Week 9 good to WOW Edit Spring

I found this to be a lot harder than I expected.  I just do not know what makes a photo good or bad.  I know what I like, but...

So since this was the first time I participated and I didn't know what she meant by a clean edit, I went back to the tutorial for week one.  I opened my JPG in Elements Camera Raw and tried to edit the white balance, etc.  I played with different numbers.  The main changes I learned how to do was custom white balance (picking the white of the hat) and adding to the blacks to make the wheel barrow a true black.  I can see how knowing that will be very helpful, but after all the playing I really wasn't any happier with the image.  Granted, I do just like the picture for what it is worth.

I'm not sure this version isn't actually worse than the original.  So then I decided to just play with what I am already comfortable with.  I cropped and cloned away the tarp.  I added a warming filter which I thought looked good.  I added a soft light layer.  Once at 100% and once on top at about 30%.  I painted the watering can with a yellow paint/soft light mode.  I also tried an adjustment layer with the lighten mode of the blur tool? to take the eyes out of the shadows, plus a little add to the red/green/and magenta color adjustments because I like color.  Here is that resulting image:

I do like it a little better than the original--maybe?  Certainly glad to get rid of the tarp.  Then I decided to try what she said about sharpening.  I was a little skeptical, but the instructions were simple enough to follow.  I used the exact settings she did, because I really don't have any idea what would be better.  I'm pretty sure those are NOT the right settings for this image.  But I didn't know which settings to change to make it work.  I also did it on the other edit and I could see a difference, but not once I uploaded it here.  Unfortunately this photo has a lot of noise due to taking the picture (not exactly intentionally) on ISO 1600 so tossing pixels wasn't a great idea. At least I think that is why it was so bad.  The point is to learn, right? Right?

I'll add the other pictures edited to the post when/if I get a chance to play with editing them.  There is so much to learn and so little time!

Edited to Add:

I went back to work on sharpening again after Ashley's reminder to play with opacity and encouraging comments that the edits did do something.  I found out in the process of changing opacity that I had one of Ashley's settings WRONG.  She has .5 radius, and I have 5.0 radius.  Makes a really big difference!  Now I can see how it helps.  Thank you so much!  It is particularly noticeable in the knitting on the hat and in defining my sweet girl's face.

Though I did think my blog width was 780 and it clearly isn't.

Edited to add more for my benefit.  Other original:

Using Photoshop Camera Raw, Clean Edit--I wanted the kids lighter, but forgot to check out how it washed out the trees:

Additional edits of--soft light layer, 70% opacity; painting the water can; levels adjustment layer to make it darker again, but painted out where the kids were so they stayed light:

Here is the final edit with sharpening.  I really like how it helps the in-focus pine needles and her little fingers on the handle of the watering can.