Update: After her adorable Instagram photos went viral in 2016, Laura Izumikawa continued dressing her daughter, Joey, up during her nap time — collecting enough photographs to release a photo book titled "Naptime with Joey."
Today, Joey is 1 year old and, according to her mom, still sleeps deeply enough that the costume changes and photographs do not wake her.
"As a photographer, I always dreamed of creating a photo book of my own but I never imagined it would be about my baby," Izumikawa told TODAY Parents. "I'm trying to document all that I can so that Joey can see just how much joy she brought to people, simply by just sleeping."
Parenting can be stressful. Playing dress-up can help.
(Even if your kid's not old enough to participate.)
If anyone knows this, it's photographer Laura Izumikawa: She had the bright (and hilarious) idea to take advantage of her child's nap time by dressing the 4-month-old up in costumes while she sleeps. Now little Joey Marie Choi is better than any other kid on her block at the age-old pastime ... and she doesn't even know it.
While Joey dreams away the afternoon, her mom gets to work selecting and adjusting props to turn Joey into everything from a wizard to an In-N-Out Burger server to a sushi chef, and even Ariel from "The Little Mermaid."
Never miss a parenting story with the TODAY Parenting newsletter! Sign up here.
It's a painstaking process, requiring serious creativity and dedication. And she's got to do it all before the little one wakes!
If there's anything better than the photos Izumikawa posts of her final efforts (though it's honestly a close call), it's the behind-the-scenes videos she posts alongside them on occasion. The videos answer many of our most burning questions, such as "How do you get a felt gold medal on a sleeping baby without waking her?" and "How does a baby transform into Beyoncé in just 10 minutes?"
Below, a few of our favorite looks.