Looking for comments on a photo... a noob question also.

So I have had my new k-30 and Tamron 18-200 lens for about a month now and have taken about 2500 photos.  I am very new, but having a great time with the camera.

Here is a photo I took today with my daughter.  I shot in raw and used lightroom 4 to edit and crop.  I feel like the cropping, exposure, WB, and saturation are things I can modify to make it look how I like.  But I am very lost in the details menu where you handle noise and sharpness.  
I would appreciate any comments on the composition of this photo and my attempts to edit it.

Also (and this has been pretty regular), I find myself taking about 30-50 photos in order to get one photo that I think is good.  Is this normal or am I just doing a bad job handling the camera in the first place?

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Scott Blackburn