Cake decorating success!

This isn't my cake.  This is taken from Pinterest.  A kind mom shared this loveliness and from it I draw my inspiration.

I'm decorating a sheet cake as a monster truck cake.  This isn't complicated in my mind.  Bake sheet cake, ice it, decorate it with toy trucks.

How did I mess up the first step?  I baked the cake a day in advance, knowing the cake had to cool.  Yet today when I turned the sheet cake over to pop it out onto the cooling rack, about 1/4 stayed in the pan and made an ugly crater.  Mom later told me I probably didn't cook it quite long enough.  Good to file away for future cake adventures.

What to do?  Choices:  Laugh.  Cry.  Be embarrassed in front of my parents who will be here for supper.  Happily, the cake I've chosen to emulate seems pretty forgiving, even with a huge chunk missing from the cake.  My plan now:  ice the sides green, spread brown over the top and do some fanciness in green.  Here's hoping I don't make a huge mess.

It all worked out just fine as you can see above.  I chose to skip the green sides.  This icing took less than 5 minutes.  I stuck the flag and trucks on just before it was cake time.  Magic!  The boys loved it!  Of course, all 3 boys were much more taken with playing with the new monster trucks than eating the actual cake, but I know my audience.

At bedtime I asked the birthday boy what his favorite thing about his birthday was.  "My cake, Mommy."  The goal was to decorate cakes.  I won't pretend I don't have any room for improvement, but the family thought the cake was great and I did, too.  Success!