Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

We'll find out . . . My mom, sister and I are taking photography classes together. It is one night a week for nine weeks. I have always enjoyed taking pictures, I just never had a great deal of knowledge about how a camera worked, picture composition, etc. Now a days it's not too hard to get a decent picture - set your camera to Auto and away you go. But I want to do better than that. So, with one full night (the first class was pretty much just introduction, didn't learn much at all) of lecture behind me, I set out to test what I had learned (which wasn't much past the basics at this point). For our third class, we have to bring in three enlarged pictures of things we shot over the past two weeks. Here are a few of the contenders:
(I'd love to know what you all think)

I wanted to bring in at least one photo of the boys, since they are what I shoot the most. It's very difficult to get a decent picture of them - (while trying to apply what I have learned as opposed to setting the camera to auto and going with it) they are constantly on the move! By the time I would get the focus right, the EV meter set correctly, etc., they were long gone! I liked this photo because it caught Jacob helping wipe Aidan's face in focus while in the background you can see that Nan and Lori are really enjoying watching what was going on.

The next two photos were much easier to play around with - seeing as the flower couldn't get up and walk away. :-) I was really able to play around with aperture, shutter speed and EV values. Now, will I remember what I had set at the time of the picture to make it work - heck no! Most of the time I can't remember were I put my keys . . . I'm just hoping that someday it will become second nature, like driving a car . . . . if I can ever find my keys . . .