Calling someone a cheeseburger does not make it so.

So, this headline was, of course, the first thing my eye was drawn to this morning. And I must say I am fully on the side of the Jews here. Baptising dead people is just plain rude. The Holocaust wasn't horrifying enough, now people who died because they were Jewish, aren't even Jewish anymore? Can you also make them not dead? And, I am pretty sure it wouldn't work anyway, because doesn't the baptisee (new word! made it up myself!) has to actually believe in said religion in order for the baptism to take. For example, they could baptise me all they want, but since I don't believe in God, it would pretty much be a waste of their, and more importantly my, time. Perhaps I should offer myself up as a potential victim, I mean baptisee. If you leave one deceased Jew alone, you may baptise me. How's that?

Now, I have nothing against people who are devout. There are a lot of religious people in the adoption world and I have some lovely friends who pray for me and my family (which I kind of love, I have to admit. Holding people in your thoughts is a powerful and loving thing to do.), but never once (to my knowledge) has one of them tried to convert me or baptise via e-mail. And I don't spew my heathen philosophies all over their in-boxes or down the phone lines either. It's called common courtesy.

The Mormons call this harrassment of the dead "posthumous baptism by proxy." I personally think that anything done by proxy leaves a giant loophole and quite a bit open to interpretation. For instance how can they be sure it worked? What if there was a misspelled name and the person they think they baptised doesn't actually exist? What happens to that baptism that is free-floating in the ether? Could it randomly crash into some unsuspecting Buddhist? It is all very confusing and not a little annoying.

Cute woodworker husband had the inspired thought that gays and lesbians should mentally sleep with the Mormons doing the baptisms, thereby making them gay. They could call it "fantasy gay-making by proxy." It would solve the whole Proposition 8 fiasco in California. If all of a sudden a bunch of Mormons who voted for Prop 8 woke up tomorrow and found they had been made gay (by proxy), they might rethink their stance on gay marriage. Or maybe not. You have to admit, it makes about as much sense as the baptisms.

On the kid front, Noah is teething, which means he cannot be put down. Ever. This is not one of my favorite stages, but I know it will pass. In a few years when the last of his baby teeth come in. Ugh.

The big kids are great. They ran screaming outside this morning to build a snow-fort with the millimeter of snow that had fallen. Optimistic little buggers aren't they? Below are some Halloween pics including one of Noah that is my revenge for how sore and lopsided my left side feels from carrying him. He actually had 2 costumes, but I can't find the ones of him as a cow (Kai was the cowboy, Noah the sole member of his herd.) Grace was, of course, a princess. What else?

The cowboy costume was actually Zach's when he was a kid. How cool is that?

HA! Revenge is MINE! Oh, like you don't have embarrassing and mean shots of your kids. Fine, here is one of him happy.
See those two teeth? We call them twofers (get it, cause he only has 2?) and it is the fact that their buddies are coming in up top that none of us have been sleeping much this week. Somebody explain to me the biological reason that teething has to hurt?

Kai is really into painting on his face, but other than that, look at how happy and cute they are. Ahhhhhhhhh. Dumpling love.