| Conn Family | Fall Family Portraits Decatur IL |

I now get to show off one of my favorite families, the Conn Family! You may remember Liz & Justin’s beautiful wedding day at the Millikin Homestead and their first family portraits here last year.

These poor guys froze their booties off last year with a crazy windy cold day so this year was a treat with mild weather and a beautiful day for their session! We even had some lovely fall colors even in mid-November for our Limited Edition sessions.

I’m a big fan of their card design and hope it filled their friends/family mailboxes with some smiles this year.

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family christmas cards, cards, card designs, holiday cards, best card designs 2017, christmas cards, do you sent christmas cardsBelieve it or not we’re rolling out our 2018 Limited Edition session dates already! So if a quick and easy 15/30 minute session sounds perfect for your hectic schedules head over to our store to pre-purchase your session and reserve your spot. We host ONLY 4 Limited Edition session dates per year and have as few as 5-10 sessions available at each one.

| Taylor 2017 Family Portraits | Decatur IL |

I’m so excited to have seen this family again this year. Our last session was in 2014 (you can see it here)  and these guys survived a crazy COLD windy miserable day for their session then. So we were all thrilled to have their session on a, still windy, but much warmer day this year! And I cannot believe how much these kiddos have grown. They are so full of personality it was a super fun session!

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And, of course, we had to give each kiddo their own moment in the spotlight to let their personalities shine!

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Now that their Christmas cards have been sent I thought I’d update their blog post with their adorable Christmas card!

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| Jamie + Mike Engagement & Family Portraits | Decatur, IL |

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OMG you guys! I cannot tell you how much I’ve been chomping at the bit to show off this snowy session. I’m honored to be photographing Jamie & Mike’s wedding day this year and this gal wanted a snowy engagement session SO BAD and we were almost certain it just wasn’t going to happen for us. After some disappointing snow flurries early in the season which amounted to little more than a dusting that was melting by the time either of us was on the phone to begin planning logistics we both resigned ourselves to hope for a late season snow but things were looking pretty bleak (ie sunny and WARM). I knew how much Jamie really wanted a snow session so I had even started calling around to my photography friends in other northern cities to call me if any snow hit their area and we’d just make a road trip…. it wasn’t looking promising.

But then….. this lovely and random one-day blizzard arrived in true mid-western style! And it was just what we needed! The stars really aligned for this with both Jamie and Mike off work that day already and the opening in my schedule falling right after school these two were able to pick up their little guy and make it over to the park in the midst of a gorgeous snowfall! After that perfect session we’re all so happy we hadn’t jumped the gun and tried to make a session work with a tiny bit of snow because our patience was rewarded with this BLIZZARD!

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And from a kid’s point of view how cool is it you get to PLAY IN THE SNOW for your portrait session?!?!

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I’m so excited these guys have opted to share their wedding day with me and have me be a part of creating their family legacy and even more thrilled we were able to create exactly what Jamie envisioned for their engagement/family session. We have ONE opening left for a 2017 wedding and are currently booking 2018 (only 8 openings left) so don’t hesitate to call to schedule a time when we can chat about creating your portrait vision. And be sure to pop over to Jamie & Mike’s facebook album to give them some love.

| Andrew + Abbey | Fall Engagement Portraits Decatur IL |

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While I like what we created for them downtown (especially love that they showed up with Coffee Connection coffee in hand!) I absolutely love what we found/created down at Lake Decatur. Believe it or not we found all this lovely fall color at their DECEMBER session.

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Check out how perfectly these two coordinated their outfits… heck even her eyes match it!

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Since I knew when we pulled into the parking lot that the best color I saw was at the top of this very steep hill, I decided to make the best of that climb up and try something a little out of the box with a little silhouette image.

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You can head over to their Facebook Album to give them some love with your likes/comments.

| Dodson Family Portraits Backyard & Downtown Decatur |

Today’s blog post is coming to you a bit later in the day than normal but for a very good reason. This morning when I got to the office I got a sweet, kind but heartbroken email from Heather about some bad news they’d gotten about one of their adorable dogs who won’t be with them much longer. This gal was just looking for some happiness in her sad day and was hoping their blog feature happened to be coming up this week…. though it wasn’t scheduled for a week or two, of course hearing such news I bumped it up a bit!

I know our dogs are a big part of our family and were included not only in our family photos before BabyB came along but were also included in her newborn portraits and hang in photos all over our home/walls. I’m SO glad we included these two in their session and am happy to be able to share them all with you today. Prayers and good thoughts to this family this week as they hug and love on this special girl for a bit longer. She may not have wanted to be in the spotlight of the images but she made her presence known especially with some amazing facial expressions (like the one below!).

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The below image is one we all loved but I kept going back and forth on if I liked it best black and white or color and these two kept debating horizontal or vertical… what do you think they picked?!?

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I’m really excited for how dedicated Heather was to selecting images she knew she wanted to display in their home and deciding how they wanted to display them (so they don’t just end up in a box somewhere at home) which is right in line with what I love to do with clients. The following three are planned for a series collage.

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And the one on the left below we designed as a thin horizontal canvas to fit perfectly on their wall.

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