Help! - Muskegon,MI

Meatballs in a slow cooker do the trick. Ppl can help themselves when they're hungry. Along with some cold salads, you should be fine.

We usually have sloppy joes or big sub that you can cut up. You can also have mini sandwiches or use cookies cutters to cut up the sandwiches, chips and potato salad, mac salad, mini pizzas they can make themselves. hope this helps! Good luck.

How old is your daughter?

Hi there. We live in Ohio, but I am sure most Wallmarts are the same. And really, before I even tell you my idea, I was super sketchy about this until we tried it.

Anyways, at WallMart you can order a 50 piece fried chicken for $24.99 and the chicken is AWESOME! As I said, I was super sketchy at first about it, but soooo worth it. We typically get a 50 piece for when we have get togethers for my two childrens birthday parties and have about 20 adults there. The 50 pieces are more than enough b/c the pieces you get are HUGE. Then for a side do some coleslaw, potatoe salad, mac salad, or something along that line. But again, I know I was like "chicken, from Wall-Mart?" but I highly recommend it.

Have fun at the party!!

What time is the party? If it's close to breakfast, lunch or dinner, I'd say serve more of a full meal - sandwiches, pizza, hotdogs/hamburgers, deli tray, heavy appetizers, etc. If it's like from 2-4, then I'd say you can skip the heavier foods.

We had my daughter's 2nd birthday last year from 3-5 and served various chips/dips, cheese balls, individually wrapped twinkies, different candies, cake, ice cream and hotdogs.

This year for her birthday (and my son's), we'll do similar snack foods but also incorporate a meal - I think pizza for hers and subs for my son's.

Make sure to have a few kinds of chips/dips - tortilla/salsa, ruffles/french onion, fritos/nacho cheeese, etc. Those always go over really well and fill people up! You could also do a fruit tray (or empty out a watermelon and fill it with balls of cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon).

Mini sandwiches are always good - cheese/ham, turkey/cheese and pb&j and cut them out with a cookie cutter.

If you want something easy - boil hotdogs and leave them in a little water in a crockpot. Make chili for chili dogs (or sloppy joes) and that could be the main course.

So recently we attended a large gathering they served a really fun and yummy meal that I have stored away for the future. They made a large crockpot of seasoned taco meat, and had lunch box sized bags of fritos corn chips. You keep the fritos in the bag and then put the taco meat on top. Then had a whole bunch of toppings set out on buffet style to put on them like cheese, sour cream, olives, lettuce, salsa, etc. It was really yummy and the kids loved that they were eating out of a bag with their forks.

I'd go with sloppy joes, beans, chips, and a couple side salads (taco, pasta, dirt, etc.)

OR

Taco in a bag with all the fixings. Could have hotdogs as a second choice. Could also have a couple salads as well.

OR

Do sub/croisants and fixings. All you need to add is chips!

I just had my son's birthday and I did a taco bar, I cooked the meat the day before, and on the day of the party, put it in a crock pot, I also used chicken that was precooked in a seperate crock. Then I just set out the different toppings and everybody helped themselves. A lot of people made nachos and soft tacos (shells did not need to be heated). I also made a chili cheese dip I put in a small crock pot for an appz. (chili, cream chease and shreaded cheddar, mix together and heat serve w/chips)

I had about 20 people for my daughter's 2-year-old b-day a month ago. I wanted super easy since I also have a 7 month old and very little time to cook and prepare. Here is what I served:

1. Meatballs (packages of frozen ones, baked them and then stirred them up in a bowl with a bottle of BBQ sauce)

2. Boneless chicken wings (packages of frozen, served with ranch dressing)

3. Ceasar salad (packages of mixed together in a bowl)

4. Pasta salad (homemade - someone brought it)

5. Homemade pizzas (I used the Pillsbury crust in a can in the freezer section next to the cinnamon rolls and such. Then I put sauce and cheese on one for the kids, on the adult one I put pesto sauce, mushrooms, onions, chicken breast and cheese. The adult one turned out great! Both were like thin crust pizzas.)

6. Self-serve beverage station of sodas, wine, beer.

7. Veggie tray with dip (made myself because the prepared ones are so dang expensive)

8. Fruit platter (put together myself and took second! grapes, pineapple, blackberries, strawberries)

9. Dessert was just the b-day cake (almond-flavored white cake with frosting from a bakery)

All this was as easy as it gets, without ordering most of it out, especially considering my husband got sick the morning of the party and I had to clean house and prepare food without his help and with both of my girls. Hope this helps!

Hey There,

When I threw my last b-day bash for the kids (about the same amount of peeps) I made a few pans of lasagna, some breaded chicken breast, green beans, and salad. I made the lasagna ahead of time and warmed it up the day of the party.

For the checken, I breaded it and lightly fried it on each side the night before the party, then finished cooking it in the oven the day of the party.

Green beans and salad are a cinch and can be prepped a day ahead or even the morning of the party.

Then I had some bread on the table as well.

I used all disposable pans for the lasagna and chicken breast.

It was all super easy...though a tad time consuming. But well worth the effort and everyone was full and happy =)

I also set out some snack stuff for before and after the actual meal, like chips and whatnot. After the meal I had fruit too. Then the obvious cake and ice cream. We are Italian and love to eat. Food is always a huge part of any celebration of ours.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

If you plan to have a lunch meal and are looking for some good recipes a fav of mine to make that both kids and adults LOVE is my pasta salad. Very sweet and colorful so the presentation is GREAT. You can include any veggie you like so you can be very creative and make the veggies fun for the kids with cool shapes or things like that. Its the sauce that brings out all the flavor:

1 part vinegar
1 part oil (any oil you like olive is my fav)
1 part white sugar

When I make it for a party of that size I would probably do 1 1/2 cups of each. You want the sugar to dissolve before putting it on the veggies and pasta so add the sauce after its dissolved in the oil/vinegar and it flavors through much better if you make it the day or two before. For veggies for that many people I would use:

1/2 green pepper
1/2 orange, red, or yellow pepper (if you like color you can do a 1/4 of each color)
1/2-full sweet onion (adds lots of GREAT flavor and isn't as strong as you would think)
1 cucumber
pint of cherry tomatoes (so people can pick them out if they don't like them)
1-2 carrots skinned
1-2 stalks of celery
and any other veggie you love. Olives are good in this although I REALLY don't like olives so I don't use them. I've also used broccoli and cauliflower in this and it tasted very good but again I know there are a lot of people that don't like either of those. So feel free to add/take away any veggie you want!
1 box of pasta, I usually use rigatoni but feel free to make it more fun for the kids. You can get colored pasta too if you want to make it pretty!

good luck and remember to have lots of fun! I would recommend a lunch meal instead of snacks. But just my opinion!