The plan was for the Field Editor to come at 8 AM, style the house with flowers and decor, then shooting would start at 1:00.

She came loaded with the most gorgeous flowers. My kitchen has never been such a beautiful mess. She took containers, cookie jars and buckets and filled them with blooming, fresh flowers. I just had cleaned my house and now it was covered in leaves and blooms. But I wasn’t worried if she wasn’t!

In a couple of spaces, she completely redecorated a space with all her own items. Some were from her personal stash, some she bought and returned.

By one, the house was ready and the Art Editor and Photographer arrived. They wrote the order of photos and began shooting. Once they got a shot, the photographer uploaded it to his laptop and we all could see it. It was strange how the home looked so much prettier in the image than even in real life! I was bursting.

My photos would be the next day, and they wanted to do the whole family now. This sounds like an easy task, but this involved getting them out of school and contesting with naps. Also when Joel originally heard he wasn’t in the photo, he agreed to a long meeting for an important upcoming event at work. We agreed that we would try it and see how it went with just the kids.  If we could capture the kids in their rooms without too much stress, we would, and if not, we would just do mine. I was glad we kept the outfits I had planned for them just in case!

Next: The final shoot and my most stressful moment!