My son's birthday is in mid-November so I bumped the party date up a few weeks and combined it with a Halloween party.  For invitations I bought scrapbooking paper that looked Halloween-y but not scary and 1 mini pumpkin for each family. Inside I wrote ___________ Great Pumpkin Birthday Party and in small print I wrote (to the tune of the Adam's Family). The lyrics were It's _______ 2nd birthday From 4 to 6 come and play With _________ family. Our _____ turning two And we're inviting you So put on your costume For ________ family."  I then put date time location and a reminder to wear their costumes and to bring something to paint in.  The parents were delighted to have another occasion for their kids to wear their costumes.  For decorations I just put up non-scary Halloween decorations out on the deck and in the kitchen plus a few pumpkins on the front porch. Pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns black and orange garland spiders and a giant web. We covered the table for food and the one for painting with slime-green-colored plastic tablecloths and set up hay bales around the bonfire.  Decorating was extremely cheap since we didn't buy anything we just used what we had and then borrowed from friends since Halloween was over.  Some people even gave us their left-over candy and trinkets!  Even the plates I got on clearance the day after Halloween. We had a Kids Halloween music CD playing as well. We let the kids play with the yard toys until everyone was there.  Then I collected all the kids for pumpkin painting.  We decided to do this first so that they would be dry in time.  I turned them loose with washable poster paint and paint brushes and asked the parents of the toddlers to help their child and they took it from there.  They loved it!  We also had a few older children that helped with the little ones.  Once the kids were done we called everyone together for supper.  For food we had hot dogs (to be roasted on the fire) and all the toppings chili potato salad chips soft drinks and juice for the little ones.  After everyone was done eating we had the kids walk in a circle to Halloween music while we judged their costumes.  We were also going to do a candy hunt in the back yard with flash lights but it got so cold that we had to cancel it and come inside. But the kids were having so much fun playing with my sons toys that nobody seemed to mind.  I got the parents to help me come up with an award for each child--the scariest most creative cutest butt(the gorilla with little butt-cheeks on the costume) etc.  Their treat bags were the prizes which we awarded at the end. Treat bags had trick-or-treat sized candy and Teddy Grahams fake spiders and snakes coupons for milk-shakes at Wendys and orange chocolate suckers we made from candy melts and a pumpkin shaped mold.  The cake and ice cream were my favorite parts. Instead of one big cake I made spider cupcakes iced them in chocolate icing and dipped the iced part in chocolate sprinkles to give them a hairy look. I then cut large marshmellows in half making each half one eye and then stuck a brown or green M&M in front to make it look like an eye.  I unraveled black licorice rope and used them for legs. The legs were a lot harder than I expected and my mom had to finish them for me after the party started but the finished product was so darn cute I'm glad we did them.  I saw this idea in a kid magazine a while back but I'm not sure which magazine--it might be Family Fun. I got the ice cream idea from an old Martha Stewart kids magazine.  I got clear cups and inside we painted eyes and a mouth to look like a ghost face in melted chocolate chips.  I then made a vanilla shake right before serving them and poured it in to make it look like a ghost. Also VERY cute but if I could do it again I would arrange in advance to have someone else make the shakes.  Then my son opened presents. We announced the winners of the costume contest and awarded treat bags and reminded the kids to get their pumpkin creations. Everyone had fun and I was pleased with how everything went. The only thing I would do differently would be to have a better back up plan for problems with the weather and I would also find a way to do more of the creative snack foods that you see in FamilyFun.com."