*~*Believe*~*

Hello, all. I am not one to usually scrap about Christmas. I do have a few Christmas layouts but for some reason I have neglected most of my Christmas photos. Now, I join in many scrapping challenges over at scrapbook.com and so many are revolving around the holidays and one challenge (the Book of Me Challenge hosted by TinaScraps) asks one to scrap about their most memorable Christmas. For me, my most memorable Christmas was last year's when my husband returned from a deployment in Iraq (for the second time). It was a very special time for my family because it was the first time my 4 yr. old son had ever gone so long without his daddy and so it was all the more moving when we were all finally united again. I took photos of my children in that moment when they saw their dad after a year apart and the photo I use in this page is the one of my daughters. The picture still moves me when I look at it and I used the title Believe because my husband didn't think our teenage daughters would miss him so much. I showed him this photo and he said he believed.

The hidden journaling says: "Believe in the strength of our family's love. This photo of the girls, when we picked Daddy up when he came back from Iraq, says it all."

Believe layout. I used the criteria for many challenges at scrapbook.com on this page: The Monochromatic Challenge - week 3 Christmas Tree Green with 2 twists, "Believe..."  and handmade flowers; the DIY Challenge - Paper Poinsettias by Amarylis and using paint and glitter to make a background, the Military Challenge (I consider this photo military because my daughter's were welcoming their dad back from deployment in the photo) with two twists, using red and green (red is in the photo and the rest of the layout has green in it) and to use a bow or ribbon which is on the hidden journaling tag to the right of the page; and the Book of Me Challenge - To scrap your most memorable Christmas.