texture tuesday: happiness

Kim Klassen's theme for today is happiness - what brings or represents happiness to me?  My family, my boys (ahem, men!)  I don't usually add textures to photos of people so this was a bit of a challenge and I'm not sure about the results, but.......it's a learning exercise, right?  So here are my boys last month at the oldest's (left) 30th birthday party, being all cheesy for Mom.
Original image:

I tried converting it to black and white using an action from Coffeeshop Blog that brightened, etc all in one click of the mouse (pretty cool!), then added Kim's textures rusty vignette (don't think that's the actual name but I lost what it really is) at soft light 100% and then erased it over their clothes; then I added texture AndThenSome at screen 20%.

So then I tried it by using an action called Boost to heighten the contrast etc and then added textures:  Rusty Vignette at multiply 33% and Black words (again lost the real name - if you know it let me know) soft light at 60% to arrive at this:

Then, just because I wasn't really loving either of these results - interesting but not great - I fell back to a nature picture to illustrate my family happiness:

A simple, basic treatment using Rusty Vignette (again wrong name I'm sure) at soft light 100% and added the quote, which I love.  :)

Be sure to visit Texture Tuesday for even more visions of happiness!