Laura Izumikawa has been receiving a lot of attention online for her Instagram account where she posts images of her 4-month-old baby Joey wearing hilarious and creative costumes while napping. Izumikawa has dressed Joey up as famous pop culture characters like Han Solo from Star Wars and Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, as well as an Olympic swimmer, a sushi chef, and Slash from Guns N' Roses.
"I think it just occurs to me when I'm reading an article somewhere or watching a commercial or film that kind of just reminds me of an iconic character or a trending topic," Izumikawa told ABC.
"Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But I'm your father, so join me maybe."
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The creative photo series started off just for Izumikawa's family but quickly grew, with now nearly 200,000 followers. The Instagram account received a big bump in popularity when the mom shared a photo and video of Joey dressed up as Eleven from the hit summer Netflix TV series Stranger Things, which has been Izumikawa's favorite costume to dress Joey up in so far.
"I had to do Eleven," Izumikawa said. "Apparently they have a huge fanbase and that's what kind of propelled this all to go viral."
The costumes that Izumikawa makes are from materials that she has around the house and usually take about an hour to build. She hasn't bought any outside materials to make the costumes. There is one costume though that Izumikawa has been really wanting to find a way to create for Joey.
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"Ellen Degeneres, I've been telling my friends, it's kind of like an inside joke. The one person that I wanted to hear from is Ellen, I just love her," Izumikawa said. "I might attempt to do an Ellen look, but I don't know how to pull off those cool outfits that she wears, but we'll see."
Izumikawa says that the positive messages she's received from others has been the best part of the experience.
"It's not about the likes or the followers that we've gotten over the past couple days, it's all those people reaching out to us and giving us so much love and sharing their stories, that's just been amazing," the mom told ABC. "I would love to encourage parents to make funny silly memories with their kids and [sic] not get too caught up in the seriousness of parenting."