the one with way too many things going on.

This is going to be short because I MUST go to Wal-Mart and clean my house before 12 women invade it for Bible study tomorrow night. The best way I know to keep it short? Bullets. But not the shoot from a gun kind...

- AW's visit last week was absolutely fantastical and full of fun times. I'll recap more when I'm not hurried but here's an actual conversation between AW and Leah (my oldest sister, AW's aunt).

Anna : I like my hair straight.
Leah : Really?!?! I love your hair curly.
Anna : Well I don't.
Leah : Really?!?!
Anna : And...I don't like it blonde.
Leah : What?!?! That's just crazy.
Anna : I know...I am a little crazy.

I'm sorry...if you aren't laughing by the end of that...you have no sense of humor whatsoever.

- Vacation Bible School wiped me SLAP. DAB. OUT. I can't remember if I've told you but I had the 1st and 2nd graders and they are CUH-RAZY. In a completely normal way of course. :) Anyway, we do this thing called the penny parade and you're supposed to bring just pennies. Sarah and Margaret were the penny parade 'projects' and those kids raised over $1,700 in pennies in 4 nights. Is that not unbelievable?

In case you aren't sure, the answer is yes. It's quite unbelievable. Only God.

I put together a PowerPoint for the closing program and, not to brag or anything but it was the BEST VBS CLOSING PROGRAM POWERPOINT IN THE HISTORY OF MY CHURCH. That's a church member's description, not mine. Who am I to disagree?? ;) As soon as I figure out how to convert PP into a video...I'll share this piece of cinematic magic with you.

- I stopped by Mama and Daddy's to see Hadley, the other cutest niece on the planet and, to perhaps pick up something to eat because I didn't want to go to Wal-Mart hungry...the outcome is no bueno when I do that. And Mama had a surprise waiting on me! A couple of weeks ago my mom had asked Sarah and me to pick something out of this catalog that we like and I picked out this beach bag. It's way cute.

If you're thinking it's not cute...you have no sense of style. Plus, it's way cuter in person.

Anyway, so...I had picked the beach bag above out already and I couldn't limit my choices to just one, I needed backups. Obviously. So, I picked out these other fabulous bags and Mama said I have something else for you, but it's a birthday present. Y'all, my birthday isn't for another 4 months!!!! And she said, well, you can have it now, but you won't get anything for your birthday. I told her I'd take it now. (I'm sneaky and thinking maybe she'll forget that she already gave me a birthday present by the time December rolls around. ) Don't remind her. SO...I opened my eyes and Voila, there was the CUTEST little purse in her hands that I had forgotten I picked out!

Again...it's way cuter in person and I absolutely LOVE it. I'm transferring stuff out of my old purse before I go to Wal-Mart. UGH. Ridiculous amounts of cute.

The ONLY downside is the straps aren't very long so it's not an over-the-shoulder bag. Boo. But, I will sacrifice ease of use for cute things. I can be bought that way.

- I was sitting at lunch today and this cute boy at the table next to me was making eyes at me and flirting with me. His name was Jacoby but everyone that knows him calls him Coby. I really think we could have made something work.

If only he weren't 17 months old.

:)

- You know how I told you about that Brooke Fraser CD that I can't stop listening to? I seriously 'listened' to the YouTube video for 'Deciphering Me' while at work at least 20 times last week. Enjoy.



- I love Bones. If you've been around for any period of time, you know that. Enjoy the reel from ComicCon held last week. I can't get the video to embed right. BOO. Click over and watch it!

I cannot wait for September 17th.

- Lastly...the sister leaves a month from today. What a sad way to end a post. I'm getting better at dealing with this. God's doing and acting in immeasurably bigger ways than I could convey.

Toodles y'all! :)

the one where i'm in love.

Y'all.

I'm in love.

That little girl is the sweetest thing.

After squalling during the first night of VBS' opening ceremonies, she sat there and behaved like she should tonight. She made a wall-hanger. I think that's quite obvious from the picture above. It's ultra-fabulous.

Her and Aunt Sarah worked on some memory verses today and she said 5 tonight! On the 5-minute car ride home she taught me Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." As we were leaving she told Bro. Tracy, "I had a good time tonight! See ya tomorrow!" He laughed.


And I fell even more in love with her than I already am.

Do you have nieces that you absolutely adore? Tell me about them in the comments.

Everyone have a happy hump day!

the one where we pick up the niece

Goodness gracious night alive I am one worn out chick! My oldest niece, Anna Woods, started spending the week of VBS with my parents (Gendaddy and Nana to her) and so my mom and I drove down to meet the family today and pick her up.


Here's the cute family eating lunch at McAlister's. From left to right are Anna Woods, 4 1/2 (she had just hit her head on the corner of the table and was crying). Ed, my brother sporting an LSU shirt. Groan. Melanie, my sweet and beautiful sister-in-law. As soon as I took the picture she knew she had her eyes closed but the girls wouldn't sit still for another one. Then my youngest niece, Mary Neal who is almost 28 months old. Aren't they just a beautiful family? Seriously...beautiful :)

Ed and Melanie got married my freshman year in college on what was actually Ole Miss' Homecoming that year. I missed my first college homecoming for a wedding. Melanie's bridesmaid dresses were some of the prettiest I've ever seen...if only I had a picture! And looking back, I wore the ugliest thing to the wedding. It was just...ugly, goodness. Anyway.


Anna Woods posing with her Nana (my mom). Anna has a busted lip. Mary Neal gave it to her with a book. You have got to love sisters! :)


Now THAT is one of the cutest pictures ever! I absolutely love that girl. She has 'grown up' so much since January that she's not the same little girl. I can actually understand every word that comes out of her mouth and boy, does she have some stories! We also discovered she can't do certain things in a car - take a nap, say her ABCs, and count to 25 just to name a few.


Mary Neal and Melanie again. She was chomping down some Mac and Cheese and poor Melanie can't keep her eyes open! Mary Neal (MN) used to have red hair and it's slowly going blonde. :( I wanted to have at least ONE red headed niece or nephew. They need to have another kid. HA! :) Funny moment - I asked Mary Neal why she was so cute and Anna Woods who was sitting beside me at the table, without missing a beat, responded, "Because she don't look like her mama." Now...I probably shouldn't have laughed because I don't think she realized what she was saying and it wasn't nice but it was just one of those times where you laugh before you think. Melanie's a good sport about it :)


Ed, Melanie and Mary Neal went back to Greenville while we brought Anna Woods home with us. After we had some chicken pasketti (Why can't kids say spaghetti?) at AW's request, Aunt Leah, Anna and myself went to enjoy some ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I think that's quite obvious by Anna's mouth!
Aunt Leah and AW at Baskin Robbins.

They turned the camera around on me and boy do I look scary! I had been up since 6:15, on a Saturday...that's rough!

I'm so looking forward to what this week is going to bring. Making memories with my niece is so beyond fun and I'm so blessed to be her aunt.

Lastly, I absolutely love this song that was on an episode of Bones from Season 2 (The Aliens in the Spaceship) and I felt like sharing. That episode is SO GOOD. One of my favorite episodes of all 5 seasons. So. Good. Enjoy!

I pray everyone has a blessed Sunday! I know I will :)

the one without a creative title and a list.

Hello friends!! How have you all been? I pray it's been well. I've been pretty much awesome blossom fabulous fantastic. (Did anybody ever watch the Search for Elle Woods on MTV a few years ago? That's what that is off of. Made me want to be on Broadway.) Moving on.

Can I just say that my blogbatical (Annie's word - I like it), was absolutely wonderful. The past 5 months have revealed so much about who I am that I don't think I realized about myself. And I think I needed to discover some of those things. Can I just say that God has rocked. my. world. the past 5 months? In a completely appropriate 'I'm the God of the universe and you need to be rocked and your faith built' way. Boy, is He building.

Just to give you an update on what's new in the life of me let's make a list shall we? Lists are nice. The prettiest and best planner I've ever had was my junior year in college. It. was. a beaut. I carried it around for another year just because it was hard to part with. Seriously. I'm not kidding.

A : I just have to start off with what I'm listening to at the moment because if you haven't heard this girl before, you are in for a treat. Brooke Fraser's 'Albertine' has been on repeat in my car since I bought it last Thursday. I know...I'm like, 2 years late to the party that is her awesome songwriting but...better late than never, right? Check it out because....just...wonderfulness. Love it.

B : The little sister is leaving to spend 3 years in the Philippines as a missionary in exactly 40 days, if my math is right. That is a WHOLE other post by itself, oh goodness. I beg you (I'm begging the first post back? That has to say something.) to please earnestly pray for her and our family. Not like we hate her for going but you know that faith building thing I was talking about? This is a ginormous part of that. So beyond tough that it makes me kind of sad to even type these words. She is the one of the sweetest, most caring, loving, biggest-hearted Godly people I know and not having her only a 4 hour drive away is the toughest thing I think I've ever been through, and it hasn't even happened yet. I'll be fine one moment and then I hear a song on the radio and I'm squalling like a baby. UGLY crying. It's really ugly. Please just pray for her and us when God brings us to mind. Oh, and she has a blog that I will be contributing to sometimes and perhaps she'll learn how to actually blog so we can keep up with how she's doing over in the PI.

Sarah and I at her college graduation in May! She graduated summa cum laude and I could not have been more proud.

C : There's a group of about 13 of us women from church that are all up in the middle of Kelly Minter's 'Ruth' study that we're doing in conjunction with LPM's blog. Y'all, it is real good. I started the 4th week's homework yesterday and I was sitting in the middle of Sweet Pepper's and just wanted to cry reading the introduction to that week...and then today? It just got better. Isaiah 54:4-5 and 43:18-19? Go read them right now. Our God is so beyond good and He's doing new things in us and y'all I can hardly believe it that He would choose to work in me but oh am I so glad that He does.

Have you ever felt that God was fixing (I know, it's not really a word, I'll never forget that from 5th grade) to do something gigantic and you knew it was going to mean something different for you but you have no idea what it is ? That's how I've felt since the beginning of March and He's already changed me but I just know something bigger is ahead. And by bigger I mean that it is going to bring so much glory to His name that people will know it was never anything Rebekah did, but rather God and only God. It gives me chills...I guess we'll find out together what it is. I'll definitely keep you updated on that front. I recommend this book to anyone...so good. I've always loved the book of Ruth but studying it like this is just...good. I can't even find a better word.


D : From March through May our Women's 'Spring' Bible study group did Beth Moore's Believing God and it single-handedly changed my life (well God did the changing, but He used this as a tool) more than anything else I've ever known or done. Too much great stuff to list so I'll just let you in on the five-statement pledge of faith.

1 - God is who He says He is.
2 - God can do what He says He can do.
3 - I am who God says I am (one of my faves...I'm not what my friends or my coworkers or the World say I am which is usually negative - I'm what HE says I am).
4 - I can do all things through Christ.
5 - God's Word is alive and active in me.

That being said - I'm believing God. :)

E : Stands for Ed, which is my brother's name, which leads me to tell you Anna Woods is coming for a visit tomorrow! She's going to stay with my parents next week while our church has Vacation Bible School and I CANNOT wait to see her! I saw her 2 months ago at Sarah's graduation and it's been too long and I know she's even sweeter than she was before. :) That's where this picture was taken. She's the blonde-haired little angel just to refresh your memory.

This has to be one of my most favorite pictures of my family. Ever. I heart them. Ridiculous amounts.

F - I don't know how often I'm going to blog. It may be every day, it may be once a week, but you're going to get something from me and I promise I actually WILL get pictures up from AW's visit this time. I didn't last time. I was a liar. Forgive me.

Y'all have a good weekend :)

OH! P.S. I almost forgot...I got glasses this week. I went to the eye doctor for the first time in 5 years, two weeks ago and my bad vision from the age of 3-13 has returned. I was so excited when they came in Tuesday and I didn't think my vision before was just awful, but with the glasses everything is so much clearer and I realize how wrong I was. And since I know you (all the tens of you) are curious...enjoy the bad Blackberry quality picture from work yesterday. :)