Ladybugs and Coneflowers

So Adam and I are sitting on the front porch one evening last week. We are talking. The bad dog is hangin in the yard and the other three are sprawled all around us. The kittens are playing (does anybody need a kitten?!) and I look to my left and see the echinacea (a.k.a. purple coneflower). I am thinking about how pretty the flowers and how they change as they grow. Then I decide to take a picture and Adam realizes that I haven't heard anything he has said to me in the past five minutes.

The "cone" part of the flower starts off like this. As the petals get bigger, they droop down and the red part actually does form a cone. I love this stage, though, because the petals are pale and the middle is bright red and I can stand like a silly person and follow the geometric patterns in the middle of the flower. Then I take another picture and another until I realize that I need to actually respond verbally to what Adam has to say to me.

Then this morning I am trying to decide what to blog about and go ahead and resize my flower pictures. Then I saw..... Mr. Ladybug!! Do you see him?? The only thing I love better than taking pictures of ladybugs is finding ladybugs in pictures I have already taken...

I hope you all have a wonderful day today and are enjoying the beginning of your summer. Keep a smile on your face - you never know who might need to see it....