Recap: "Addee & Ellie's Pool Party"

Bringing Up Bates, "Addee & Ellie's Pool Party"

• Gil fulfills his promise of giving Josie a private tennis lesson.
• “Sometimes we…treat the family like a herd or a flock, instead of like individual people that are valuable, special, important,” shares Gil, as he emphasizes the importance of spending one-on-one time with each child.
• Gil grew up playing tennis and says that his “claim to fame” was when he finally beat his dad on his dad’s 50^th birthday. He is proud of Josie for wanting to learn a new skill.
• Meanwhile, Kelly takes Trace clothing shopping at a local thrift store.
• “All of our boys are probably just as picky about clothes as our girls are,” shares Kelly. “They know brands, they know what they like, they know what they think looks good or doesn’t look good. So I feel like I’m the old lady out of style when I’m shopping with the kids.”
• Trace will graduate high school in December. Kelly asks if he plans to continue working with Gil, but Trace says that he “really ain’t big into that tree business.” 
• The mom of 19 encourages her son to experiment with a few classes at The Crown College of the Bible and reminds him that she and Gil will pay for his first semester, but she assures him that she will be happy with whatever choice he makes.
• Trace thanks his mom for taking him shopping and says he “had an amazing time” with her.
• Addallee and Ellie’s birthdays are in February and April, but the girls have been holding off for an outdoor pool party. Now that summer has rolled around, Gil and Kelly decide it’s time to fulfill the girls’ wish. Whitney’s mom, who has a pool, invites the family over to her house.
• “My parents have always really tried to make every birthday really special, especially for the younger children,” says Lawson. Gil and Kelly make a habit of taking the birthday kid out to a restaurant and then allowing him or her to have a party.
• After the Bates arrive at the pool, everyone jumps in the water while Kelly prepares lunch. “Where’s the birthday cake?” asks Zach. Turns out, Gil was in charge of picking up the food on Kelly’s list, and he bought two boxes of cake mix and brought them to the party.
• “Who’s going to cook a cake mix while we’re in the pool?” Lawson asks his dad. 
• “What about all the things I got right?” says Gil. “You did good, you did good,” Kelly assures her husband.
• Michaela saves the day when she arrives with a store-bought cake. Before chowing down, the Bates take turns sharing praises about Addee and Ellie, which is something they do at every birthday celebration.
• “If you’ve ever heard of constructive criticism, it doesn’t feel too constructive if you’re the one getting it,” says Gil. “But praise, or encouragement…is a powerful, powerful thing.”
• “Affirmation from other people, when it’s real, means so much,” shares Nathan.

Recap: "The Quest for the Dress"

Bringing Up Bates, "The Quest for the Dress"...

• Kelly and Michaela meet with Kim, Kelly’s older sister, to discuss flowers for the wedding. Kim has a flower shop in Mebane, North Carolina, called Gallery Florist. She has done flowers for each of the Bates kids’ weddings, as well as for Kelly’s wedding.
• Michaela wants cherry blossoms, but since they aren't in season in August, she settles for silk flowers.
• After Kelly married Gil, her mom adopted two daughters. One of those girls, Beth, is getting married the month before Michaela, so Kelly and Michaela meet up with the rest of the family for Beth’s wedding shower. Michaela and Beth are only a year apart in age and are close friends.
• For one of the shower games, guests divide up into teams and create toilet paper wedding dresses. Afterwards, Gil the penny pincher gathers the leftover toilet paper to take home. “Man, look at all this savings!” exclaims Gil. “This is the soft kind.”
• Later, Erin and Chad have a photographer take newborn pictures of Carson. “I have never known why people want to go take pictures of itty bitty babies,” says Nathan. “And then the next thing is, why they always want to take their clothes off and put them in a little bucket or something."
• Michaela, accompanied by her mom, sisters, and sister-in-law, heads to White Lace & Promises in Knoxville, Tennessee, in search of the perfect wedding dress. The bride-to-be wants a simple gown that makes her look skinny and has a train and sleeves.
• As expected, Michaela is hit with an onslaught of opinions each time she tries on a dress. “I’m going to tell you something about the Bates,” says Josie. “They are not scared to say what they think. They just blurt it out. Whitney doesn’t do that, but we do that.” 
• “It is good to be honest,” agrees Whitney. “But you have to do it in a loving kind of way.”
• Tori and Carlin turn out to be the biggest critics.
• After trying on a bunch of wedding dresses, Michaela admits to feeling discouraged. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe we should just elope or have a tiny wedding that nobody is going to see,'” she shares. 
• But before long, Michaela finds exactly what she has been looking for. The gown will need extensive alterations to remove some of the poof and add capped sleeves, but everyone agrees that it is very “Michaela.”
• The only catch is that it will cost nearly $2,000, which is significantly more than Michaela had allotted for in her wedding budget. She resolves to pray about it and make the final decision in a few days.