Calling all photographical friends

A friend of mine has recently been sending me batches of photos she's taken of her kids over the years asking me to "do with them as I wish". I've tweaked the color on them all, gave the focus a bit of help that sort of stuff. I've also had fun playing with converting them to black and white for her, sepia, adding text to them....that kind of stuff.

As I'm chatting with her on MSN about what she'd like done to them she asks if I'd be willing to come by her house one day this summer to do a shoot with her kiddlets. I immediately said yes - I love her and her kids are pretty fantastic too. And she's got a huge yard, and is close to a beach so I'm sure we'll have plent of backdrop to make use of Sounds like fun! And my first actual shoot.

And then panic.

Kids. Kids are humans. I don't do photos of humans. I haven't gained the talent of knowing a good human shot. Lighting. The right moment. Location. Flowers. I take photos of flowers. They cooperate 100% of the time. They're not free thinking beings with 4 second attention spans. eeepppp.....

So, all you photographical types out there: are there any resources, either online or in book form, to help me learn to photograph people? I don't want to have to buy any fancy gear to do this. It'll just be me, her kids and my Nikon with its kit 18-55mm lens. (though I am very close to purchasing a Lensbaby!!) Yeah, I've managaged a few decent shots of my nieces, but somehow its different with a friend's kids. With my nieces I take the photos just for the sake of taking them. They're for me. If they don't turn out then thats fine. I don't have someone banking on them turning out, ya know.

I also wanted to ask you all what you use for photo editting. I use a freebie online since I can't afford photoshop right now - even though I'd really like to have it. I tried downloading Photoscape yesterday but kept getting a weird error message.

I know I have lots of time before this will actually take place, but the sooner I start learning the better it'll be.

ETA: and by close to ordering a Lensbaby I mean: I JUST ORDERED IT! Apparently waking up at 5am and not being able to get back to sleep only leads to online shopping! And now amazon.com will ship it to Canada (previous times I looked they wouldn't ship it up to me so I was going to ship it to my cousin in IN and then have her ship it to me....so much easier this way)! I ordered the Muse, with a case for it and an aperture kit. SO. EXCITED!