Friends and a drawing

Jeanne refused to nap today, so we played with beads and pipe cleaners, then she wanted to draw with markers.  I set her up and left her be.  After 15 minutes,  I wandered over to see how her drawing was going.  She usually doesn't sit and draw too long, ends up drawing all over her body (thank you washable markers!), but today, for the first time, she was drawing a picture.  Her first, she told me, was of her musical balloons (yesterday I filled 6 balloons with different items to make noise, rice, bells, beads, etc)

Then she drew this:

This is her story:
(on the left) is the mother, she is very tall (she has eyes and a mouth, legs, feet, then all belly).  In her belly is all her food she ate, she likes food.  (the center character) is the daughter (she has eyes, a mouth, hair, arms, and lots of legs and arms), she ate lots of  things with holes and salt, she loves salt and she's so happy!  (the dots around them) are birds in the air and on the ground.

Also today, we watched a couple of friends while the Mom ran to a meeting.  I brought out two bins with colored rice, measuring cups, a funnel, and some safari animals.

Still engaged after 20 minutes      o_O

Lovely girl loved the animals the most, she had me name them all at least 6 times.  If any of them lost their way, she would gather them in a pile and ask me to name them again.  

Lovely girl corralling the animals in a bucket while Loki chills in his car.

They all played, used the sidewalk chalk and the sensory bin for over an hour.  Success!

I am trying to teach myself french braiding.  Someone recommended I cross the hair under, that it would keep the stray hair better.  I am still trying!