thing, i also ran into a not-so-beautiful feeling; i will spare the details as the story is too long. in a nutshell: when you love someone, you always love them. you want to move mountains for them and de-clutter their life and be there for them no matter, because that's what love does. but when they reject your love, it brings on a whole new set of emotion. over the course of a few days, someone i cared (and always will care) for a lot was able to briefly be a part of my life again, and the reminder of that rejection hurt all over again.{see previous posts about dating/etc..}

it brought on a lot of questions on the drive home from the wedding: "God, what was the reason behind that season of life? why does it still hurt? why can't you just move in him and change his mind? what is the purpose? do you care that i'm still hurting?"

fast forward to sunday night's bible study: the day after the wedding. we talked about Jesus calming the storm that day when he went out with the disciples in the boat. a hurricane was stirred up and the boat began to take on water; in a panic the disciples yelled for Jesus, "don't you care we are about to die?! don't you care what's happening to us?!" ..and of course He cared. i considered a few neat points about the miracle and thought maybe God was trying to show me something. we began sharing prayer requests, and because i didn't want to share too much (after all, i'm sure after a couple of years people are tired of hearing about this!), i just simply stated, "please just pray for me." that statement was followed by God Himself speaking directly through my friend stacey. she said, "i want to take a second and remind you that sometimes we forget that He cares. men and women are different..they sometimes don't get each other. but God cares. you might feel like its something no one else will care about, but you know what? if its something on your heart, if you care about it and hurt or feel, then so does He."

i couldn't help the tears that came out. it is AMAZING to me that God communicated that truth to me when i needed it most, through the voice and words of a friend. He is SO good.

---

and you know what else? if it weren't for that heart break, i would have never met those amazing friends that i got to watch exchange vows on saturday. God will always make beauty from ashes.

i wanted to end this with just a couple of photos:

dancing with the flower girls! beautiful little sweethearts :)

and i like this picture because its the only one that shows my hair; the girl who did it was a friend of the bride's and i LOVED it! not to mention all the other cool things going on in this photo...i was in the process of being taught how to dougie ;)

hope everyone has a wonderful evening!

one more thing, from ms. hepburn.

miracles.

this week in my bible study group, we were asked what our favorite miracle was. answers given included the parting of the red sea for moses, the raising of lazarus, the feeding of the five thousand and the healing of the sick woman. all of those were truly amazing.

my personal favorite? i have a two. {imagine that! haha, i can't be simple and easy.} i love the story of Christ calming the storm while out on the boat. it reminds me of how truly BIG our God is...that nature and the atmosphere and molecules hear His voice and obey. but my other favorite, a yummy favorite, was the water-to-wine miracle. coincidentally, that was the miracle we targeted in our discussion for the duration of the study.

for those of you who might be unfamiliar with it, here is what happened, in a nutshell: Jesus was at a wedding with his family. the party-goers were having such a great time, that they drank all of the wine up and hit bottom way before the party was supposed to be over. {is it just me, or does anyone else's mind drift to capt. jack sparrow repeating, "but why is rum gone?" anyone? am i alone? must be.} Jesus' mom, mary, finds Jesus and simply states, "there is no more wine," to which He replies, "woman, why do you involve me?" i love that. mary ignores the question and tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says, and He turns to them and tells them to fill some stone jars all the way up with water. when they are full, he instructs them to dip a cup into the jar and take it to the party-thrower; he unknowingly tastes the contents and exclaims that it is the best wine he's ever tasted. the final verse in the section giving this account plainly states, "He thus revealed His glory..."

now picture with me here: this story is so amazing. analyze it from different angles. imagine the nervousness the servants felt, carrying a cup of water to their master, hoping they didn't get fired on the spot for bringing him water from a cleansing basin. imagine the faith mary had, to have never seen Jesus perform a miracle, but all the while knowing that He was God and could do anything. imagine the master, tasting the amazing wine and never knowing that the supply had run out and "the best wine saved for last" was turned from water by the Messiah Himself. {isn't that so like God, to work behind the scenes? the party-thrower and party-goers never even knew!}

because Jesus is who He is, we can expect His provision to meet our needs. it won't always be water into wine {although a bottled-water-turned-glass-of-moscato after a stressful day seems like a need sometimes!}. it won't always be a booming voice calming the storm, or staring at a meal for one and it miraculously multipling to feed thousands. sometimes His provisions are so "small" that we don't even notice He took care of them...but that's just our God working behind the scenes, in ways we can't see.

so do miracles still happen? i believe YES. big ones and little ones...if there is such a difference. my dad had a blockage near his heart; people prayed and when the surgeon looked again it was gone. my best friend witnessed her nephews' births. "infertile" couples become pregnant. you just took a breath.

look intentionally for miracles around you. you will be amazed.

tonight's truth.

this quote has never meant more to me than it does at this moment --

    "a woman's heart must be so lost in God that a man must seek Him in order to find it."
         
          - max lucado

Jesus, take my heart and hide it away. keep it safe and hold it tight; people are going to try to steal it, hurt it, distract it, break it and stomp all over it..but if I give it over to You, it'll be in good hands. won't You hold it awhile?

amazing quote to remember.

stop and think.

i just began reading the book "crazy love" by francis chan. i have my first ever accountability partner, and we decided to read through this book together; i'm really excited about it! there is an amazing quote in the preface of the book, that i wanted to share:

"...we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives."
     -francis chan, "crazy love" p 22

it is an amazing concept to me that as much as i change, as much as i lose myself and find pieces of who i am at various moments, GOD never changes. God knows exactly who He is and what that means He is worthy of.

for me to think that i can "tolerate" Him, that i can somehow "fit" Him into my life and thoughts..how naive of me.  how many days to i forget to love God? how often do i get distracted by everyday life? it comes down to tuning out the distractions and focusing solely on Him.
{ironically, as i'm writing this blog, "all the pretty things" by tenth avenue north just came on my itunes: "look at all the pretty things that steal my heart away, i can feel i'm fading. Lord, i love so many things that keep me from your face; come and save me."}

i'm challenging myself at this point in my life to truly make Christ the center of my life. i've danced with the idea several times, and even thought He was what my life revolved around; but my attempts were just weak tolerances..not total surrender.
i'm going to leave you with this video: it's talked about in "crazy love." my favorite quote from the video is this--
"God is proposing to you right now--'I love you, I want to forgive you, I want to spend eternity with you-man, I'll wipe out everything.' He'll forgive as far as the east is from the west, down to the ocean floor--that's where the garbage from the past is."

if you are interested in the book: www.crazylovebook.com

wildflowers and such.

"if God gives such attention to

the appearance of wildflowers,

most of which are never even seen,

don't you think

He'll attend to you,

take pride in you,

do his best for you?"

 -matthew 6:28, msg

judging: guilty as charged?

I had a blast last night with a group of people I'd never imagined I could have fun with.
It got me thinking, how often do I pass judgment on someone without even really realizing it, and how often are those judgments wrong? Of course, I don't want to ever judge anyone. It's not my place, and because I'm human, I'm unfair in it. But also because I'm human, I think it's a natural thing we do without a thought. Its a hard routine to break, to overcome.

But how many people have I victimized inside my own mind; how many friendships have I missed out on?

pink fuzzies.

driving down the interstate today i noticed that the flowers in the trees are in full bloom. i don't know what the names of these flowers/trees are, maybe someone reading this does?

its the little pink fuzzy flowers, i have no idea what they're called! but i remember going for walks with my daddy around the lake at our old house, and there being one of these trees on the far side of the lake. i would pick the flowers, and sprinkle the leaves into the water. i wish i could go back and re-live those walks around the lake again:)