Tiny Tots With Their Eyes All Aglow

Well, they're not exactly "tiny tots" anymore, any of them, but last night and this morning, several who were little tikes not so long ago were lying around my den "with their eyes all aglow" as they watched--for many hours--The Lord of the Rings trilogy (yes, all the extended versions!) as a movie marathon.

This wouldn't be so newsworthy except that I'm not really the movie marathon type.  Short of being stuck in the car for a billion hours, I'm not really one to spend hours and hours watching movies--especially all in a row--even if they're wonderful ones I love.  I don't say this with pride, like I'm oh-so-much-more productive than those who do.  I just have that obnoxious Type A personality that cannot easily allow myself to sit down and enjoy such a thing unless there is something else productive going on... folding laundry... burning miles on a long road trip... knitting dishrags (if I ever learned to do this like my girls have!)...

But all four of our kiddos decided it would be fun to host a movie marathon at our house, so some 30+ kids and adults all gathered at our house yesterday afternoon for a showing of the first two of the LOTR movies.  We started the first film by 4:00, then watched and ate pizza and snacked on the "favorite movie snack that isn't popcorn" that each of them brought, then paused to watch The Ball drop and toasted in the New Year with sparkling cider. We then put the second movie back in and finished it up about 1:00 this morning. We spread the kids who were staying the night across the floors of four bedrooms and then all crashed for a few hours of sleep. This morning, bleary-eyed and sleepy, we started the final film by 8:30--complete with Dunkin' Donuts--and finished up by 1:00 this afternoon.

The whole experience was a blast!  And here it is, by the numbers, recorded for posterity:

Number of guests besides our own family: 36
Farthest number of miles traveled to join us: 85
Number of pizzas cooked and consumed: 7
Number of bowls of "other snacks" (chips, candy, pretzels, etc.) floating around: 9
Number of huge bags of organic baby carrots made available (and eaten!): 2
Number of Arizona Iced Tea cans recycled: 12
Number of gallons of Kool-Aid drunk: 3
Number of pillows strewn about the floor: 28
Number of throw blankets accompanying said pillows: 8
Number of cell phones taken from kids at bedtime: more than 20
Dozens of donuts consumed: 4
Total number of movies watched: 3
Total number of minutes of actual screen time for those 3 movies: 682
Number of HOURS that translates to: 11.5
Number of hours spent by one girl in the middle of the night in order to finish reading the third book before the movie was shown this morning: 3.

And last but certainly not least: the number of members of my family crashed into bed before 9 pm tonight, the night after all this fun and frivolity: 6.  (I'm off to bed now, and I'm the last!)