happy halloween!

She could not possibly look more tortured in this picture! But for the two seconds it takes for Stacey to take the picture, she somehow manages to deal with it - every holiday, every year!

It is our first Halloween in the new house, and my roommate and I were pretty excited at the prospect of having trick-or-treaters. Around 7:00pm, we were hanging out in the living room, and the first two kids came up to the door - I think one was a fairy and/or princess, and one was a witch, maybe. Anyway, Claire started barking and tried to run to the door, and I managed to grab her back legs before she could bust through the screen. The good thing about having a hard wood floor is that as much as Claire tries to run when I'm holding her, she runs in the same place! I think wood floors were invented just for people who have dogs. Anyway, the kids just froze as they watched me holding my barking, jumping, crazy puppy, as Lissa got the candy before they fled back to their parents. I was yelling over Claire's barking and saying, "WE DO HAVE CANDY, SO DON'T GO ANYWHERE!!" It was two minutes of madness, and I'm pretty sure that the girls ran off and told their friends not to come to our house because of my crazy dog. At least, that's the only likely reason, since I've watched people pass by and go see our neighbors for the last 52 minutes.

Claire seems to think that everyone who comes over is here to see her. She gets so excited and will follow our friends around (especially the guys). She'll squeeze herself between them as they sit on the couch, and nose their hands as they walk around so they'll pet her. Once she's finished "greeting" them, she'll settle down next to them or sit at their feet and give this contented little sigh. I think she knows that she is the most loved dog. So when the little trick-or-treaters came to the door, of course she wanted to say hello - she is used to that! The kids, however, weren't expecting all of her excitement!

Despite our lack of kids asking for candy tonight, Claire continues to sit by the door and hope for more company. Basically, I have one more year to teach Claire not to freak out when people come to the door. And maybe next year we'll see more kids at Halloween. Now I am going to try and lure her away from the door so we can get into bed and get some sleep after such a busy weekend. We'll see how this goes... :)