Blue Week

Last Monday started with the smell of blueberry muffins cascading through the halls of our home.  Blueberry muffins to start the week, a welcomed quiet week at home with Cruz, and excitingly, the start of BLUE week.  Cruz devoured two entire muffins, and I got ready for a morning of story-time at the library, an afternoon at the pool, and maybe a nap for two in the hammock sandwiched in between.

Little did I know that during a quick break to see how Savannah was doing on her first day as head anchor of The Today Show, the beginning of blue week would follow with a leg full of poop and an unexpected bath for two.  

Toddlers never run out of surprises, do they?!  

Yes, our blue week got off to a rocky start on Monday morning after we accidentally put Cruz in a Size 4 diaper instead of a 5.  Coincidentally enough, he decided to have a monstrous poo while sitting on my lap watching Savannah play guitar with Shawn Colvin.  And for all you moms out there, I want you picture 'monstrous' and then times it by twelve to get a picture of how bad this was.  I'll spare you the details, but it involved a fully dressed Cruz in the bathtub, a pants-less mom attempting to fill a bathtub with suds and keep her blueberry muffin down, and some welcomed laughter because sometimes, all you can do is laugh.  
  
Let's just say we didn't get to the blue discovery box that morning, but we did make it to story-time, freshly bathed and smelling like roses.  Cruz sang his little heart out for Five Little Monkeys, and we filled our bag with a few more books to start our week.  Cruz loved putting our inaugural books in the return book bin, and quickly remembered his way around the library.  The thought of him spending many years scouring the shelves of our community's library makes me smile.

This is our third week in 'color school,' and I am having so much fun exploring the color wheel with Cruz through lots of fun, easy, and engaging activities.  This may have been my favorite week yet, as Cruz's world (and especially closet) is filled with the color blue.  It was easy to some up with fun things to do with him, and by the end of the week, he was pretty good and saying, and recognizing the color blue.
  
Blue Week in Photos and Captions...
  
1.  Muffin Tin Monday proved to be a little difficult finding a variety of blue foods, however, it turned out being Cruz's favorite selection yet.  

He had blueberries and blueberry yogurt, a blue sippy cup of milk, some crackers with peanut butter and blue sprinkles, a half of muffin, and some mac 'n cheese (I cheated, but went for the blue packaging).    

  
Pass the cheese, pleese...

2.  Since we didn't get to the discovery box in the morning, we opened it together after lunch.  And while lunch may have been a stretch, I had no trouble finding blue items around the house to add to our fun.

This week, Cruz discovered a blue swirly straw cut, some blue stickers, a Chicago Cubs ball, Little Blue Truck board book, a blue apron from our friends, Kyle and Jen, some shark fruit snacks, a blue diving stick for the pool, and his favorite, a blue remote control in the shape of Grover from Sesame Street (I picked this up for a surprise of novelty at Wal-Mart).

3.  We painted.  We talked about water, and fish, and bubbles, and made a bright blue fishbowl to put in Cruz's room.

   
Here's what we needed:

   
-2 sheets of white construction paper, cut out in shape of fish bowl
-blue and orange finger paint
-a paintbrush (I used this sponge brush shaped into a circle that came in a variety pack of brushes from Hobby Lobby.  I loved it because it was easy for Cruz to use and it looked like bubbles in a fish tank).
-plastic eyes (found at Hobby Lobby)
-some tiny rocks from your backyard
-hot or tacky glue
-white buttons

First, I cut a fish bowl out of a piece of white construction paper.  I let Cruz get busy filling it with lots of painted blue 'bubbles,' and let it dry.  Next, I cut around Cruz's orange handprint to resemble a fish with fins.  Then, we went on a rock hunt, collecting a number of tiny, pretty little rocks to fill the bottom of our fish bowl.  While Cruz took care of the painting all by himself, I manned the hot glue gun (with Cruz's supervision, of course).

Last but not least, we spent a morning admiring the real fish tanks and goldfish at our local pet store!  I came pretty close to buying Cruz his own real-life goldfish friend, but thought I better run it by dad first ;)

What else did we do to celebrate this blue week?  
  
We baked.  Blueberry peach pie from scratch, Oh Sweet Joy's ah-mazing blueberry muffin ice cream, and blue jello aquariums in mason jars.

 

  

More on this oh-my-pie later.  It was a cathartic experience for this pie-lady-in-training.

 

  
We played.  We played in blue swimming pools and drank juice from blue sippy cups.  We wore blue t-shirts all week long, and chased our blue diving sticks at the pool on Friday.   

    

Blue week was a blast, and we're gearing up for orange week this week.  I'm looking for some last minute fun ideas to go with orange if anyone has some!  I've got lots of food ideas (oranges, cheese, goldfish, peaches, etc.), but am a little short on orange activities.  Thanks for your help :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Ours was too fast, of course :)