First shoot with new lights

I have worked for a couple of professional studios for the past few years and have decided to go out on my own. I just got my new lights in a couple of weeks ago and decided to test them out yesterday on my niece's kids. Since she has been wanting to get their pictures done, I thought it was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately the oldest wouldn't cooperate much, she preferred being outside playing with my daughter since they are only a couple of months apart. Anyway, I know I have a long way to go before I am half as good as a lot of the people I have seen on here but oh well, here are a few of what I got:

One looking at the camera would have been nice.
The pink hand towel in the first looks to be sharper than the child.

The first is nice, but I think you shouldn't have cropped out her shoulder. Number 3 seems a little soft, but otherwise it's really cute-- same with number four and number five. The last one is adorable <3 Overall, these are pretty nice, just work a bit on your focusing and sharpen them slightly.

If you look at the others there are some looking at the camera. I didn't just post those two. I thought that was the forum rules, you could only post 2 pictures.
Thanks for the advice. I didn't do any post editing, I wanted to hear opinions first.
I would love to get the eyes in my photos to look like a lot of the people's do on here but I don't know how they do it. I just got this camera in Feb so I am still getting use to it a bit.
Thanks again, any other advice is definitely welcome!