This was so fun to do. I have major spring fever & the weather was so nice last week that we had to pull out our skirts & capris & have a fun new do with all our new spring clothes. Please come back beautiful weather.
Start by splitting the hair in half like you are going to do pigtails. Put one half of the hair in an elastic to keep out of the way. You are now working with half of the hair. Right in the middle, divide a section that looks like a circle with hair surrounding the outside of it. Sounds confusing - look at the picture below:

Now the hair that is left out of that pony tail, begin inside-out french braiding at the top of the part.

You want to circle around the pony tail that you made making sure not to include any of the pony (again only the hair on around the pony)

Once you get to the end, now connect the braid with pony tail.

Do the exact same thing to the other side.

I finished with some messy buns. I originally had the ponies down & curled but I wanted you to be able to see the entire braid. Maybe if her hair were a little shorter I could have kept them down. It looks harder than it really is.

front view: