From my experience, your guests will take a little of each at a dessert buffet and you don't want to run out - if your tarts are good, everyone will want to try one. Therefore, you should plan for 1 each. When making cakes and pies, plan to make your serving sizes about half of a normal slice, so each recipe would make almost double. Cut those serving pieces ahead of time, so your cheesecake that usually serves 10, would serve 20.

And when calculating serving numbers, you're right, kids usually prefer finger foods - like cookies over something they have to sit and eat with a fork!

I would make the regular amount of each dessert, and cut the servings in half. If it says a cake serves 8, cut it into 16ths etc. This will appear to be a lot more, and will also lessen your waste.

"eyes"

I would make sure I had enough of each item for every guest to have a small serving.
I have made my cheese cake in mini muffin tins, well buttered and coated with ground nuts. My recipe calls for 5 eight ounce packages of cream cheese and makes a TON of mini cheese cakes.
Linda c

Thank you so much for your input. Linda - I was looking through my cheesecake book the other night and came across one for mini cheesecakes and - bonus! - it said they can be made ahead and frozen. I am going to try and make them this weekend and freeze half so I can see how they taste next week. I am starting to get a little stressed about having the party. Just rechecked my invite list and realized I have 54 adults invited, not including children. I was thinking 50 was adults *and* children. Luckily, two people have said that they wanted to bring something, just to let them know closer to the date what I would like so I will gladly take them up on that! Thanks again ~ Suzie

Try not to plan to have TOO much, a variety yes, but not so much you are overwhelmed. Make a list, and try to make things that are easy to make and serve alot. Ex: chocolate cake, in a jelly pan, with simple decorations every 2" People love cookies, try mini muffins with surprises inside.Take a quick check thru magazines like Taste of Home to get ideas. Have plenty of paper dishes, just plain ones and cultery. If you don't want to use paper cups, how about the plastic ones. Are you near any places that sell party supplies for comerical places. Is there anyone coming who cannot eat sugar? Have some sugar free ones using Splenda. How about drinks? Don't be afraid to ask for help, cooking, setting up, and cleaning especailly if it family and friends, so you can enjoy the party too Maybe someone can take pictures. Good luck
Marie

I agree that if you can have things already in smaller serving sizes (like the mini cheesecakes), it will stretch things out more. Of course, it's time consuming to make a lot of little things! Also, anything you can freeze ahead of time will make it a lot easier.

As far as the menu planning, I'd go for a real variety. With children I'd think about where they are going to eat and what might ruin furniture, carpet, etc.

If you are looking for make ahead, I would make a bunch of mini cheese cakes. Use a basic cheese cake recipe, make a bunch plain....then add grated chocolate to some of the batter and make some more. Freeze.
Make a big batch of chewey brownies with nuts, freeze them. Make a bunch of thumb print cookies without jam in the thumb print...freeze and fill with jam when you get them out of the freezer.
Make a fruit cake in small loaf pans so it makes little slices, that you can do ahead. Make a banana nut or a pumpkin bread and freeze. You could also make some tiny cream puffs and freeze. When you that, fill with a chocolate or mocha ganache.
Then the day before, make some lemon bars and the day of slice some of the breads and spread with cream cheese, fill the thumb print cookies and and the cream puffs all that's left is to fill the trays.
Linda C

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your wonderful ideas! Linda (or anyone else who can answer this...) - Can any cheesecake be made into a mini? I have a cappuccino cheesecake I am thinking of making - it has a nut/butter crumb crust, then just coffee added to the normal filling (if I remember the recipe right.) Also - can it then be frozen?
I have never been much on freezing stuff - our freezer has always been like this forgotten land. But I am really getting into freezing desserts! I checked out a chocolate cookbook from the library the other day and every dessert has a storage method - I keep looking through it for everything that can be frozen. Found a marble pound cake - yum. Will probably make that up tonight and freeze it!
Jan - love your comment about kids and carpet. I had been wondering how much damage other people's kids can do to my carpet... We have a 10 month old that spit up something awful until he was 8 months old. It was bad enough when he was a newborn, but once we started solid foods - yuck! We only fed him "white" food for a long time - apples, pears, etc... No carrots! (Learned that one the hard way.)
Thanks again everyone! ~ Suzie