Pnut just had a birthday. I think the food allocation worked out just right – here it was:

25 8yo kids, 5 adults

• 4 Costco cheese pizzas, cut into 18 slices “double cut”, 1 combo. Calculate 1 pizza serves about 8 kids, and round up. 25/8 = 3 pizzas + 1 extra kid. We had about half a cheese pizza, half the combo pizza left which was perfect.
• Grapes from Costco cut into bunches. Had a sandwich bag full left.
• Individual Chips, 30
• 40 pack Costco Capri suns. Kids asked for more. Maybe one more 12 pack would’ve been good.
• 24 pack kids water bottles. We finished them all and kids wanted more but probably didn’t need it if we had more Capri Sun.
• 24 Adult water bottles. Needed about 12 max.
• Veggie tray. Barely touched. Bring a bag of baby carrot and ranch instead.

Cake

• Albertsons Half sheet cake. Whipped topping and marble appealed to most kids. Fresh Strawberry filling only +$2. Oreo cookies and creme also very tasty. Tastes like an American version of the Chinese sponge cake. $39.99. Skip the special design that is $4 extra. Ask for rainbow dots and confetti if your kids like to play with the icing like Pnut does.
• Cut around the cake when serving. Each kid got about a 1.5″ x 5″ rectangle slice.
• Brought 1/4 cake home and finished in 2 days. Perfect leftover if you ask me.

We cut out his face on a popsicle stick and put it on the cake. The kids and Pnut thought it was a hit.

Other tips

Recut the pizza slices before passing them out. Thought I was going to topple the entire pizza when it wasn’t cut.

For the next birthday party

Print and cut out faces on to popsicle sticks. The kids and adults LOVE these. Poke holes for eyes as a bonus.