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I do have a reference; right here:
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2613/1115081837.jpg
And, yeah I think I would make some edits if critiqued. Especially on the hair 
This has some definite technical issues, but I think you've captured emotion in a really simple, natural way, and that can't be taught. Hard to explain what I mean exactly, but--good work. Do more portraits.
Was there a particular reference you used? Also, would you be receptive to critique/edits or are you thoroughly done with this?
Editsville!
I edited everything BUT the hair :P Anyway, here's a list, in no particular order, of things I addressed:
1) Your facial proportions differed from your reference photo. I moved your eyes up a bit. (note that in doing so, I accidentally made your forehead to small... I didn't notice until just now)
2) You've generally done a good job of defining shapes with shading rather than lines, which is very important and takes a lot of people a long time to grasp, but you failed to do so with the eyes and mouth. The eyes is particular had a very drawn on look, which I think is hurting the piece more than anything.
3) Speaking of your eyes. Your reference has vertically narrow eyes, but you rendered them as fairly wide here. Also, you really shouldn't see much white in them at all at such a small size. I used your lighter flesh tones to hint at whites without actually using any white pixels. Also, your reference has slightly puffy lower eyelids which makes a faint but visible line right below them. Rendering these little details can make huge difference.
4) I edited the nose big time. Looking at it again, I'd probably remove the pixel horizontally running across the bridge. The main problem was, the way you rendered it, it was much more uptilt and less bulbous than your reference. Noses are really really hard, especially at this size :(
5) The mouth wasn't as wide as your reference, and they weren't grinning in quite the same way.
6) You had a lot of wasted colors that were only used for a handful of pixels. I got it down to 17 from your 26 with no visible change, and my edit uses 16. I also made the skin tones more saturated and more contrasty.
There were some other things but that's all I can think of at the moment. Tweaked shading all around. Feel free to ask if you have any questions or don't understand why I did this or that.
Anyway, despite all my critiques I really think you've done a great job. Faces are incredibly complex and extremely hard to draw, and you've done really well with this.