| The Allen Gals Annual Family Portrait | Decatur IL | Christmas Photos |

I absolutely LOVE working with this beautiful family! I get to work with Melanie every year for the senior yearbook, dances and organizational photos for Warrensburg-Latham High School. And for the last couple years I’ve had the chance to photograph both Melanie and her lovely girls, Savannah & Sophie.

This year we did an in-studio session for a little change and created a Christmas look on our fireplace, something a little traditional and classic and then finished up with a little personality with our very own BoxDropsbySJP Sweet Scarves backdrop (a personal favorite).

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I think this family image below ended up being my favorite. The laughs and cuddles with just a tiny hint of tween ‘ew do I have to’ mixed in made that one the most genuine to me and I just love it!

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Head on over to our Facebook Page to give this family some love with your likes & comments!

| Beery Family Portraits | Christmas 2016 | Decatur IL |

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BONUS Friday blog post, whoop whoop! Ya’ll kept me BUSY the last quarter of 2016 and I wouldn’t have it any other way… but that means I have so many sessions waiting in the wings for their moment in the sun here on the blog. Doing our usual 2 a week features we’d be still posting fall photos come summer (seriously I have them scheduled out to APRIL already)…. so it’s time to amp up the blog with some bonus post Fridays (and heck we might get real crazy for a few weeks with a Monday or two).

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This was part of our Christmas Limited Edition event so we, of course, created some curated holiday images but with such beautiful fall color on the ground we couldn’t pass up the chance to create a few more timeless images for them.

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I’m in love with the card design we created for this family too. It’s fun classy with just a little love and whimsy! PLUS check out these custom address labels to add a really unique touch:

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Our Limited Edition Sessions are a bit different than our full boutique sessions especially in that we do not begin with our design consultation (where we customize/design/plan your session and discuss the final destination for where we want these portraits to land: on the wall, in an album, gifts, card, etc etc). So though we hadn’t pre-planned to create some custom artwork for the Beery’s homes, Lindsay fell in love with the image below (on the left) which is just such a clear depiction of life with a toddler. I love that it shows her and her husband, Robert, walking together and looking lovingly at their beautiful daughter as she runs unbridled through the park (that’s about what our life looks like with a toddler!).

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Don’t forget we have already announced and opened out Limited Edition sessions for 2017. These filled very quickly last year and we want to give you plenty of time to plan ahead. These sessions are NOT themed (though we’ll have a Christmas set available in November) but we’ve positioned them to allow for Holiday portraits coinciding with Easter in April and of course our November date is in time for Christmas. May is a great time for some spring color outside and will be PROM time for you high schoolers and our goal for August is to fit in all those extended family portrait sessions ESPECIALLY for any college students who will head back to school. mini sessions limited edition sarah jane photography

| Mullen Family Portraits | Decatur IL Family Photographer |

You guys might remember Kayle one of our class of 2017 senior models! Well this fall I had the chance to get her whole family in for their session. I absolutely loved working with Kayle and her mom for her senior portraits and it was even more fun to get her sister and dad in front of the camera too for these family images.

Some of you might have gotten this little treat in the mail from them! Their Christmas cards were one of my favorites. I just loved working in their favorite family portrait with just a subtle foil border on the front and a little reminder of the reason for the season on the back.

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Now this design you’ll find hung on their wall soon! For Kayle’s senior portraits we created a wall collage with 3 separate canvases so they wanted to do something a bit different for the family portraits and decided on a digital collage to feature all their favorite images in a single canvas piece.

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Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook Page to check out their full session proof video to see all the images we created for them AND give them some love with your likes/comments!

| Boyd Family Portraits | Rock Springs Nature Center | Decatur IL |

I’m so excited to show off some of the Boyd Family’s portraits! You might remember Holden, one of our 2016 WLHS Seniors. One of my favorite times to create family portraits is before seniors (or new college freshmen now!!) go off to the next chapter of their lives.

While I now know first hand that your kids will ALWAYS be your babies there is a real transition after they graduate college and go off into the world. That time is the PERFECT time for an updated family portrait to celebrate your family before your little birds leave the nest.

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And, of course, as part of all family sessions we have to get just mom and day (like when’s the last time you had couple’s portraits done solo?!?!). These two were so sweet and I absolutely love this image and am so glad it made it into their wall collage too!
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Be sure to check out the Boyd Family’s album on our Facebook Page to give them some love!