This is one of my favorite photos of Andrew when he was a little boy.
It was taken at a pre-school play at church – he had the part of an angel.
Love his little cherub face! :)

My heart has been heavy the past few days as we have learned that his battalion has been involved in some serious operations in Iraq. I pray for all the men in his group are safe as they carry out their missions. I am also grateful for all the prayers and love from so many of you…just to be able to chat or email. A special Mom named Patty has kept me up to date on everything via our myspace accounts and email. Her son is also in Andrew’s battalion and she befriended me a few months back on myspace. I feel so blessed that we can embrace each other right now.
Everything seemed so calm the last time I had a message from Andrew – I felt good about him being there – and now I feel lost. I know that this is part of war, and this was what I would be facing but now it is a reality. I would give anything to get a message that he is mentally ok. So I am trying to put a knot in my faith and hang on!

*edited to add** that I messaged Andrew today – we happened to be on myspace at the same time. he is ok – but I did not get to ask a lot of questions before his account went off line.

This weeks challenge at Gothic Arches is “Joy of Christmas/Children”…I decided to create an arch dedicated to my “Andrew” because he will not be here for Christmas.

I made this arch using a photo from Karen Ink that I fell in love with several weeks back. She has named him “Andrew” and I was immediately drawn to his little impish grin and of course the “tartan pants”…
I added a snowman because when my son was a little boy he loved them. We actually started a collection with our Christmas decorations because of this. Stamps, glitter, ephemera, vellum snowflakes were also added.