'A Proposal to Remember & A Baby on the Way' Recap

Bringing Up Bates "A Proposal to Remember & A Baby on the Way"

• Chad takes Erin to Whitestone Country Inn, which is where they were engaged, to celebrate their fifth anniversary. “It’s wonderful to be back,” says Chad. They have booked the Mallard Suite. “This is like the most luxurious thing we’ve ever stayed in,” says Erin.
• When Erin enters the room, she finds a bouquet of wildflowers and a little package of goodies from Chad. “I would take this over a million roses any day,” she says. They kick off their getaway with a private cooking lesson with the inn’s chef. They make a pan-seared chicken breast with a portabella cream gravy. The secret to the perfect pan-seared chicken breast is to sear it in a cast-iron skillet with the skin side down first. “I think Chad knows that I love cooking,” says Erin.
• Later, they sit inside the little country church and exchange gifts. Erin presents Chad with his beloved Bible that she had rebound. She also gives him a journal because “One of my favorite things about you is that you journal,” says Erin. “I love that you take time to reflect, and I love the fact that I can go back ten, even 15 years into your life. It’s just the sweetest thing to me.”
• Chad takes Erin on a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, just like they did before they got engaged. And then just like they did five years ago, they get off at the gazebo, where Chad has flowers waiting. “You’ve been the best mom, the best wife, and I just want to say thank you so much,” says Chad. “This is a little token of my love for you, and it’s also a little token from our three little children.” He gives her two beautiful rings that fit together. Erin is blown away.
• “…Erin has poured her life into three little lives, and...she has poured her life into me, and so one ring was from the children, one ring was from myself,” explains Chad.
• Gil and Kelly are back home with the Paine kids playing a game of Mother May I. “Gil says that it’s hard for him to picture himself as a grandpa because he still in his mind pictures himself as 24 and wrestling and running…but me, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I will keep dying my hair. I don’t want the gray hair, but I love being Granny.” When Gil was Chad’s age (31), he had 7 children.
• The East Tennessee Bates get together at a pumpkin patch to celebrate Bradley’s fourth birthday. “Wait, who’s four?!” exclaims Lawson. “I thought he was two!”
• “He’s so full of energy, and yet he’s so sweet and sensitive,” says Kelly of Bradley. “I’m Granny’s favorite cause I am so good-looking,” Bradley tells the camera, laughing.

'A Newlywed Nest & Trace Put to the Test' Recap

Bringing Up Bates "A Newlywed Nest & Trace Put to the Test"

• Gil and Kelly take Addallee to audiologist Samantha Wallenstein and pediatric otolaryngologist Dr. John Little.
• Addee was born premature with the cord wrapped around her neck, causing her to stop breathing for a period of time. “…Yet she had no problems,” says Carlin, who helps Addee with schoolwork and piano. “It literally was a miracle. But when she started school, we started realizing she couldn’t really hear what we were saying.”
• “Addee was struggling to hear, but Gil would talk to her, and she seemed to hear fine, and when we ended up making an audiology appointment, we realized she could hear the male lower range voices better than she could hear the higher range female voices, so they prescribed her hearing aids,” explains Kelly.
• Addee’s previous hearing aids were uncomfortable and caused a lot of feedback, but the new digital ones work much better. The hearing test determines that she has normal hearing in the low frequency sounds and significant hearing loss in the mid to high frequency sounds, and the new hearing aids help balance those out. Thankfully, the doctor says that her hearing loss is stable.
• “I’ve noticed an improvement all around, her hearing, her speech, everything,” says Kelly. “… I don’t have to worry about her confidence level. She feels good about herself right now.”
• “The biggest difference in the new hearing aids is probably that I don’t pick up so much background noise, which is kind of nice when I’m here,” says Addallee. “Ya ‘cause there’s a lot of noise going on here all the time,” agrees Kelly. “There’s always background noise.”
• Josie’s church friend Samantha comes over to help her decorate her new apartment. Whitney stops by to see the progress. “I’ve always been more drawn to the bohemian type of decorations,” says Josie. “I wanted to have something that was a little bit modern but still different from everything else.” Josie likes more muted colors, versus brighter colors.
• Later, Gil and Kelly surprise Judson and Jeb by taking them to an indoor rock-climbing gym. “Let me just say this,” Kelly tells the boys. “You have never seen your mama do this before.”
• “Because we have such a big family, we really want to make sure that we make ourselves put something on the calendar so that some of the younger kids don’t get lost in the shuffle of things,” says Kelly. “There’s something about little outings and to say, ‘You are special, and we’re going to take time to have fun with you.’” 
• Kelly makes an attempt at the rock wall, but she doesn’t get very far before she climbs down. “The problem is, from the ground, these walls look not very high,” says the mom of 19. “But I’m going to tell you, when you get up there…I couldn’t have been more scared. I just froze. It was terrifying.”
• Judson makes it to the top of a really tall wall. When he’s halfway up, he starts freaking out, but Gil and Kelly encourage him to finish, and he does! Like Kelly, he doesn’t trust the belay and climbs all the way down to the bottom.
• “I really think, I’ve got a good tree worker for at least the next twenty years,” says Gil. “I’ve got me a new replacement.”
• At the end of the episode, Trace, who just joined the deputy reserve as a volunteer, goes on a ride-along with Zach. “I’m super excited to be kind of a mentor for my younger brother,” says Zach. “He’s really looking at making a career out of this…” 
• "I really would love to go full-time deputy, but right now I've got something very good for me working with Chad, learning a little bit of construction, but I'm just trying to figure out which one do I do

'Nashville Nursery Makeover' Recap

Bringing Up Bates "Nashville Nursery Makeover"

• “Ever since we moved, I’ve been talking with Erin, telling her she has to come decorate before he gets here because I have no skills whatsoever,” says Tori. In Nashville, Kelly, Erin, Everly, Whitney, Callie, and Bradley arrive at Tori’s apartment to help decorate Kade’s nursery. Lawson is already there.
• “I didn’t get invited on this trip,” says Gil. “Of course, I’m always the guy that says, ‘Oh, don’t do that….it’s fine like it is.’”
• But in all seriousness, Gil is very happy. “It sure is wonderful when, as a parent, you look at your kids all working together to help each other…”
• Tori only has two bedrooms in her apartment, so the nursery must double as a guest bedroom. “I usually volunteer Chad for a lot of work,” says Erin. “[Tori] didn’t have a headboard, so I’m like, ‘Hey, you know what, Chad’s great at those. He can make that, no problem.’”
• When it’s time to move furniture, Lawson does not allow pregnant Tori to lift anything, even light drawers. The walls in the apartment cannot be painted, so Erin makes square decals out of contact paper to create an accent wall. Everyone else is doubtful that it will end up looking good. “I’ve got confidence in her, but this is one that I honestly cannot picture,” says Kelly.
• At Hendersonville Samaritan Thrift Store, the ladies shop for decorations. But it isn’t long before they are adding clothing items to the cart. “My sisters, when they go shopping for one thing, it does not mean that’s all they will be shopping for, and that can be a dangerous thing,” says Lawson.
• Zach arrives with Kaci and tries to move things along. “Dad would die if he was here,” he says.
• “I cannot go into a thrift store and just buy a couple of things,” admits Erin during an interview. “I have to see everything in the thrift store. Have you ever seen...them people that go in there and find something that’s like a million dollar artifact? That could be me finding that for us one day.”
• “I’m not sure what a million dollar artifact would look like, but I know what a good pair of jeans looks like,” responds Chad.
• When they return to the apartment, two women deliver a bouquet of flowers, a huge bunch of balloons, and snacks for Kelly’s birthday. They are from Gil, of course. “I almost think that I do better when I’m away on my birthday because I get this huge surprise package every time, then I still get to celebrate when I come home,” says the birthday girl. “It’s a good deal!”
• The room turns out great, and Tori and Bobby could not be happier. “…We could put some decals on the wall and make it fitting for a baby, but once you’ve been exposed to what Erin can do to a room, there’s no going back,” says Bobby.
• In Powell (near Knoxville), Katie is in class at Crown College. “Last minute this semester, I decided to sign up to do the cosmology program,” says Katie. “Today we are working on our very first day of hair color, so I’m kind of nervous…” Josie kills it, so there’s a level of intimidation.”
• “The thing that scares us with Katie is, she’s a bit of a prankster and a jokester, and I’ve just got a feeling that the first time I let her cut my hair, she’s going to just like do something crazy…” says Lawson.
• Katie still hopes to study nursing. “I’m the kind of person that wants to do everything I see…but finishing it is the thing,” she says. “I want to do nursing, but I’m going to finish up cosmetology first…”