A thistle in all its glory

I know that thistles are generally looked on as a weed...I have thought of them as weeds all my life.
They are all prickly and will stick you without a thought....
but just look at these blossoms! Aren't they wonderful? Just so very beautiful.
I have been looking at images at google...I think these are different to the thistles we generally see. I wondered if they were milk thistle but cannot say for sure.
It is getting late and time for me to head to bed...Lorelei will be here in the morning. So I need to get some much needed sleep. If you get time, google thistle and see if you think this might be milk thistle. Or if you know for sure tell me. I also seen this spear thistle, but it didn't have an image of the flower....I didn't have time to do a thorough search.

Good-night for now.

How about some fungi?

Yesterday morn Lorelei and I took a little walk by the side of the house....I happened to look down where one of our trees had been.
There were literally hundreds of these little mushrooms...still with the dew on them. I took Lorelei inside and grabbed my camera and ran back to take a some pictures.
I actually did notice the fly on this one as I took the picture...which is an improvement for me. I would say that at least half the time I would not have noticed till I downloaded the picture.
In the same area, there were these little tiny things also. I would say that in real life, none of the tan ones were any bigger around than a pencil.
Here is the funny part....notice the ones that have already popped open? You might need to enlarge the picture...I did NOT notice them till I downloaded the pictures! I was just so focused on the others.

I went out later in the day when Lorelei was napping to try to get more pictures of the other little ones, and they were all gone. I think they die down once the sun hits them because there was not a single one left. Yet this morn, I noticed a few more--but I didn't think to look till later in the morn and the sun had done been up a little while.

In no special order....

I just had to post all of these...count your blessings that I didn't post more.
I just couldn't cut down any more than these. We were watching tv/dvds at the time. Not sure what we were watching at the time these were taken.
Part of the time I was the entertainment.
Part of the time the tv had her eye.
and she can have a sweet, serious little face at times.
This one was her grandpa's favorite....
I cannot pick a favorite. I sure look at these and smile though.

She does keep me busy; and I am worn out at the end of the day. But I miss her on the weekends. Part of the time we are the entertainment and part of the time she is. Sometimes I set her in the kitchen with me when I fix her bottle, and part of the time I will turn the TV on and see if she will be satisfied with it. (Even if she is watching TV she likes for one of us to be near.)

This morn I turned the TV on and went to fix her bottle, and you should have heard her laughing...and later in the day we had her out on the porch in her little rocker-seat. She sat and was content...then the wind started blowing and she started laughing out loud at the leaves/branches moving with the wind!