'A Proposal to Plan & Wedding To-Dos' Recap

Bringing Up Bates "A Proposal to Plan & Wedding To-Dos"

• Evan meets up with Kelly and Erin at Erin’s house to make an engagement plan. “Evan is coming to Erin and my mom for advice because they’re really close to Carlin,” says Callie. “[Evan] doesn’t know everything.”
• Zach weighs in: “I’m kind of against these guys going to all my sisters and all the women in the family and getting advice on how to do their engagement because each time the girls see one, they’re like, ‘We could go even bigger next time.’ And by the time poor Callie gets married, they’re going to have to do some kind of marriage on Mars or engagement in space, something like that, doing it in orbit.”
• “When Carlin told him, ‘Ask Erin and ask my mom,’ I knew we were in trouble,” says Gil. “We might be just a wee bit over the top,” admits Kelly, who comes up with the idea of a Maine lighthouse backdrop.
• Erin says the highlight of the proposal for Carlin is going to be dancing with Evan. Gil and Kelly admit that they don't do much dancing in their household, so it’s really going to be a “first dance.”
• Next, it's time for a Bates family cook-off! “My family loves competition,” says Erin. 
• “We love food, and if we’re going to hang out, we should eat,” says Zach. “Why not get together and have a competition about food?”
• Lawson, Erin, and Zach compete to see who can make the best chicken dish with a veggie side, while Callie, Ellie, Judson, and Jeb judge based on taste and appearance.
• Erin amazes everyone by coming in with her veggies “pre-diced and cut up all pretty,” as Zach puts it.
• Zach makes stuffed mushrooms and jalapeno popper chicken. Erin prepares chicken stuffed with rainbow colored veggies. Lawson, on the other hand, is “cooking to please the judges,” says Kelly. He makes fried chicken with mac n cheese.
• Zach comes in third with 52 points. Lawson comes in second with 66, and Erin wins with 69.
• “These small children have never been to a fancy dinner,” states Zach. “They don’t know anything about plating.”
• Judson’s opinion is that “the cooks should have made bacon and eggs.”
• Later, Kelly and Josie meet with Kim at the outdoor wedding venue that they have chosen. Josie is concerned about rain, but she still really wants an outdoor wedding.
• Soon after Zach and Whitney find out that they have miscarried their third child, Erin and Chad and the kids come over for a visit. Zach explains to the children that they are going to plant a dogwood tree to show that “life is still there, and it’s still growing. Even when it don’t look like it’s moving, you’ll come back out here in years, and that tree will be a lot bigger, and it’s going to bloom every spring with flowers and remind us of the little lives that are up there in heaven.”
• Zach says that the miscarriage “broke Bradley’s heart.” But Bradley believes that Jesus will put another baby in Mommy's belly.
• “The tree is just a significant reminder of, not just the bad times, but also how good God is to us,” says Whitney.