Tip: you can serve many things in dog dishes or sandpails with shovels.

Drinks:

*Blue's Punch - blue Kool-Aid (or you can freeze blue punch in ice cube trays and have kids put them in a clear drink like sprite or 7-up...) *Magenta Punch - raspberry sherbet, sprite, and berry punch juice concentrate *The Blue's Shake - place 2 cups of vanilla ice cream, 1 ¼ cups of low fat milk, 2 tablespoons of sugar into a blender and mix until combined. Then add blue food coloring a little at a time until mixture is a nice shade of blue. For a thicker shake, place it in freezer. *Blue Lemonade - Blue loves lemonade!! You can turn any ordinary lemonade into a Blue's Clues drink by adding 1 pint of pureed blueberries.

Tip: Try freezing Blues Clues fruit snacks in ice trays and then kids have Blue appear in their cups when you drop ice-cubes into their drinks.

Treats:

*Blue Jell-O (in dog bone shapes) *Blue's Clues Applesauce (found at most supermarkets-or just put blue food coloring in applesauce). *Blue Jellybeans *Dog chow (any mix of dried cereals-Chex would be good) *Blue Tortilla Chips with blue sourcream (just mix in blue food coloring) *Blue Cotton Candy *Blue Popsicles *Mr. Salt's salted pretzel sticks

Tip: Most grocery stores carry many Blue's Clues snacks, and you might be able to find fruit snacks, crackers, applesauce, and many other kinds of Blue Clues licensed by Nick Jr.

Party Favors

A neat Blue's Clues idea for favors is to make your own DOGGIE bag favors? You can take blue bags or use a Shovel and Pail. Put inside trinkets such as personalized dog key chains, personalized dog bones, a magnifying glass, mini paw tattoos, a bone cookie, Blue's Clues stickers, blue crayons, blue candies, happy face items (to represent FACE), and anything else you can think of. Another variation of this favor idea is to put these trinkets in dog bowls with names of kids written on bowls.

Another way to hand out favors is to make a giant mailbox out of an empty paper carton and poster board. Then put all goodies in large white envelopes and put them in mailbox. At end of party, your kid can have "Mail Time" (just like in show) and birthday child can hand out envelopes to her departing guests.

Games and Activities

The Snoop: Hide about 40 cardboard bones or bone-shaped cookies at "dog height", and have kid puppies hunt on hands and knees for them.

Doggy Drink Race: What you'll need for this Blue's Clues game are two or three doggy dishes. Put Jell-O or any kind of drink in these doggy dishes and have kids kneel beside dishes with their hands behind their backs and see who finishes first doggy drink. This is always hilarious!

Barking Contest: A hilarious game idea is to host your very own barking contest where everyone is a winner. Each kid gets to give their best bark, and then you can award prizes for loudest, saddest, most real, squeakiest, funniest, etc.

Shovel And Pail Relay: For this cool game, get two sets of sand buckets and shovels and draw Shovel and Pail faces on each of them. Then form two teams and have a relay race where kids have to pick up a small block with Shovel and then run to other side of room to dump it into pail. The first team to put all their blocks into Pail is winner.

Blue's Bubble Doodles: This Blue Clues game needs to be played outside. You'll need blue food coloring, white paper, and bubbles (you can make your own bubble mixture by mixing ½ a cup of dishwashing liquid, 2 tablespoons of glycerin - found at drug stores, and 5 cups of water. STIR, do not shake). Add blue food coloring to bubble mixture and give each kid a sheet of white drawing paper. Have one or more adults blow bubbles and tell each kid to try and catch bubbles on their sheet of paper. As bubbles pop they make a design on paper. See who can come closest to making a paw print.

Let's Find Blue's Clues: Before party, think of several clues that'll be easy for your age group. Write each clue on an index card or a piece of notebook paper, and add a blue paw print to each. Here is an idea for a clue: "I'm cold on inside, and I run all day and all night long." When kids figure out that answer to clue is a refrigerator (you can try giving them more hints if they don't figure it out), have everyone look inside refrigerator for next clue. Hide remaining clues all around house, party area or yard (you can have last clue lead to birthday cake for a tasty surprise!). This is always a fun-filled child party idea!

Mystery Clue Balloons: Hide all kinds of party favors everywhere around party area. Then write clues on little notebook papers or a printed paw (each clue leading to a different party favor). Roll these papers up and slip them inside balloons that you'll blow up and hang as decorations. Then, when game is about to start, tell kids to choose a balloon and pop it and use clue to find missing party favor.

Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper Bean Bag Toss: To make your own Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper bean bags take two pieces of white felt, hot glue two edges, fill with uncooked rice and hot glue other two edges. Do same with black felt and put faces on them. Then take a red plastic pail and yellow shovel and add details so that they look like Shovel and Pail. The object of game is to use Shovel to toss Mr. Salt and Mrs. pepper into Pail (try all kinds of distances).

5. Give Your Children Encouragement.

Encouraging words are powerful emotional deposits of confidence and self-esteem. Verbally acknowledge your children's special talents and accomplishments. Catch your children doing something great, and tell them what a great job they have done.

Children need to know that we recognize and support their hopes and dreams for future. Encouraging children to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually provides foundation for living a balanced life.

6. Share Your Experiences with Your Children.

We each have valuable stories to tell, unique maps of our journey through life. These stories tell how our reactions to events created life we are living now. Sharing benefit of your experiences — roadblocks and rewards — is a very loving way to guide your children.

Your children may face many of situations you faced. Your experiences can help them make informed decisions and avoid unnecessary mistakes. Among most worthwhile possessions that we can someday leave for our children are journals filled with stories that shaped our lives.

7. Love and Support Your Children Unconditionally.

Love is an unconditional gift from heart; it is not a reward for good behavior. Let your children know that you will love and support them in any situation. This message creates a sturdy bond of trust. Your children will grow to feel safe in coming to you with any problem they face.

Children need freedom to make decisions, try new things, and learn that life requires personal responsibility and persistence. They need freedom to fail and learn from mistakes without being judged. Unconditional love helps them to acquire decisiveness and resiliency required to become successful.

If you could sum up all of our children's needs, hopes, and expectations in one word, that word would be love. We share love when we play a central role in our children's world of learning and discovery. Our legacy of love will have a guiding influence upon our children and grandchildren for many generations.