Lincoln celebration.

Well, I guess the seventh annual Lincoln party was a success.

At Sarah's request, I am listing the party attendees. Unfortunately, Sarah was not able to attend because she was sailing with the Norwegians who were visiting Kingwood, Texas. Yes, sailing.

J Beard
Jason Bird
Wendy Bird
Rebekah Bryant
David Lynch
Jennifer Lynch
Charles McClain
Jennie McClain
Lori McClain
Pat McClain
Don Nall
Kathy Sproles
Dana Vaughn

Unfortunately, Georgette misread her invitation and thought the party was on Sunday. (To her credit, it has been on a Sunday for the past five years, but I changed it this year because Lincoln's actual birthday fell on a Saturday.) She called yesterday at noon to RSVP a few hours early for the party. At first, I thought it was a joke, but then I realized she was serious! I had to break the news that the party had already happened the day before, and she was devastated. It really wasn't the same without Georgette.

I decided to revert to the simple party this year to resemble the original Lincoln celebration that was held in my apartment in Arkadelphia in 1999. We had cake and punch. You can sort of see the cake in the picture below.



I decorated with Lincoln books and newspaper clippings. Also, in the following picture, you can see a couple of the Lincoln drawings that were proudly displayed. My sister-in-law Carey used to be a first grade teacher, and she had one of her classes draw pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for me. They are priceless!



We did the traditional activity of piecing together the Gettysburg address. (You can see the little strips of paper in the picture.) I passed out a strip to each person, and we tried to put them in order. We didn't do very well. Someone decided we should all memorize it before the party next year.



My favorite part of the party is when we take pictures in the Abe/Mary Todd cutout that J made for me last year. (See picture of Jason and Wendy below.) I was definitely the most excited. I guess the newness had worn off since last year, but I think it's so fun! I made photo magnets for party favors last year, but since I went back to simple this year, there were no party favors. Sorry, guys.



My former pastor and friend, Brother Don, was by far the most serious during the reading time. I'm glad he could make it.



He was feeling a little under the weather and had to leave after he read his excerpt, but he didn't really miss much. We ended up sharing more McClain stories than anything else, but I guess it was just as much fun.

The final picture is my mom, my dad, me, and Rebekah. I'm holding a mask I made of Lincoln when I was in the fifth grade. It's actually very scary, so I chose to post the picture of me without the mask on so I wouldn't scare away my blog fans (because I know I have soooooo many).