This has been a busy month for Israel. He has enjoyed several parties (graduations, baby showers, Memorial day festivities, etc.) as well as a trip to Kentucky to see his grandparents,

family, and friends just waiting to ooh and ah over him. We thought you might enjoy pictures of some of the highlights. (If you're not one of those people who can't get enough of Israel, sorry for the abundance of pictures...those who can't get enough have let us know such.)

His "Granna and Papaw's" house was apparently louder than his....

...but there were "new," fun toys to play with. He loved discovering his mom's and uncle Brandon's old toys.


And there were fun people to play with, too! This is Sarah, Brandon's girlfriend and one of Israel's biggest fans.

Standing up was becoming his favorite activity while he was there, and there were plenty of people trying to catch him doing it. This is what it's like to be the first grandchild and first great-grandchild in a family. Israel's Granna and great-uncle Randall are taking pictures. You can't see me, his dad, his uncle, his Papaw, or his Nana, but they're all just watching him, too.

All the added attention didn't keep his dad from having his time, though.... Pat likes getting Israel to make all kinds of noises. This is just one of them.

Israel's busy-ness encompasses more than just his social calendar. On May 3, after seeing his friend, Owen, crawling about at a graduation party, Israel decided it was time to get serious about moving forward. He started crawling. There were many nose-dives at first, but now he is quite skilled at it. This is one of the earlier videos.

He has become even more social, if you can imagine that. He loves having people around and has been interracting more and more with his friend, Judah (Jake and Lauren's son) who is five weeks older than him. They love to both try to play with the same thing at the same time and to talk to each other and to play in their exersaucers facing each other and laugh. They eat together, play together, (used to sleep together, but that's impossible now...) go to the store together, laugh together, and cry together. So here is Judah's cameo.

We had a good deal of fun for Memorial Day. Israel enjoyed being in a nice yard and all the freedoms that came with it. (Okay, so he and Judah weren't really free to ride the "motorcycle" in the picture, but the moms thought it would make a cute shot.) Here are a few more shots from that day, because the day was perfect for taking pictures!

And, lastly, a combination of all of the above: Israel crawling around, with Judah, on Memorial Day!