Frugal Party Planning: Food

I'm not going to lie, I don't have all of the food purchased and ready for Friday yet, but there's a reason why.  I'll explain that later... let's just start from the beginning. 
In deciding to do a Dr. Seuss birthday party I needed to keep with the theme (of course), so I started thinking of what kind of things would be food related to a Dr. Seuss theme.  I'm sure you're thinking the exact initial thought that I had: Green Eggs and Ham!  And so was birthed the menu:

• Green Deviled Eggs and Ham and Cheese Sliders (warm ham and cheese sandwiches)
• Poodles of Noodles (Pasta Salad)
• Lick your Lips Potato Chips

and then dessert:

• Thing 2 Cupcakes (Since Bryton will be 2)
• Regular Cupcakes
• A person's a person Cakeballs
• Green Egg Sugar Cookies
• We All Root For Fruit Kabobs
• Dandy's of Candy

So here's the just of it all, as far as the main course:

• My MIL offered to make something so I chose to let her make the deviled eggs. 
• I'm going Thursday / Friday to buy the stuff for the ham and cheese sliders.  Why?  Because I hope to find some good deli bread on manager's special, that won't matter because I'm using it same day ;) 
• My mom is making the pasta salad, and I have alllll of the pasta saved up from sales in which I got all of the boxes for FREE with my coupons! 
• And the potato chips?  Let's just say if you wait until after Halloween, even the candy and 'treat sized' bags of chips go on sale.  So, I bought 44 packages of cheeto/doritos for $5 and a box of 40 pretzels for $2.59.  With about 40 guests, I should have enough for everyone to have two (if they need them) and have some left over for home!  I also bought all of the candy half off that day, as well as a box of 40 miniature bags of popcorn (to cook in the microwave) for $3.39, regularly $9.98!  Woo hoo!

As far as desserts:

• I did cupcakes for Bryton's birthday last year too, just because I like doing them.  This year my job is going to be a little more simple.  Last year the cupcakes were fairly complex and took a lot of time.  On top of that I used two batches of homemade icing (which does add up in expense.)  This year, the cupcakes I'm making calls for regular icing, so using coupons I bought the cake mix and the icing for more than 50% off.  For the cakeballs the only added ingredient was candy melts, which I purchased full price :( 
• I have the sugar cookie mix already in the cupboard, which I got for free with coupons, and I'm actually going to make my own icing for this for decorating, I have everything but powdered sugar.  (I have powedered sugar, but not the full two pounds I need.)
• I still need to buy fruit for the fruit kabobs (I'll let you know how that goes).
• And the candy was listed as above. 

A little bit of planning goes a long way.  What holiday, etc, is your party planned around that you could score some good deals with?  Even my popcorn I bought doesn't expire until September 2011... that could be used any time in the next year!!!