The cutest lion and strawberry that you ever saw

I know it's not Halloween yet but I already have pictures of both of the kids in their costumes so I thought I'd get ahead of the game. Backstory...I have been asking Ezra for a WHILE what he wanted to be for Halloween. He kind of does this thing where he says he wants to do something and then changes his mind and then doesn't take to the change very well. So I didn't want to buy something on a whim after the first time he said he wanted to be a ________. So he said he wanted to be a lion. Then I asked him a LOT more and the answer was still lion. So I felt safe buying a lion costume...only there aren't any lion costumes in his size at the stores in town. Baby lions but no toddler lions. So off to the internet I went. I found this costume on ebay and was one of those crazy bidder people as the auction ended. I was so anxious to win this costume for my baby! And apparently so was some other mom (or dad?) because we got into a bidding war. Not to worry, I won it for $10.50. We got the costume home and the first thing Ezra said was "It's too big. I want a small lion costume." I thought I was going to wring his neck. Chad reminded me that he doesn't know how to react to surprises or doesn't take to excitement well (kind of like his dad) so I just put the costume in his room and acted like it wasn't a big deal. Worked like a charm...this first picture is of him later that same day. He had gone into his room and put the costume on. Isn't it adorable? Plus, he was kind of right, it is a 4T which is a bit big on him. Maybe he'll want to be a lion two years in a row? Or I can put a bow on it in a few years and let Ivy wear it.

 Saturday night I met up with my kids and the Parrishes (I was doing a photo shoot) at the LCS fall festival. Ezra had a blast playing games and getting candy...

 While my sleepy little strawberry yawned away and took it all in. Funny story about this costume too. When I was at A&M I worked in the college of geosciences dean's office, and my co-worker had a daughter who was too big for this costume. So she gave it to me. At that time I had two nieces (Elle and Riley). Emily took the costume and I think she said that pretty much all her girls had worn it. Little did I know that I would have a little girl who would wear it someday! Chad and I were just barely married! Anyway, some people thought she was a watermelon, but she's cute either way. (sidenote: if I had tried to put anything like this on Ezra's head when he was younger, he would have FREAKED! Just one example of how different these two kids are).