Cherry Chip Cake with Cherry Frosting

My oldest son was very sad that he didn't have a birthday cake yesterday with candles to blow out. Since I am a nice mother I decided to make him one today. Better late than never I always say. This son's favorite kind of cake is Betty Crocker Cherry Chip cake with Cherry Frosting and it is what he has requested at least his last 10 birthdays. I am also a fan of this combination, but every time I make his birthday cake I think "this cake certainly doesn't look very masculine." I have attempted coloring the frosting a different color on occasion, but then it just usually ends up looking gross, not masculine. Today I decided to just go with the pink look and not care. However, I thought a 9 x 13 cake was kind of boring. When the girls and I took the cake decorating class I'm pretty sure I bought 2 round cake pans, but of course I couldn't find them today. I did find some small round pans that my friend had given us for Christmas one year to make individual pizza cookies though. I decided I could make a tall, small round cake. The cake ended up being 5 layers tall. It would have been fine, but I didn't have enough frosting to put it together so I decided to put some pudding in between the layers. I didn't feel like leveling the layers since that seems like a waste of good cake to me, so the cake was a little precarious. The pudding was too slick to hold the layers in place and ran out the sides and mixed with the frosting and that made the frosting too runny to stay on the cake as well. The cake ended up resembling a pink volcano in a pool of lava.
The oldest son, however, was happy that he had candles to blow out and the cake tasted a lot better than it looked.

Also, in the dark you can't even tell the cake is pink. I'd say it was a success!

Today I am grateful

that I don't have to make a living selling cakes.
that my oldest son is easily pleased.
for birds that collect spiderwebs from my window sills to pad their nests. It makes me feel like I am helping a fellow mother rather than just feel lazy for not cleaning the windows.
for a surprise phone call from my mom and sister.