GIVEAWAY: Cascade! Great Way To Wrap Up A Party!!!

This review was made possible by Double Duty Divas and Cascade. I was provided the featured product free of charge to facilitate my review, but all opinions are 100% mine.

I feel very lucky to be part of some major milestones in my family's life recently. My mom recently celebrated her 60th birthday, and now my little sister is having a baby...oh and It's A Girl (hence the pink EVERYWHERE!). 

I had such a great time looking up ideas for my mom's birthday party as you can read in my last post HERE. What was even more fun was planning a girly baby shower for my sister. I always turn to friends for advice on games and snacks, but also sites like Pinterest. I came up with the banner and favor ideas on Pinterest. 

The chocolate dipped pretzels were so easy to make, just time consuming. Warm the chocolate wafers, dip the pretzels and set on a tray to cool. Next you melt the pink wafers, drizzle on and then allow to cool. Final step is bagging and making them look pretty! This was so much fun.

One of the other parts of party planning that I love is thinking about the cake, or cupcakes in this case. I am a baking fanatic and used to do cake and cupcake decorating before I had 3 pets and 2 kids and worked part time. Now life is just too busy to have the time to pipe on designs or borders, but I still appreciate the beauty in baking masterpieces. My grandmother selected these beauties. I love the Oreo sunflower cupcakes and the butterfly cupcakes. The various designs fit together some beautifully and made such an eye catching centerpiece.

On top of the menu planning was the game planning. We did the expected Gift Bingo game, but I wanted something else to set this shower apart, and thankfully I found two really unique ideas. One, thanks to my husband.  

The first was a book dedication station. I've been to showers where they've asked everyone to bring a book to add to the baby's library, but I always forget, and I'm sure others did too. So instead of asking books be brought, they were provided and each guest could write a book dedication to the baby in a book of their choosing. I loved this idea!

The second, which my husband came up with, was a baby pool of sorts. Guess when Baby Girl will make her grand entrance into the world. People signed their name on the date they thought she would arrive, along with the time. The person who is closest to the date/time will get a surprise prize in the mail. Who will it be???

And what party is complete without some fun drinks. To be sensitive to the moms or moms-to-be, we decided to go alcohol free at the party. Some people think this means boring drinks, but I beg to differ. Awhile back I made these mocktails (mock cocktails) for friends and it was a hit. The drink was pretty and tasted delicious! It was a combination of white grape/peach juice and pomegranate syrup at the bottom. Almost too pretty to drink....Almost. :)

And when the party was done, gifts were opened, food was eaten, the clean-up began, and thanks to cascade it was a breeze! I even decided to make some French toast the next morning to test out Cascade Platinum's cleaning powers, and my family was thrilled about this, but my son loved it best! This photo caught him mid-bite.

Cascade Platinum is designed to achieve a clean so powerful it helps to keep the dishwasher sparkling, while also delivering immaculately clean dishes each and every time (no-prewash needed!!!). It even powers through 24-hour stuck-on food! Don’t worry about food left on the dishes damaging your machine or pipes. Few people know that there is a garbage disposal built into the bottom of almost all dishwashers – but there is! That disposal works exactly like the disposal in your sink.

Have an opinion to share? Head to the Cascade website to leave a short review of Cascade Platinum (http://www.cascadeclean.com/us/cascade/review) including #CascadeShiningReviews. One reviewer will win a Kitchen Aid Dishwasher!

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