HODGENVILLE, Ky. - Abraham Lincoln's hometown is making sure the 16th president gets a bicentennial birthday bash.

The city of Hodgenville rescheduled multiple events marking Lincoln's birthday for May 31 - about three months after ice, rain and cold weather forced the kickoff of a two-year celebration to be canceled.

The May 31 event will feature the unveiling of a young Abe statue, children's games from the early 1800s, including a frog toss using rubber frogs, and displays that had been planned for the February event.

While a different kind of program, the May festivities will be a "very important event in the history of Hodgenville and LaRue County," Hodgenville Mayor Terry Cruse said.

The bad weather kept first lady Laura Bush from visiting town for the planned 199th birthday celebration, which was to kick off the nation's two-year bicentennial celebration. It isn't known if the First Lady will attempt a return appearance, but Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has been asked to attend the unveiling of a statue of Lincoln as a boy.

The Daub Firmin Hendrickson Sculpture Group, a San Francisco Bay Area firm, is creating the statue, which will stand near an existing bronze of an older, more serious Abe.

The Park Service, which was to host the Feb. 12 program, has seen an increase in visitors lately at the birthplace park here, possibly in part because of media coverage and bicentennial marketing. Kentucky is using the big birthday to stake its claim to Lincoln.

Lincoln was born in a small cabin near what later became Hodgenville on Feb. 12, 1809. The family lived there until 1816 when they moved to Indiana. Lincoln later moved to Illinois.

Sandy Brue, the park's chief of interpretation and resource management, said 300 people twice the normal crowd visited the park Wednesday.

Brue hopes visitors won't visit just one Abe-related site, but will "look at the whole story of Lincoln in Kentucky."