Bringing Up Bates"Doggy Dilemmas"
- Warden, Judson, and Jeb head over to the Paines’ house to help Erin and Chad train Max the puppy. Max is great at sitting on command, but he doesn’t quite understand fetching.
- Lawson visits the local children’s hospital with music friend Emily Ann Roberts to sing for patients.
- “Seeing situations where children are challenged to go on…it makes you realize, ‘I should be really grateful for all the things I get to experience in life,’” says Gil.
- “When we were done and we had met all the kids, I was already ready to plan the next time to go back,” says Emily Ann. “It’s amazing to meet all of them and just see how positive they are...”
- Kelly’s plan to tear down Gil’s shed and use the concrete slab for a basketball court was vetoed by Gil, but he and his sons work together to make a court in the side yard. Lawson comes outside just before the concrete truck is scheduled to arrive, but he is wearing nice clothes. “When I saw him come out there, I said ‘Nah, he didn’t come out here to pour concrete; he came out here to watch,’” says Nathan.
- “No, I came out there to pour concrete,” responds Lawson. “It’s like this, I figure if you do it right, you won’t get dirty.” His dad and brothers finally convince him to change. The concrete truck doesn’t show up, so Gil has to call another company and make an appointment for the next morning.
- The following day, everything is going great, until the Bates run out of concrete just before the end of the project. “Dad, being frugal as he is, got the bare minimum of concrete we needed,” says Jackson.
- Thankfully, they are able to make it work, and the finished product looks great. The kids add their hand prints and names to the edges of the court.
- Up in Chicago, Michaela and Brandon are loving married life. “Marriage has been the most incredible adventure,” says Michaela.
- As a surprise for Kelly's 50th birthday, Brandon is working on a video that will feature his sketches and some poems. “In making a video, I don’t have a conventional process or setup,” he explains. “Basically, it’s whatever I can rig so that the camera is the right distance from the paper that it’s recording.”
- Michaela spends her days working as a nanny, sewing girls’ dresses for the business she is starting, and scrap-booking. “Everyone in the family has always predicted and said Michael is going to be the one that has a really, super large family," says Kelly. "She loves children. She rejoices when another person is pregnant as much as we do, but at the same time…there’s got to be that feeling of, ‘I wish I could be pregnant and join them.’”
- When Michaela and Brandon had been married about six months, they started realizing that most of their friends and siblings were expecting by that time. In this episode, they have just celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary and are considering visiting a specialist.
- “There’s definitely the excitement of wanting to start a family," shares Michaela. "It was always my dream as a little girl. It’s been amazing, just having each other, but then realizing at the same time, there’s just maybe some complications and some difficulties."
- Brandon shares some very wise words on the subject: “That area is an area we want the Lord to have control in, and for a lot of people, that means kids can come along just as soon as possible, but for us that hasn’t been the case. I still see that in the Lord’s hands. He’s just saying no for now. We hope it’s not no for always, but it’s no for now, and it hasn’t been wasted time. The most important thing in life is not all the things you can accumulate, but really see the value in what you have been given. In Michael, I have just been given a treasure that I couldn’t have asked for."